Chapter 6 PDF: British and Canadian Digital Diplomacy

6 BUSINESS AS USUAL? An evaluation of British and Canadian digital diplomacy as policy change Amanda Clarke Introduction Typically under the remit of digital diplomacy initiatives, foreign ministries have begun integrating social media communications and monitoring, big data analyt- ics, social ne...

6 BUSINESS AS USUAL? An evaluation of British and Canadian digital diplomacy as policy change Amanda Clarke Introduction Typically under the remit of digital diplomacy initiatives, foreign ministries have begun integrating social media communications and monitoring, big data analyt- ics, social network analysis and crowdsourcing into their larger toolkits. In these cases, foreign ministries are capitalizing on the social web, defined as the platforms of the ‘read-write’, interactive web (e.g. social networking sites, blogs, mobile applications) and the social phenomena associated with them (e.g. crowdsourcing, peer-production, citizen journalism, ‘viral’ information flows). On the one hand, the social web appears to find a natural home in foreign ministries. Networking, influencing and intelligence gathering and analysis comprise these organizations’ key functions. The social web provides new and improved means of executing these tasks. According to this perspective, digital diplomacy extends naturally from traditional diplomacy, a logical and uninterrupted continuation of the ‘business’ of diplomats and foreign offices, but with a digital angle. On the other hand, digital diplomacy might be framed as a new and revolutionary development in which top-down, state-centric processes of international relations are increasingly replaced by a more networked, civil society-driven model of diplomacy. More spe- cifically, according to this perspective, rather than being simply a case of ‘business as usual’, digital diplomacy signals a recognition amongst diplomats and foreign ministries that the social web has redistributed informational resources, ensuring that civil society – and not government – is best placed to perform the functions of networking, influencing and intelligence gathering and analysis that have long been the preserve of state actors as per the state-to-state, intergovernmental model of international relations (Huijgh 2013). Does digital diplomacy represent the mere digitization of existing models of diplomatic conduct, or has adoption of the social web by foreign ministries 112 Amanda Clarke been accompanied by substantive shifts in the ideas and practices shaping these organizations? Just how ‘new’ and ‘different’ is digital diplomacy from its ana- logue predecessor? In this chapter, I employ concepts from the policy change literature to evaluate the extent to which operations in the British and Cana- dian foreign ministries are becoming more open, networked and collabora- tive through their adoption of the social web. Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development1 (DFATD) and the UK’s Foreign and Common- wealth Office (FCO) manage similarly sized budgets and staff,2 operate under comparable organizational structures,3 and represent countries with similarly high degrees of Internet penetration.4 While the FCO is often cited as a leader in the area of digital diplomacy, and DFATD less often cited for its uptake of the social web, both ministries should nonetheless be viewed as early adopters, hav- ing since the mid-2000s steadily integrated social media into their operations, and with each ministry having developed centralized initiatives focused on the social web and its applications to the work of foreign diplomacy (in Canada, the open policy development model, and in the UK, digital diplomacy). Similarities across the two cases, and the approximately seven years of experience each has had with the social web, ensures, first, that they can be reasonably assessed in the same study and second, that their uptake of the social web is sufficiently well- developed to inform an evaluative assessment of the magnitude of the policy change it represents. The chapter develops in four parts. First, I introduce concepts from the policy-change literature to frame an evaluative analysis of digital diploma- cy’s departure from, or adherence to, status quo models of diplomatic conduct in these two foreign ministries. Parts two and three present data generated through key informant interviews with civil servants in DFATD and the FCO, along with analysis of departmental documents describing initiatives related to the social web in each case. Part two explores a series of critical junctures referenced by interviewees and departmental documents which suggest that digital diplomacy has indeed developed from the departments’ recognition that they must become more networked and open to collaboration with civil society groups to reach their objectives. Part three complicates this narrative, present- ing evidence from interviews and documentary analysis which suggests that, in the end, digital diplomacy actually represents little by way of substantive change; here, digital diplomacy is described as ‘business as usual’ by civil ser- vants in DFATD and the FCO. In an effort to cut through the mixed messages at play in the departments’ own subjective perceptions of digital diplomacy (as explored in parts two and three), part four presents an analysis of each depart- ment’s official Twitter accounts. I find that at least in terms of DFATD’s and the FCO’s departmental use of Twitter, digital diplomacy does not, in practice, signify the departments’ willingness to engage in a more networked, collabora- tive mode of operations. In closing, I discuss the implications of these findings for the study and practice of digital diplomacy, and suggest avenues for future research.  