The Initial Digitalization of Chinese Diplomacy (2019-2021): Establishing Global Communication Networks on Twitter

The way in which Chinese diplomats communicate has changed recently, from being mostly reactive and pragmatic to being rhetorically more combative. This has generated strong academic, media, and policy interest. However, less academic attention has been devoted to the employment of social media for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of contemporary China 2024-03, Vol.33 (146), p.244-266
Main Authors: Thunø, Mette, Nielbo, Kristoffer Laigaard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Augmentation
Chinese languages
Communication
Communication strategies
Computer mediated communication
Digital technology
Diplomacy
Diplomatic & consular services
Diplomats
Discourse analysis
Discourse strategies
Discourses
Dissemination
Employment
Hegemony
International relations
Interpersonal communication
Mass media
Networks
Pragmatics
Rhetoric
Social media
Social networks
Topics
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Summary:The way in which Chinese diplomats communicate has changed recently, from being mostly reactive and pragmatic to being rhetorically more combative. This has generated strong academic, media, and policy interest. However, less academic attention has been devoted to the employment of social media for China's new diplomatic communication strategy. By analyzing the recent employment of Twitter by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), this article explores the initial digitalization of China's public diplomacy from November 2019 to February 2021. Approaching Twitter as both a virtual network structure and an interactive strategic communication process, we collected 61,000 tweets from Chinese diplomats plus 282,000 tweets from Chinese official media and applied data analytics to examine how the MFA augmented its diplomatic digital presence by responding, reposting/retweeting, mentioning, and hashtagging. We also used discourse analysis to investigate how Chinese diplomats selected topics to generate, diffuse, and affect hegemonic discourses. We argue that China's MFA initially adopted Twitter using a centrally controlled structure of topic, rhetoric, and discourses as well as cohesive dissemination and augmenting strategies. These communication structures created a self-referencing network closely aligned with Chinese official media on Twitter.
ISSN:1067-0564
1469-9400
DOI:10.1080/10670564.2023.2195811