The New Public Diplomacy—Fact or Fiction

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 globally dispersed diaspora. Additionally, few studies to date have offered models for measuring the scope of engagement and dialogue between diplomats and digital publics. This chapter presents a new model for measuring the scope of engagement between diplomats and digital publics and also analyzes the dialogic activities of five African MFAs and four Lithuanian embassies. The corresponding results demonstrate that African and Eastern European embassies offer digital publics a breadth of information leading to the democratization of public diplomacy.