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 113 Digital diplomacy as a policy change Before the mid-2000s, foreign offices did not employ tools like Twitter and Face- book, nor did they engage in online crowdsourcing, social media monitoring and analysis of large-scale datasets generated through activities on the social web (big data). These activities are undeniably ‘new’ and ‘different’, but just how ‘new’ and ‘different’ are they? We can begin to answer this question by first framing digital diplomacy as a policy change. Here I adopt Thomas Dye’s definition of policy as “whatever governments choose to do or not to do” (Dye 2008, 2). Under this definition, policy not only refers to a government’s stance on a given policy issue (e.g. the legalization or prohibition of prostitution). Rather, under this definition, policy also includes decisions related to operational concerns, or issues related to the management of public agencies. In this sense, when the social web is integrated into the operations of a foreign ministry, this is a matter of policy. And given that the social web, as discussed above, represents a ‘new’ and ‘different’ facet of the foreign ministry’s operations, it accordingly represents a policy change. With digital diplomacy defined as a policy change we can now set about measuring the magnitude of this change, following on Hall’s schema of first-, second- and third-order policy change (Hall 1993). In this schema, policy change is defined according to the extent to which it departs from the status quo. First- order changes represent the smallest degree of change and are defined as rou- tine adjustments to the settings of existing policy instruments. In Hall’s example, focused on British economic policy in the 1970s and 1980s, adjustments to interest rates represent a first-order change. Second-order changes arise when a govern- ment adjusts the policy instruments it employs – altering, for example, the system used for controlling public expenditures – without changing the policy goals to which the instruments are directed. Such changes represent a greater departure from the status quo than first-order changes. Third-order changes represent the greatest degree of change and are defined as changes to the normative and onto- logical worldview of policymakers. These normative and ontological worldviews consist of policy paradigms (entrenched beliefs, values and ideas) and policy styles (enduring patterns of problem solving, or ‘ways of working’) in a given policy- making setting (Howlett and Ramesh 2003). In other words, third-order changes involve shifts in the taken-for-granted orthodoxy that defines how actors identify problems and solutions and define their role and the role of their organizations in the broader social, economic and political context in which they operate. In Hall’s (1993) analysis, the shift from Keynesianism to monetarism in British economic policy in the 1970s and 1980s represented a third-order change. In this schema, first and second-order changes occur more often and are easier to achieve by virtue of the fact that they flow naturally from existing policy para- digms and policy styles at play in a government setting. These changes involve “relatively minor tinkering with policies and programs already in place” (Howlett and Ramesh 2003, 235). This ‘minor tinkering’ is captured in the concept of 114 Amanda Clarke policy-oriented learning, in which policymakers refine or adapt their practices in order that they can more efficiently and effectively perform their roles and reach their objectives (Sabatier 1988; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). While policy-oriented learning enables first- and second-order changes, in the case of a third-order change, the well-entrenched and unquestioned policy paradigms and styles at work in a government organization must themselves change. What enables these more substantive third-order changes to take hold? Authors describing the causes of third-order changes agree that these types of policy changes can only come about as a result of conditions emanating outside the policymaking environment. More specifically, authors argue that dominant pol- icy paradigms and styles can only be disrupted when new information or actors enter the policymaking environment and cause policymakers to question, and adjust, the ideas and practices that shape their work. For example, Hall (1993) explains that the shift from Keynesianism to monetarism in Britain was only pos- sible because of external events that violated the tenets of the Keynesian model (e.g. simultaneous rises in inflation and unemployment), which subsequently cast doubt on its predictive and explanatory power (Hall 1993). Likewise, Sabatier’s Advocacy Coalition Framework posits that changing socio-economic conditions set the stage for third-order changes by causing policymakers to recognize that the entrenched ideas and practices shaping their work are