Social Media and E-Diplomacy in China : Scrutinizing the Power of Weibo

As with many spheres of public life, public diplomatic communication is being transformed by the boom of social media. More than 165 foreign governmental organisations in China have embarked on the use of Weibo (a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter in China) to engage with Chinese citizens and reach out to youth populations, one of the major goals of current public diplomacy efforts. This exciting new pivot, based on systemic research of Weibo usage by embassies in China, explores the challenges and the limits that the use of Chinese Weibo (and Chinese social media in general) poses for foreign embassies, and considers ways to use these or other tools. It offers a systematic study of the effectiveness and challenges of using Weibo for public diplomatic communication in and with China. Addressing the challenges of e-diplomacy, it considers notably the occurrence of cyber-nationalism on Weibo and encourages a critical look at its practice, arguing how it can contribute to the goals of public diplomacy. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Introduction and Background Knowledge (Ying Jiang)....Pages 3-17 Social Media Context in China and Global PR Theory (Ying Jiang)....Pages 19-42 Front Matter ....Pages 43-43 Scanning the Foreign Use of Weibo (Ying Jiang)....Pages 45-68 Foreign Embassies’ Use of Weibo (Ying Jiang)....Pages 69-88 A Close Case Study: Kunming Terror Attack and Embassy’s e-Diplomacy via Weibo (Ying Jiang)....Pages 89-102 Front Matter ....Pages 103-103 Weibo as a Public Diplomacy Platform (Ying Jiang)....Pages 105-124 Implications of the Western Use of Weibo and Global PR Theory (Ying Jiang)....Pages 125-139 Conclusion/Open-Endedness (Ying Jiang)....Pages 141-146 Back Matter ....Pages 147-147