Ilan Manor

• Phd Candidate, Univeristy of Oxford
• PhD Student at University of Oxford

Recent years have seen the emergence of relational approaches to diplomacy that centre on diplomats' use of social media to foster relationships with foreign publics. Yet social media may also prove useful in building relationships with diasporas, now viewed by some states as ‘saviours' who may contribute to the economic prosperity of origin countr...

In recent years, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and now rebranded X, has lost millions of users. Will diplomats join the X-odus?

Public diplomacy scholars have argued that the strategic use of disinformation by nefarious states and non-state actors contributed to the decline of social media as a public diplomacy tool. Social media sites, once viewed as a tool to democratize and revolutionize diplomacy, are now viewed as a societal ill. Yet this article argues that many state...

Sporting events have been the target of terrorist groups for decades due to their high profile. Since 9/11, a bias against Muslims has been evident in both traditional and social media with Muslims being depicted as likely perpetrators of attacks against sporting events. The 2024 Paris Olympics represents the first major sporting events in the age...

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is opening up new possibilities for diplomatic intelligence by refining and enhancing processes of gathering, analyzing, and leveraging information through digital means. AI tools can automate tasks, identify patterns more efficiently, and provide real-time insights, enhancing the effect...

In this article, we employ the prism of technological acceleration to consider how Generative AI may impact the spatial–temporal dimensions of diplomacy, and what ramifications this transformation may hold for its practice. To do so, we distinguish between Horizontal Acceleration, which relates to the number of diplomatic domains that are progressi...

In recent years, digital technologies have substantially impacted the world of diplomacy. From social media platforms and artificial intelligence to smartphone applications and virtual meetings, digital technologies have proven disruptive, impacting the norms, practices, and logics of diplomats, states, and international organisations. Although the...

In recent years, digital technologies have substantially impacted the world of diplomacy. From social media platforms and artificial intelligence to smartphone applications and virtual meetings, digital technologies have proven disruptive, impacting the norms, practices, and logics of diplomats, states, and international organisations. Although the...

Despite the recent growth of the digital diplomacy research corpus, few studies have employed the theoretical framework of digital disruption. We contend that digital disruption may help to explain how and why diplomats adopt digital technologies. Moreover, a theory of digital disruption may help to examine the consequences of diplomats’ use of dig...

Published on E-International Relations. This op-ed reflects and explores the risk of MFAs staying on X/Twitter amidst negative changes or leaving, losing digital assets. The piece suggests this dilemma may signal a digital cold war between states and big tech, challenging traditional diplomatic norms, and notes the uncertain impact of EU regulatio...

This article outlines three major features of the digital society (information sharing, a levelled-playing field, and reciprocal surveillance) and explores their manifestation in the field of diplomacy. The article analyzed the international network of 78 Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) on Twitter during the critical period of its growth betwe...

Studies examining the digital disruption of diplomacy focus on the micro level of diplomats’ working routines. This article investigates the new practice of ‘domestic digital diplomacy’ to explore interactions between micro- and macro-level disruptions. The practice of domestic digital diplomacy stems from the digital disruption of government minis...

This academic Forum aims to identify academic concepts, theories, and assumptions from the field of public diplomacy and nation branding, which have been cast in doubt—or need to be re-examined—in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Forum’s goal is to raise new questions and provoke new inquiries into the complex roles that...

Recently, scholars have suggested that ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) use social media to practice domestic digital diplomacy as they interact with national citizens, not foreign populations. In this study, we explore the practice of domestic digital diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of the Facebook activities of 8 MFAs sugg...

Globalization scholars argue that the launch of Al-Jazeera has promoted a fairer horizontal news flow as a non-Western perspective entered the global public sphere leading to the Al-Jazeera Effect. In contrast, other scholars argue that Al-Jazeera outlets face biases and boycotts due to their Qatari origin, thus casting a shadow over the Al Jazeera...

Dr. Ilan Manor is a leading scholar in the digitalization of public diplomacy and a senior lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. From the beginning of his academic career, Dr. Manor invested in researching the digitalized practices and strategies of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and conceptualized the expression “the digitalizatio...

To date, scholars have only investigated how societal norms reshape diplomacy. The War in Ukraine demonstrates the need to examine how diplomats’ use of digital technologies may re-shape societies. In this article I examine two new, digital practices adopted by Ukraine during the War. By analyzing these practices, I try to reflect on how these may...