no longer appropriate or adequate for the environment in which they operate (Sabatier 1988; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993). Finally, historical institutionalism, a body of thought with a much broader purview but which nonetheless speaks to questions of third-order policy change, notes how path-dependent trajectories in institutions can be dis- rupted by ‘critical junctures’ – external events, such as significant social, economic or political developments – which set the stage for new policy paradigms and styles to take hold in a given government setting (Capoccia and Kelemen 2011; Hall and Taylor 1996; Thelen 1999). Turning back to the specific case of digital diplomacy as a policy change, we might anticipate that the emergence of the social web would qualify as one such critical juncture, or, more colloquially, as a ‘game changer’, capable of inducing third-order changes in foreign ministries. Social media, crowdsourcing and other forms of peer-to-peer collaboration amidst political unrest and in consular emer- gencies have demonstrated the instrumental role that non-state actors can play in contexts where foreign service officers have traditionally taken the lead. Most obviously, waves of protest in the Arab World – the so-called Arab Spring, initi- ated in 2010 in Tunisia – illustrated how groups of citizens can affect change in national governments by capitalizing on the social web as a platform for coordi- nating and executing mass protest (Howard et al. 2011). In addition to the impres- sive integration of the social web into social movements promoting democratic reform and regime change, citizens’ engagement with the social web has also sup- ported relief in the wake of natural disasters, uptake that again supports the work of the foreign ministry, in this case, its provision of consular services. During the 2011 Queensland floods, community-led Facebook groups served as venues for  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 115 crowdsourcing updates from the ground (Bird, Ling and Haynes 2012). Victims tweeted within minutes of the 2010 Haitian earthquake striking, and in the first two days of the emergency, 36% of all posts on Twitter related to the situation in Haiti (Kodrich and Laituri 2011). Similarly, social web-enabled citizen reporting was evidenced in the 2010 California wildfires and during the Japanese earth- quake of 2011 (Savelyev et al. 2011). And organizations like the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team5 and Ushahidi6 have demonstrated how social web tech- nologies can produce accurate, timely maps and reports from the ground in the context of natural disasters and political unrest. Finally, as domestic populations take up the social web to connect with family and friends abroad, they have dem- onstrated how they can bridge the gap between foreign ministries and foreign populations, in some cases reducing the linguistic as well as spatial barriers that complicate public diplomacy initiatives (Eleta and Golbeck 2012; Karim 1998; Lazakidou 2012). In these examples, a core assumption at play in the foreign ministry – an assumption which ultimately rationalizes its existence and value – is challenged; these examples illustrate that non-state actors enabled by the social web are capable of collecting, distributing and acting on information towards ends that tradition- ally were achieved by the foreign ministry, such as the promotion of democracy and human rights, and consular relief. Put differently, while the foreign ministry has traditionally been cast as a “knowledge-based” organization, a framing that induces actors both within and outside the foreign ministry to value diplomats for their unique ability to collect, interpret and distribute information in support of national priorities (Otte 2013), the social web indicates that this may no lon- ger always be the case. Accordingly, the social web – more specifically, citizens’ uptake of the social web – may qualify as a critical juncture that has the potential to induce third-order changes in this policy environment. Digital diplomacy initiatives by which diplomats engage in open, networked collaboration with digitally enabled non-state actors represent one response to this critical juncture. Betraying the state-centric model of diplomatic operations, this shift would constitute a third-order change. However, an alternative response to non-state actors’ impressive engagement with the social web might see diplo- mats either ignoring the social web altogether or integrating it into their opera- tions to bolster their existing information gathering, interpreting and distributing functions, an outcome that would not constitute a third-order change, since core policy paradigms and policy styles would remain intact. Put differently, uptake of the social web by actors in the foreign ministry may simply represent a mar- ginal departure from the status quo achieved through policy-oriented learning, in this case, as the social web is employed as a more effective means of perform- ing well-established roles and achieving long-standing objectives in the foreign policy sector. In the next two sections, the chapter brings forth empirical evidence to sug- gest which of these two possible outcomes has arisen in practice in the cases of Canada and the UK. This evaluative assessment relies on analysis