• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.57-79
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• 2021

Drawing on the theories of mediated public diplomacy, intermedia agenda-building, and homophily, this study aims to compare the effectiveness of the public diplomacy efforts made by the Saudi and Qatari governments during the Gulf diplomatic crisis. The study examines the respective international agenda-building influence of the state-sponsored media from the two competing Gulf states on the regional and international media's coverage of the crisis. Results show that, compared to Saudisponsored Al Arabiya, Qatari-sponsored Al Jazeera was more effective in shaping the agendas of the regional and international media. Whereas Al Arabiya has a weak first-level agenda-building influence and a moderate-to-strong influence at the second and the third levels, Al Jazeera demonstrates a strong agenda-building influence on the foreign media outlets at all of the three levels. We also analyze the impact of political proximity and the language of the media content (English or Arabic) on the agenda-building relationships. Still, the results suggest that, compared to Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera was more successful in shaping the agendas of the regional and international news media-no matter where they are based in the allied or the opposing countries. Also, we observe a higher level of consistency between Arabic- and English-language content in Al Jazeera.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.107-133
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• 2009

International relations in the 21st century is featured by boundless competition among nations to secure sufficient energy resources for achieving economic development. Resource diplomacy, therefore, is competitive in its nature, which is derived from the fact that resources of the globe are limited. Chinese recent economic growth has been possible mainly due to its success in resource diplomacy. The Chinese resource diplomacy has shown two different patterns according to target regions. On the one hand, China has pursued multilateral approach to Central Asia region, by which China aimed to secure energy with joint exploration method in the region. Chinese resource diplomacy toward Africa, on the other hand, has been based on bilateral approach combined with unit-centered economic aid to African nations. This difference in Chinese foreign policy pattern seems to be derived from three factors: namely, Chinese strategic considerations on geopolitical condition, regional security sensitivity, and legacies of Chinese long-time non-alignment diplomacy since the 1950s. Whether China is able to maintain the current pattern of resource diplomacy will be depended on how wisely China pursue its relations with two other global powers: Russia in the Central Asia and the U.S. in Africa. In this regard, the Chinese resource diplomacy is expected to work as determining factor of shaping a pattern of tri-lateral strategic relations among the U.S., Russia, and China. Chinese resource diplomacy thus will determine the future direction of the global politics in terms of strategic arrangement.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

In 2015, the State Council of South Korea finalized its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by "37% from the business-as-usual (BAU) level" by 2030 across all the economic sectors. Of that reduction, 4.5% will be achieved overseas by leveraging Emission Trading Systems (ETS) aided by international cooperation. In line with this, considering both the demand for and supply of the carbon market increased after the Paris agreement, the importance of public diplomacy in negotiating climate change actions also rose. This study aimed to analyze the impact of international discussions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on domestic policies and the types of public diplomatic climate change policies pursued by different government agencies, and draw implications from them. This study attempted to find implications from the Korean government's public diplomacy on climate change for developing countries. Lessons learned regarding Korea's public diplomacy would provide a practical guidance to the Asian developing countries, which are suffering from environmental crisis at a phase of rapid economic growth.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.94-111
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• 2018

This study examines Korea's international development volunteer program as a citizen diplomacy initiative. Informed by a cultural perspective of transmission and relational models of public diplomacy, I examine the ways in which volunteer training incorporates cultural-learning into its program. The study finds that volunteer training is largely based on an instrumentalist approach to culture that places emphasis on learning the "explicit" side of culture, such as Korean traditional dance, art, and food as a strategy to promote the country's national image. In contrast, much less covered in the training program is a relational approach to culture-learning that is guided by a reflexive understanding of the "implicit" side of culture, or the values and beliefs that guide the worldviews and behavior of both volunteers and host constituents. Whereas the value of the volunteer program as a citizen diplomacy initiative is in its potential to build relationships based on two-way engagement, its conception of culture is mostly guided by that of the transmission model of public diplomacy. Based on the findings, this study calls for an integrated approach to culture-learning in volunteer training program to move the citizen diplomacy initiative forward.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.234-263
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• 2020

This study aims to assess the quality of the EU's public diplomacy efforts through social media. Specifically, this research explores the headquarters of European public diplomacy (European External Action Service, EEAS) and its subordinate agent (EU Delegation to South Korea, EUDK). The main research question is "how coherently and effectively does the EU execute public diplomacy strategies in the third countries?'' This study employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches―the former for the results presentation and the latter for the results interpretation. The results are summarized in two points. First, both the EEAS and the EUDK maintained an objective position by posting only neutral perspectives on their social media. Second, the narratives of the main actors were the same, but the main themes were different according to their contexts. The analysis discusses the effectiveness of the EU's strategic narratives by focusing on measuring message reception. Its limited findings were that social media postings could not induce the audiences' active discussion of the EU's diplomatic performances. The conclusion suggests that the EU should identify the expectations from its global counterparts and use these to forge the Union's strategic narratives.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-35
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• 2021