Few studies to date have investigated diplomats’ use of visuals on social media. This study asserts that diplomats are now visual narrators as they use visuals to shape the worldviews of social media users. Moreover, this study asserts that ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) have institutionalized the process of visual narration as diplomats crea...

Diplomats in embassies and permanent representations are increasingly using the messaging application WhatsApp to communicate with their peers. They use WhatsApp groups to coordinate initiatives at multilateral forums, communicate more rapidly with headquarters and stay in touch with organizational developments at home, as well as form more persona...

This working paper explores how Russia used nostalgia to draw its national self-portrait on social media. The paper conceptualizes such self-portraits as a form of Selfie Diplomacy. An analysis of two Russian Twitter campaigns, launched in 2020/2021, demonstrates how Russia tried to associate itself with the cultural and scientific achievement of t...

Digital technologies have played a significant role in the relationship between diasporas and Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs), leading to various configurations. This paper analyzes how different MFAs have adopted different approaches to digital diaspora outreach. The Indian MEA combines online and offline activities to embrace its diaspora, w...

The past decade has seen the accelerated digitalization of foreign ministries. In this study, we conceptualize digitalization as long term process in which diplomats adopt different technologies to obtain foreign policy goals. To date, only a handful of studies have investigated which factors influence digitalization. This study sought to address t...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced diplomats to embrace virtual platforms and to learn to combine virtual and physical meetings in their work. In this article, we investigate how this process has taken place and with implications for the conduct of diplomacy. Specifically, we ask how diplomats have adapted to the transition to the virtual medium, wha...

How does digital propaganda transform members of the online public into willing and active distributors of disinformation? Drawing on Bormann’s theory of symbolic convergence, the paper argues that the effectiveness of disinformation lies with is ability to craft a powerful rhetorical vision that is actively shared by the online public and that is...

Blog Post - The Hague Journal of Diplomacy Blog

A recent scholarly debate at ICA 2021 covered various media interpretations of social protests and implications for PD. https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/protests-and-national-images-public-emerging-problem-public-diplomacy

Recent years have seen the digitalization of diplomacy. Studies investigating Russia's use of digital technologies have focused on its nefarious or unofficial activities such as spreading fake news stories during the Crimean crisis. This essay examined Russia's official use of digital technologies in the form of Embassy and MFA (Ministry of Foreign...

In recent years, diplomats have increasingly employed humour online. This study sought to understand why diplomats use humour on Twitter and to investigate whether humour can serve as a public diplomacy resource. The study adopted the prism of “the digitalisation of public diplomacy”, which asserts that the norms and logics of the digital society h...

This edited book explores the multi-layered relationships between public diplomacy and intensified uncertainties stemming from transnational political trends. It is the latest wave of political uncertainty that provides the background as well as yields evidence scrutinised by authors contributing to this book. The book argues that due to a state of...

The irrelevance of Soft Power stems not from its theoretical dimension, but from a changing global landscape. The 21st century will be characterized by growing competition among three giants – China, India and the United States. To contend with this triumvirate, nations will create short-termed strategic alliances that will collectively bargain opp...

This chapter argues that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) and embassies must contend with disinformation and propaganda if they are to practice public diplomacy online effectively. The reason for this is that digital disinformation campaigns target the same publics that MFAs and embassies seek to interact with in cyber-spaces. Moreover, the goa...

Social media are inherently visual platforms. Every day, billions of photographs, videos, cartoons, memes, gifs, and infographics are uploaded and shared for the world to see online. As a result, political actors such as diplomats, militaries, international organisations, terrorist groups, corporations, celebrities, diasporas and members of the gen...

This chapter presents a theory of ‘un-nation branding’. We define this as the practice of promoting a nation-state with minimal or even no reference to the nation-state. In contrast to nation branding, un-nation branding involves states symbolising themselves as/through cities (or regions) in order to make themselves attractive to others. In articu...

Scholars of international relations frequently explore how states normalize the use of military force through processes of militarization, yet few have analyzed how new information and communication technologies impact on these processes. The essays in this forum address this gap, and consider the political significance of new technologies, new act...