of departmental 116 Amanda Clarke documents and nineteen key informant interviews with current and former offi- cials in DFATD and the FCO. The interviews were conducted in 2012 and 2013, in person in Ottawa and London and via Skype with officials posted overseas. An initial group of interviewees was identified through analysis of departmental documents, and snowball sampling was employed for successive interviews. Inter- viewees were drawn from a range of rankings (from ambassador-level officials to relatively new recruits, operating at lower levels of responsibility and authority) and from a range of functional areas (press office, communications, information management, foreign service officers and those explicitly engaged in the open policy development initiative [DFATD] and digital diplomacy [FCO]). As the ensuing two sections illustrate, we receive mixed messages when these interview- ees are themselves are asked to define the magnitude of policy change accompany- ing their digital diplomacy initiatives. Critical junctures: Digital diplomacy as a third-order policy change Interviewees and departmental documents suggest that digital diplomacy does, in fact, represent a more substantive third-order change instigated by citizens’ uptake of the social web. For example, officials in both departments emphasized that as more and more citizens integrate the social web into their own lives, citizens increasingly expect their foreign ministries to do the same. One DFATD official argued, “I want to be able to – I look at how I’ve changed, how I interact with companies or businesses and how I expect them to respond on social media. Why wouldn’t I expect the same of my government?” (Personal communication, April 2012). A DFATD report on open policy development, a central component of Canada’s digital diplomacy strategy, noted that “a digital public does not want to interact with an analog government” (Anonymized DFAIT official, 2012, p. 2). But more than simply being the result of changing expectations, adoption of the social web has been driven by awareness that alternative, non-governmental sources of information are capitalizing on the social web to influence foreign policy processes to a degree not possible before, threatening the influence of these foreign ministries. An internal FCO document discussing “digital working” in the department notes the following: A key series of studies by the world’s largest PR and lobbying company Edelman’s shows the extent to which some of the people we seek to influ- ence, in the Edelman’s study specifically Political Advisors in the US and Europe, increasingly use the web and social media as their primary source of information in advising decision makers. UK and overseas Politicians and ministers are themselves increasingly ahead of officials in their own use of these technologies. It follows that by the time the people we seek to influence (and report to) hear what we have to say they will already have formed an opinion based on what they learnt via digital or 24/7 media. We  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 117 may flatter ourselves that the sagacity of our comment will overcome the comparative lateness of our intervention on their thinking, but there are more effective ways of operating that turn these new technologies to our advantage. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2011, 7) This passage illustrates not only that the department recognizes that its com- petitors are using these technologies to exert a more powerful influence over for- eign affairs but also that this influence now competes with that of their own to a degree not seen before – a recognition that, in turn, calls into question traditional ways of thinking and operating in the department. In practice, this means that the department feels it must now be more open to collaborate with non-government actors who, as a result of the ubiquity of Internet access and the rise of social tech- nologies, often have access to information and influence that state actors do not. As one FCO diplomat noted: The environment in which we operate today is very different. You weren’t going to contact the Russians via Twitter.... We actually had better infor- mation than anyone else. That’s not true anymore. That’s what you saw with Somalia. We can’t be in Somalia for more than one night – it’s just too dangerous – but there’s a huge Somalian diaspora in the UK. Thanks to the wonders of Skype they’re in touch every night with those on the ground, with their families and friends... you have to be able to engage with a wider range of sources than ever. (Personal communication, October 2012) Likewise, the FCO’s review of “digital working” notes that the social web “has profound implications for journalists, diplomats and lobbyists who in the past drew their power and influence from the fact that information was a privileged resource where ‘to be in the know’ and to ‘know who to talk to’ was a funda- mental part of how they carried out their professional tasks and their added value” (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2011, 1). Similarly, while commenting on the work of groups like The Standby Task- force, who coordinate crisis mapping by collecting and visualizing the tweets, status updates and text messages of individuals in crisis situations, one DFATD official remarked, “I know