Oleg Shakirov's Blog

Russian Digital Diplomacy: 7 trends of 2014

February 19, 2015
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(original post in Russian)

In 2014, the Information and Press Department (DIP) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) became one of the winners of the Runet Prize, the annual national award honoring Russian websites. Maria Zakharova, deputy head of the department who became the main MFA spokesperson on the internet over past years, noted on the occasion: “You cannot imagine, how difficult it often is for diplomats trained in the tradition of [the head of early Soviet foreign policy, Georgy] Chicherin to master new technologies.”

The use of social networking websites, blogs and other internet services by diplomats in foreign policy-related work is called digital diplomacy. A couple of years ago, when diplomats were only trying to make friends with the internet audience, the efficiency and appropriateness of such experiments was often questioned – largely because of the conservatism of the diplomatic community. However, today digital diplomacy has become an organic element of foreign ministries in almost every country (even in some unrecognized states). In other words, diplomats have finally caught up with their audience that went online a long ago.

The Russian MFA already has experience with the internet. In addition to official Facebook and Twitter accounts managed by the DIP, there are more than one hundred accounts on various platforms run by Russian diplomatic missions worldwide. Since early 2014, the majority of accounts have become more active and increased their follower count to a large extent because of the situation in Ukraine and the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West. Moreover, last year there were a number of new trends in Russian digital diplomacy that are worthy of attention.

1. Hashtag Diplomacy

In mid-April, the MFA started tweeting on its official account with #UnitedForUkraine. This hashtag was originally launched by the U.S. State Department in March after President Barack Obama used the phrase in his address. American diplomats were slightly confused that Russia seized the discussion and started using the hashtag to criticize U.S. policies. Jen Psaki, the State Department spokesperson, expressed hope that Russia “will live by the promise of hashtag”, sparking an outburst of sarcastic comments about the State Department in American social media. The MFA picked on that tweet asking since when did the United States enjoy the monopoly on all the good things.

In May, the MFA was also among the first to support the #SaveOurGuys hashtag – a campaign demanding the release of LifeNews TV channel journalists kidnapped in Ukraine. The hashtag was launched by the channel and mirrored #BringBackOurGirls – a demand trending in the West to set free Nigerian school girls captured by Boko Haram. Thus, the MFA’s retweet also contained an implied message: does the West recognize human rights violations everywhere or only when it regards such recognition as beneficial to its interests?

https://twitter.com/MID_RF/status/468703575875809280

2. “War of Images”

In traditional diplomacy, communications between foreign services of different states are regulated by norms and include, for instance, the exchange of notes or public statements that serve as signals to other actors, etc. But with the internet, one image is often worth a thousand words, and diplomats start to adopt a specific internet style and almost troll each other.

In 2014, the main “battle” of such kind erupted in late August, when the Canadian Joint Delegation to NATO tweeted a map of Russia and Ukraine (the latter indicated as non-Russia) as “a guide for Russian soldiers who keep getting lost & ‘accidentally’ entering #Ukraine.” The Russian Permanent Mission to NATO soon replied – on Twitter as well – with another map to help “our Canadian colleagues to catch up with contemporary geography of #Europe” showing Crimea as a part of Russia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent from Georgia. A few days later another response unexpectedly came from the Russian Embassy to the United Arab Emirates. The embassy tweeted a picture of toy military vehicles with the following caption: “#NATO's latest evidence of #Russian armor invading #Ukraine has been leaked! Seems to be the most convincing ever!” These two tweets with images of the Russian Mission to NATO and the Embassy to the UAE were most popular from among all the MFA accounts in 2014.

https://twitter.com/RusEmbassyUAE/status/507226671401824256

3. Twitter Account of the MFA’s History and Records Department

In October, the MFA launched a new account dedicated to the history of Russian diplomacy. The account is managed by the History and Records Department responsible for declassification and publication of archival materials. For this department, Twitter is a useful tool to share its work with a larger audience. One example is the interactive map of Russian-American historical and cultural heritage (which would be more user-friendly if done with Google Maps or Yandex Maps.)

https://twitter.com/diplohistory/status/535702429913083904

4. Mobile Application “Foreign Assistant”

In October, the first MFA’s mobile application “Foreign Assistant” was released. It was developed by Sitesoft, a company that had previously created applications for other Russian government agencies including the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee. The application allows Russian citizens visiting foreign countries to receive information about emergency situations there as well as to download information on a particular country. They can also register their visit abroad, find out how to contact local Russian diplomatic missions in the country, or even request a call from Russian diplomats. Yet, the latter function is only available in five countries: Armenia, Jordan, Cambodia, the United States, and Slovenia. The application was released for Android, iOS and Windows Phone but it has a very modest record up to date: it received only 11 ratings on iTunes, and 24 in Google Play with 100 to 500 downloads.

5. “MFA to the World” Promotional Campaign

The Ministry organized a limited campaign to attract new audience members to its online accounts. To that end, they designed a set of posters with a question or a slogan in Russian and English with an official website address. The most intriguing of those questions – “Who is who to lecture?” – alluded to the phrase reportedly used by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone conversation with his British counterpart. The campaign was mostly carried out in the MFA accounts, which was its major limitation. As a result, it has hardly attracted many new followers. The MFA submitted posters to the social advertising contest among government agencies organized by the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, but did not win an award.

6. Flickr Account

In February, the MFA joined Flickr. Besides the fact that now all protocol pictures are available for download in high resolution, this is an interesting example of how a centralized organization adopts a new practice. In this case it was a bottom-up process: since the fall of 2011 Flickr has been used by the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom – one of the Russian digital diplomacy champions – and since the fall of 2013 by the Embassy in the United States. Thus, the MFA’s central office used a solution that was already tested in the field. After that, embassies in Australia, Germany and Singapore created their own accounts on Flickr as well.

7. Storify Account

The first MFA’s story on Storify was published in late 2013, but it was in 2014 that Russian diplomats actually started using this service to systematize their growing social media activity. While testing it, they published a list of mock awards to the accounts of Russian foreign missions on Diplomat's Day. Currently there are more than 40 stories on the account, the majority of which are dedicated to particular events and are composed of tweets from official accounts as well as from other users. The best story is non-political – a collection of pictures from Russian diplomats stationed around the world.

https://twitter.com/Rus_Emb_Sudan/status/522254585269075968
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Of course, Russian diplomacy could not entirely escape the selfie epidemic – in 2014, Sergei Lavrov’s personal selfie score went from zero at least to four (1, 2, 3, 4).

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Follower me on Twitter - @nediplomat
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