Recent years have seen mass adoption of social media by ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs). However, diplomats are still searching for ways to evaluate their online activity and assess the impact of online activities on offline diplomacy. This article argues that the centrality of a diplomatic institution to a Twitter network of its peer can be u...

Recent years have seen the growing use of Twitter by diplomats and world leaders. One notable example is Donald Trump's use of Twitter to attack foreign leaders or lambaste multilateral organizations. Some have suggested that Trump's use of Twitter is representative of a new diplomatic language. Using the case study of Permanent Missions to the UN,...

The proliferation of social media has had a profound impact on the practice of diplomacy; diplomats can bypass the press and communicate their messages directly to online audiences. Subsequently, ministries of foreign affairs ( MFAS ) are now mediatised; they produce media content, circulate content through social media and adopt media logics in th...

Mediated public diplomacy literature examines the engagement of foreign audiences by governments via mediated channels. To date, scholars have examined the competitive contest between global rivals in promoting and contesting one another's frames as reflected in global news media coverage. Recognizing the meaningful impact of social media platforms...

This article responds to previous efforts to calculate diplomatic prestige while adapting these methodologies to the exigencies of digital diplomacy. In particular, we are interested in how digital diplomacy provides opportunities for diplomatic actors lacking in material resources to overcome prestige deficits. We adapt approaches used in earlier...

This article investigates how diplomatic networks move into a new digital media platform, namely Twitter, through the analytical lenses of networked diplomacy studies and mediatization. We employ the studies in the former field to argue for the need to study the entire network to evaluate diplomatic relations, rather than relying on bilateral relat...

This chapter examines how the norms, values and the logic of the digital society have influenced the practice of public diplomacy. Through a review of case studies from Africa, Israel, Palestine, Poland, the USA and Eastern Europe, the chapter illustrates how digital technologies have impacted the working routines and structures of diplomatic insti...

Marcus Holmes argues that the digitalization of public diplomacy can be influenced by two types of “change.” The first is gradual, bottom-up change in which the adoption of technologies by diplomats impacts a foreign ministry’s use of digital technologies. The second is abrupt, external bottom-down change that is caused by exogenous shocks. This ch...

Recent years have seen growing concerns over the use of propaganda and disinformation by nations such as Russia. Fueled by the phenomenon of echo chambers and filter bubbles, diplomats are increasingly wary of using digital technologies in public diplomacy activities. This chapter reviews the latest studies pertaining to algorithmic filtering on so...

This chapter examines diplomats’ use of digital technologies to overcome the limitations of traditional diplomacy. As this chapter demonstrates, foreign ministries have sought to employ digital technologies to annihilate time and space, transcend national borders, overcome hostile media landscapes and interact with the populations of enemy nations....

This chapter offers a series of case studies demonstrating how the characteristics of digital publics have challenged diplomats’ norms, working routines and communicative cultures. The chapter is structured chronologically, so as to demonstrate that the digitalization of public diplomacy did not occur in one day, nor was it the result of a single d...

When examining how digital technologies influence the practice of public diplomacy, scholars often explore how technology facilitates or disrupts diplomatic activities. This book offers a different departure point by arguing that one cannot understand the influence of digital technologies on public diplomacy without first characterizing the digital...

Technology has always influenced the role of ambassadors. The invention of the telegraph saw the migration of power from the ambassador to his nation’s capital, which could gather and disseminate information globally. Yet, as this chapter demonstrates, digitalization has empowered ambassadors who can now foster relations with digital publics and us...

This chapter examines how the logic of the digital society has impacted the practice of nation branding through the concept of selfie diplomacy. Conceptually, selfie diplomacy is situated at the intersection of nation branding and public diplomacy. Thus, this chapter begins by defining the term “nation branding” and analyzing the conceptual relatio...

Despite the fact that diplomatic institutions throughout the world employ digital technologies, few studies to date have examined how African and Eastern European diplomats utilize digital technologies to obtain public diplomacy goals. For these nations, digital technologies may prove especially beneficial given their small number of embassies and...

This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners and audiences of diplomacy. Throughout, the author argues that terms such as ‘digitalized public diplomacy’ or ‘digital public diplomacy’ are misleading, as they suggest that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are either digital or non-digital, when in fact digi...