how our own operation works. We can’t do that. We can’t be that. So they are better, faster, cheaper than us. And so we ought to learn from them, right, and we ought to leverage them. If there are people out there who want to do this, why not?” (Personal communication, April 2012). A Canadian document describing DFATD’s Open Policy Development initiative also states that international ministries have to adapt “because there are individuals and orga- nizations that have a greater capacity to influence the conduct of international policy than ever before” (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada 2012, p. 3). One DFATD official echoed a sentiment expressed by many 118 Amanda Clarke interviewees in both departments when he remarked “we’ve lost our... we kind of lost a privileged position” (Personal communication, April 2012). In sum, as citizens and non-governmental organizations have gained greater access to infor- mation through the growth of the social web, both DFATD and the FCO have indeed recognized that they no longer have a monopoly on information and the influence it enables, a recognition that they claim sets the stage for a new approach to their work to emerge, that is, for a more fundamental third-order policy change to arise. Non-governmental use of the social web – both the expectations it creates, the competition it introduces and the opportunities it offers for more effectively advancing national interests – has, according to officials in these departments, served as a critical juncture, highlighting to DFATD and the FCO that they must become more open, networked and collaborative if they are to survive as relevant, effective organizations in the digital age. In this sense, it appears that digital diplo- macy has marked a more substantive, third-order policy change, resulting from changing external conditions which call into question entrenched ideas and ways of working in each department. Yet, alongside these explanations, officials in both DFATD and the FCO have also been quick to assert that digital diplomacy is, ultimately, a natural extension of their existing work. In the next section, I explore this competing narrative, highlighting the ‘mixed messages’ at play in these departments’ own perceptions of digital diplomacy as a policy change. Digital diplomacy: The product of policy-oriented learning As much as officials in DFATD and the FCO underscore the critical junctures challenging entrenched ideas and operations at play in the foreign policy sector and that accordingly rationalize the need for digital diplomacy, they also fre- quently explain that the social web is, in the end, simply a new and improved means of performing the traditional functions of diplomacy. According to this narrative, digital diplomacy results from processes of policy-oriented learning, and represents only a marginal departure from the status quo. In some cases, policy-oriented learning takes place as well-established prac- tices are transferred from the offline or static web context in which they used to take place to social media platforms. This is, to quote a former FCO official, “about achieving diplomatic objectives, just through a different means”; this is “an alternative way of doing the same thing” (Personal communication, May 2012). Similarly, an official from DFATD explained, “It’s just a 2012 approach to a 1992 engagement method really” (Personal communication, April 2012). For example, where the press offices of each department used to scan main- stream media, they now also scan social media, using a mix of manual and auto- mated, computer-assisted approaches. Again, this is seen as a natural development of an existing practice. As explained by an FCO official, “We have traditional media monitoring in place. Well, that now has to be complemented by social  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 119 media monitoring” (Personal communication, April 2012). In both cases, social media monitoring began in the press office but is now encouraged more broadly across the departments. Notably, DFATD granted department-wide access to social media sites at an early stage, while many other Canadian federal government departments and agencies restricted access due to security concerns, and a fear of employees wasting time. In the UK, access was originally restricted to a num- ber of standalone computers in the press office, but in April of 2013, access was granted across the department, along with the suggestion that employees make use of Hootsuite, a social media monitoring tool. This level of access, and the encouragement of employee use of these platforms outside of the press and com- munications office, is not typical of other departments in the UK central govern- ment, but this has been framed by the department as a natural development, given that their employees’ primary function is information collection and distribution (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, n.d.). This is reiterated in the FCO’s social media guidelines for employees, which states: “All staff should use social media for listening, monitoring conversations, keeping track of news and building networks as part of their day to day work” (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 2013c). The same can be said for the use of social media by individual diplomats and trade commissioners as a