Where government communication in the early 20^th century fell under the umbrella term, "propaganda," the post-WWII era saw a paradigm fracture into public affairs for domestic audiences, public diplomacy for foreign audiences, and psychological operations for hostile audiences. The continued diffusion of the Internet, however, has blurred such distinctions, mending this fractured paradigm. Based on in-depth interviews, this study typologizes government communication to contextualize how various tactics functions within the 21^st century digital media ecology, through an "Information Intervention" taxonomy. In an age where state-sponsored disinformation and computational propaganda are tantamount threats, this paper elucidates the field's fundamental concepts by articulating who communicates with what audience, in what manner, with what intent, and with what desired outcomes.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.75-116
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• 2021

This study argues that scholars lack an adequate conceptualization of the strategic use of social media framing by Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) during crises. As a theoretical starting point, this article employs the concept of soft disempowerment to suggest that MFAs may use online framing to limit an adversary's range of possible actions during a crisis by depicting that adversary as violating norms and values deemed desirable by the international community. Next, the article introduces the concept of mutually assured delegitimization (MAD), which suggests that actors may call into question one another's adherence with certain norms and values during crises, which results in the mutual depletion of soft power resources. Importantly, this article proposes a novel, methodological approach for the analysis of individual tweets during crises. To illustrate its methodological and conceptual innovations, the study analyzes tweets published by the MFAs of the United States (US) and Russia during the Crimea crisis and demonstrates that both MFAs used Twitter to negatively frame each other by calling their morals into question, which resulted in MAD.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.130-151
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• 2018

China's cultural diplomacy is mostly understood as an endeavour to build and project soft power, which draws on three sources of 'culture, political values and foreign policy' according to Nye. This paper focuses on the debates about the vehicle and agents of China's cultural diplomacy. It starts with a theoretical discussion of the competing views in the Chinese context, and develops an argument that the vehicle of China's cultural diplomacy tries to project soft power on two wheels of culture and political values, to serve the purpose of reshaping China's image away from being the 'cultural other' and 'ideological other' respectively. However, the state-led approach to driving this vehicle is generating some side effects with its sponsorship, censorship and presence in the driver's seat. Then the paper analyses the inherent tensions existing in practice both between the two sources of building soft power and between the two means of doing so, attraction and persuasion, with empirical evidence through a comparative case study of the Confucius Institutes in the US and South Korea. The finding shows that China's attempt at reshaping its image as an Eastern cultural contestant is often disrupted by its authoritarian political values, and the state-led persuasion is often reducing China's cultural attraction. Following this, the paper finishes with some recommendations regarding evolving the cultural diplomacy approach from a vertical one that is government-centred to a horizontal one that is network-based with multiple agents, and localising its practice by engaging the target audiences as stakeholders.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2016

This study analyzed the reports of Korean and Chinese newspapers on the foundation of AIIB from the viewpoint of public diplomacy. The results showed that Chinese newspapers reported the government's statements and opinions and played as a means of conforming to the purposes of public diplomacy. Chinese newspapers employed the media paradigm of Instrumentalism among three paradigms of public diplomacy, which was due to ownership structure of the press. In the case of Korean Newspapers, they adopted paradigms of culturalism and professionalism. However, they verged to culturalism in terms of lack of discourse struggle due to few in-depth reports of the effects of national economy of AIIB.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.216-227
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• 2020

In science and technology diplomacy, major countries actively utilize their capabilities in science and technology for public diplomacy, especially for promoting diplomatic relations with politically sensitive regions and countries. Recently, with an increase in the influence of science and technology on national development, interest in science and technology diplomacy has increased. So far, science and technology diplomacy has relied on experts to find research topics that are of common interest to both the countries. However, this method has various problems such as the bias arising from the subjective judgment of experts, the attribution of the halo effect to famous researchers, and the use of different criteria for different experts. This paper presents an objective data-based approach to identify and recommend research topics to support science and technology diplomacy without relying on the expert-based approach. The proposed approach is based on big data analysis that uses deep-learning techniques and bibliometric methods. The Scopus database is used to find proper topics for collaborative research between two countries. This approach has been used to support science and technology diplomacy between Korea and Hungary and has raised expectations of policy makers. This paper finally discusses aspects that should be focused on to improve the system in the future.