For more than a decade, foreign ministries have employed online platforms in order to combat violent extremism. The US State Department first migrated online with a desire to counter the online narrative of Al-Qaeda and disrupt its recruitment strategies. Presently, counter violent extremist (CVE) activities conducted on social media are still prem...

Recent years have seen the migration of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) to social media in a practice referred to as digital diplomacy. Social media enable MFAs to craft frames so as to influence audiences’ perception of foreign affairs. Such framing is especially relevant during times of war as states seek to legitimize their policies. Notabl...

“The digitalization of diplomacy” looks at the overall influence digital tools are having on the practice of public diplomacy. This framework therefore encapsulates four dimensions. The first is a functional dimension that focuses on the use of digital tools in public diplomacy activities. The second is a normative dimension that explores how the v...

The digitalization of public diplomacy has seen diplomats embrace digital tools as a means of overcoming some of the limitations of traditional diplomacy. Such is the case with virtual embassies that enable states to formulate virtual ties with foreign publics in place of physical ones. In this study we evaluate the recently launched Palestinian Fa...

Few studies to date have investigated the impact of digitalization on Putnam’s two-level game theory. Such an investigation is warranted given that state and non-state actors can employ digital tools to influence decision-making processes at both national and international levels. This study advances a new theoretical concept, Domestic Digital Dipl...

n Resumen: La digitalización de la diplomacia pública ha motivado la utilización de herramientas digitales entre los diplomáticos como un medio para superar algunas de las limitaciones de la diplo-macia tradicional. Entre dichas herramientas, las embajadas virtuales facilitan a los Estados establecer lazos virtuales con públicos de otros países. En...

The anonymity afforded by early incarnations of the internet posed a substantial threat to conventional models of national sovereignty. Free from restrictions and laws, cyberspace allowed users to set political agendas and subvert government messages. Presently, the internet is a space that celebrates transparency as users are motivated to bask in...

Recent years have seen the emergence of relational approaches to public diplomacy and public relations. The adoption of approaches that emphasize the creation of relationships between organizations and stakeholders have also been advocated by nation branding scholars. Thus, relational approaches can serve as a link between all three fields. An addi...

On the 30th of March, 2016, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Partner Institute at Tel Aviv University co-hosted Israel’s first Digital Diplomacy conference. Attended by 50 diplomats from 20 countries, alongside scholars from 25 universities, the conference aimed to investigate the impact digitalization has had on diplomacy in general, and on di...

What is digital diplomacy? How can it best be defined? This is a vexing question given the myriad of ways in which digitalization has impacted the practice of diplomacy. Arriving at such a definition becomes even more elusive when taking into account that scholars and practitioners also use the terms net diplomacy, social media diplomacy, diplomacy...

From the power of the hashtag to frame political discourse online, to the use of online messenger services such as Whatsapp to conduct press briefings, the technological revolution has had a substantial impact on the practice of crisis communication. From their extensive reach capabilities to the instant power of connection, popular online platform...

This article explores the manner in which three nations (Israel, the US and Iran) framed the comprehensive Iran nuclear agreement on their digital diplomacy channels. It argues that these nations used social media in order to incorporate the agreement into their national narrative while attempting to control how the agreement would be viewed by onl...

Despite growing interest in digital diplomacy, few studies to date have evaluated the extent to which foreign ministries have been able to realize its potential. Studies have also neglected to understand the manner in which diplomats define digital diplomacy and envision its practice. This article explores the digital diplomacy model employed by fo...

Despite growing interest in digital diplomacy, few studies to date have evaluated the extent to which foreign ministries have been able to realize its potential. Studies have also neglected to understand the manner in which diplomats define digital diplomacy and envision its practice. This article explores the digital diplomacy model employed by fo...

Social media holds the potential to foster dialogue between nations and foreign populations. Yet only a few studies to date have investigated the manner in which digital diplomacy is practised by foreign ministries. Using Kent and Taylor’s framework for dialogic communication, this article explores the extent to which dialogic communication is adop...

Recently governments and foreign ministries (MFAs) have embraced Social Networking Sites (SNS) in a practice referred to as digital diplomacy. By using SNS to comment on world events, MFAs utilize such channels in order to frame, or portray, foreign governments. We examined how a dyad of nations, US – Russia, framed one another on MFA twitter chan...