networking tool. Social media sites become just another means of identifying and connecting with influencers, or promoting the national ‘brand’. Trade Commissioners in Canada have formed an active community on LinkedIn to support their existing efforts to connect Canadian businesses with opportunities abroad.7 As one official noted, “A lot of... you know, we’ve met important opinion-makers through our [social media] that maybe in an earlier era we would have met at a cocktail party or something like that” (Personal com- munication, April 2012). While in this case core foreign ministry activities – communications and net- working – remain relatively unchanged, in others, the ‘value-added’ from the social web is more striking. This has particularly been the case for public diplomacy initiatives in each department. In one case, an update on the Canadian Embassy to Beijing’s Sina Weibo account advertising the ambassador’s new car (a modest hybrid sedan) was originally intended as a light-hearted message, but it sparked a much larger conversation about accountability amongst high-ranking officials in the Chinese government, and scrutiny of the luxury European cars and private drivers they are awarded from the state. As described by an official in DFATD: So a dialogue that would normally be very difficult to initiate in China turned into just a fluke. That said that wasn’t our intent at all.... We just simply were showing the ambassador with his new hybrid car... but then it became a pretty healthy dialogue on government transparency.... But you know, there’s a new rule now that says Chinese government officials have to purchase domestic-made cars and such and such. So I don’t know if it’s been implemented yet, but.... And again, I can’t say that it’s... it’s just 120 Amanda Clarke a very interesting coincidence if we didn’t contribute to that. We definitely contributed to the policy discussion, let’s put it that way. We contributed in a very high profile way to a policy discussion that seemed to result in a change of domestic regulations. (Personal communication, April 2012) Again, in this case, the core activity of Public Diplomacy – its aims, audi- ence and outcomes – remains the same. But, through a process of policy-oriented learning, officials find a better way of performing this activity that capitalizes on the affordances of the social web. As explained by an FCO official: Most of it, I mean in kind of creating this digital diplomacy function, we are really piggybacking on the public diplomacy.... That is really what we are using digital for is to do that kind of the engaging and influencing that was already part of different jobs and it was directly the job of public affairs offices and people in the embassies to do this. (Personal communication, May 2012) Likewise, these processes of policy-oriented learning are captured succinctly in the FCO’s digital strategy when it states, “Given foreign policy is often about per- suasion, influence and soft power, it is no surprise that in today’s networked world digital and policy implementation are intertwined” (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2012, p. 7). In other cases, a more cynical perspective is adopted, as officials explicitly state that digital diplomacy is not the product of self-reflection on their changing exter- nal environment, and the related need for substantive reform, but is rather taken up because of enthusiasm for digital diplomacy in other jurisdictions, and the need to keep up with current trends in diplomatic activity. A DFATD official noted that interest in the social web was in large part sparked by senior officials who would complain: “You know, why doesn’t our website look better? Why aren’t we doing more of this? Why aren’t – look at what the [United] States are doing” (Personal communication, April 2012). An official at the FCO argued: I think it was born out of the need to be seen to be doing something, and I think that’s true of a lot of organizations, where there is a kind of typical digital evolution, where for any organization they ignore it for longer than they ought to, and then feel that they ought to do something. And they always overcompensate by creating a department. (Personal communication, August 2013) These descriptions of digital diplomacy are a far cry from those explored in part two, in which digital diplomacy was framed as a remarkably unprecedented period of foreign relations, where the agency and influence of non-state actors had grown relative to that of the state, setting the stage for a more networked,  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 121 collaborative model of foreign relations to emerge. Differently, here officials describe digital diplomacy as a natural extension of existing ideas and practices at play in the foreign policy sector. By this view, digital diplomacy has emerged because officials recognize that the social web offers new and improved means of executing traditional functions and reaching traditional objectives of diplomacy. In this characterization, digital diplomacy is simply ‘business as usual’, or, in Hall’s (1993) language, uptake of the social web represents at most a first- or second- order change, as the settings of existing policy instruments are adjusted, or traded for more optimal, digitized versions. It appears then that these departments’ own