The effects of Web 2.0 online platforms on diplomatic activities [before doctoral defense]

Kivonat, rövid leírás

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, diplomacy has quietly undergone one of the most profound transformations in its long institutional history. Not through formal treaties or great organisational reforms, but through the everyday digital practices of its practitioners. The rapid global spread of Web 2.0 online platforms has fundamentally reshaped the ways diplomatic actors communicate, gather information, coordinate tasks, and engage with both domestic and international audiences. While the diplomatic profession has historically been characterised by confidentiality, hierarchical communication structures, and carefully managed public visibility, the emergence of interactive online tools has introduced new expectations of immediacy, openness, and responsiveness. These changes have gradually affected not only public diplomacy and strategic messaging, but also the internal routines and operational logics of diplomatic work. The topic of this dissertation was selected in response to this evolving professional and scholarly landscape. Over recent years, digital diplomacy has become an increasingly visible field within international relations research. A growing number of studies have examined the communicative dimensions of diplomats’ online presence, including social media strategies, public engagement practices, and the use of digital tools in foreign policy signalling. However, these contributions often focus on specific segments of diplomatic activity, treating communication-related developments in relative isolation from other professional domains. In practice, diplomatic work consists of a broad spectrum of interconnected tasks. The everyday performance of these activities forms the operational backbone of diplomatic institutions. Yet the ways in which Web 2.0 technologies have influenced these less visible, routine dimensions of diplomatic practice remain insufficiently explored in existing scholarship. Addressing this imbalance provided a key motivation for undertaking the present research. Another important background factor concerns the empirical perspective from which digital transformation in diplomacy has been analysed. Much of the literature relies on externally observable indicators such as online communication outputs, audience reach, public perception, or high-level foreign policy manifestations of online diplomacy. Although these aspects are undoubtedly relevant, they do not fully capture how diplomats themselves experience and interpret the structural and cultural implications of digitalisation in their daily professional environments. Insight into practitioners’ perceptions, including their assessments of opportunities, risks, and adaptive strategies, remains comparatively limited, despite its importance for understanding institutional change from within. Furthermore: existing studies, empirical or theoretical alike, often display a geographical concentration on Western diplomatic ideas, systems, examples, particularly those of North America and Western Europe. Such a focus risks implicitly universalising conclusions, while overlooking potential variations in region-specific practices, organisational solutions, or digital adaptation across different cultural contexts. In response to this gap in representation in balanced data, the dissertation adopts a deliberately global research design that seeks to incorporate diverse diplomatic perspectives and professional experiences.