perceptions of digital diplomacy can only take us so far in identifying the magnitude of change accompanying uptake of the social web in DFATD and the FCO. In light of this, the next sec- tion takes a different approach, measuring the magnitude of this policy change by evaluating one particular facet of each department’s digital diplomacy initiatives – departmental use of Twitter – in an effort to settle the debate between the two competing perspectives explored so far. In other words, if the analysis presented above evaluates digital diplomacy by exploring what officials say it rep- resents, the next section evaluates digital diplomacy by exploring what it looks like in practice, in an effort to bring more precision to our understanding of this policy change and its magnitude. Departmental use of Twitter: Evidence of a third-order policy change, or the product of policy-oriented learning? As one component of their digital diplomacy strategies, DFATD and the FCO have developed accounts on the popular microblogging service Twitter, both at their missions abroad and through accounts managed at headquarters, represent- ing the departmental ‘voice’ on this social network. DFATD lists fifty-five Twitter accounts on its website,8 while the FCO lists 246 Twitter accounts.9 Given that Twitter has thus far proven the most commonly employed social media platform employed by each ministry,10 this medium serves as a reasonable starting point for empirical analysis of each ministry’s engagement with the social web. That is, focusing on the case of Twitter, specifically, we can ask: does DFATD and the FCO’s uptake of the social web evidence the emergence of a more networked and collaborative model of diplomacy in the digital age? Or, as reflected in their uptake of Twitter, do these departments engage with the social web in ways that replicate more traditional, top-down, and state-centric models of diplomacy? To answer these questions, I archived all content shared on central departmen- tal Twitter accounts managed by DFATD and the FCO between February and June 2012.11 In the case of DFATD, this produced a population of 612 tweets; in the FCO, this produced a population of 1,221 tweets. I generated a random sam- ple of tweets from each of these populations, producing a sample of 389 tweets in the case of DFATD and 570 tweets in the case of the FCO (95% confidence interval, +/- 3%). Each tweet was categorized according to its content into one 122 Amanda Clarke of three categories. ‘Informational’ tweets are those that issue information, such as the announcement of a new policy initiative, that highlight the work of a min- ister or which provide a travel advisory. ‘Participatory’ tweets support collabora- tion with non-government actors by inviting these actors to participate in policy development or service delivery. Tweets that foster amicable relations between the ministry and members of the public or the ministry and other governments using friendly or informal language were categorized as ‘Amicable ties’ (e.g. “@ user Thanks for following us!”). In this scheme, Informational tweets are those that align most closely with traditional ‘ways of working’ in these departments, inasmuch as they represent tweets that issue information selected by DFATD and the FCO for distribution to domestic and foreign publics, organizations and governments. Differently, Participatory tweets and those which support Ami- cable ties depart from this tradition, and might be understood to signal the move towards a more networked and collaborative model of diplomacy emerging in the departments. In both DFATD and the FCO, the majority of tweets were Informational, sug- gesting that traditional top-down, state-centric models of communication have merely been digitized, as opposed to being challenged, by the social web. In the case of DFATD, 86% of all tweets were Informational (n = 336); 10% of all tweets were Participatory (n = 37). In each case, these Participatory tweets directed users to a government consultation on the DFATD website or invited users to retweet messages related to consular service issues, in order to help the department expand the reach of the information they wished to share, in a co-productive effort. Four per cent of all tweets published by DFATD promoted Amicable Ties (n = 16). The FCO’s results mirror those of DFATD, with only minor variation. Ninety-one per cent of all FCO tweets were Informational (n = 520). Only 2% of the FCO’s tweets (n = 10) solicited the participation of users in the department’s work (Participa- tory), through, for example, invitations to co-produce policies/services or partici- pate in a consultation, while 7% consisted of efforts to promote amicable ties with the public (n = 40; see Tables 6.1 and 6.2). TABLE 6.1 Tweets published by DFATD, February–June 2012 Content category N Percentage of total tweets Informational 336 86% Participatory 37 10% Amicable Ties 16 4% TOTAL 389 100% Type of tweet Original 203 52% Retweet 32 8% @message 154 40% TOTAL 389 100%  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 123 TABLE 6.2 Tweets published by the FCO, February–June 2012 Content category N Percentage of total tweets Informational 520 91% Participatory 10 2% Amicable Ties 40 7% TOTAL 570 100% Type of tweet Original 157 28% Retweet 217 38% @message 196 34% TOTAL 570 100% While this analysis suggests that information provision, as opposed to open, networked collaboration, remains a prominent component of these departments operations when they use Twitter, this does not necessarily mean that the infor- mation shared follows the same top-down, government-directed patterns of pre- vious periods. Rather, if DFATD and the FCO primarily retweeted other users’ content, this would signal the departments’ willingness to engage in a more networked, less government-directed model of information sharing, inasmuch as the content shared by the departments would be crafted by another user, grant- ing these non-government actors control over the framing and content of offi- cial communications. Similarly, the issuing of ‘@messages’ in reply to specific queries from other users (‘@replies’) or in an effort to direct tweets to particular users might evidence a greater willingness to network with non-governmen- tal actors. Finally, if DFATD and the FCO used Twitter to share weblinks that direct their followers to non-ministerial websites, this might also evidence a new model of networked, less government-directed information sharing, since in this case, DFATD and the FCO would rely on other actors to provide information as opposed to directing users to an online information source created and managed by the department. In the case of DFATD, 48% of tweets included in the sample were retweets or @messages (n = 186). In the FCO, 72% of all tweets were retweets or @messages (n = 413). This may suggest that a more networked, and less government-directed form of official communications has emerged (in particular, in the FCO), but before drawing this conclusion it is important to note which users’ content was retweeted, and which users were referenced in the departments’ @messages. When DFATD retweeted, 50% of the time the retweeted messages were origi- nally published by another Canadian government department (n = 17). Forty- seven per cent of the time, DFATD retweeted messages originally published by the department’s minister (n = 16).12 Similarly, in the case of the FCO, 49 per cent of all retweeted messages were first issued by UK government departments (n = 136), while the second most 124 Amanda Clarke commonly referenced users in retweeted messages were departmental ministers (38 per cent of all retweets, n = 105). When these departments issue @messages, they primarily do so in response to, or to direct information to, departmental ministers and other domestic gov- ernment departments. In DFATD, 80 per cent of all @messages cite its ministers (n = 118)13. Similarly, FCO ministers were the most commonly cited user in its @messages (48%, n = 108), while other UK government departments were the second-most cited users in its @messages (21%, n = 46). Finally, when these departments issue weblinks through their tweets, they pri- marily do so to link users back to official government sources of information. In DFATD, 288 tweets included weblinks, all of which linked users back to Govern- ment of Canada webpages. In the FCO, 291 tweets included weblinks, 96% of which linked users to websites managed by the UK government. And so, where DFATD and the FCO use Twitter to retweet others’ content, to engage with specific users and to direct users to websites, they do so primarily to highlight content produced by their own ministers or their own governments, or to engage directly with these actors. In this sense, DFATD and the FCO’s official communications may have become more networked via the social web, but the network itself remains state-centric; non-government actors continue to exercise little influence over the types of information shared by these foreign ministries, and are rarely the target of DFATD’s and the FCO’s efforts to engage more directly with specific Twitter users. In sum, while the adoption of Twitter does indeed represent a new develop- ment, or a policy change, the data and analysis presented here suggest that this change represents only a marginal departure from the status quo. Information provided continues to be issued in top-down, government-directed ways, and the departments show little willingness or ability to engage in a collaborative, net- worked mode of operations in which non-government actors play a more central role in the departments’ work. In the language of the policy change literature, this exploration of Twitter usage suggests that digital diplomacy results from processes of policy-oriented learning, in which the social web offers a new means of reach- ing old goals and performing established functions. In turn, the data and analysis presented here does not evidence a substantive third-order change towards a more networked, collaborative model of diplomacy, despite what public officials in both DFATD and the FCO have suggested. Conclusions Perhaps the most pressing issue in contemporary research on digital diplomacy is simply a definitional one. That is, at present, it is not entirely clear at what point digital diplomacy picks up and traditional diplomacy lets off. Inasmuch as adop- tion of the social web represents a ‘new’ and ‘different’ facet of the work of foreign ministries, digital diplomacy certainly represents some sort of policy change. Yet, it is not evident what this change consists of, or its magnitude. Until researchers  Digital diplomacy in Canada and the UK 125 clarify how digital diplomacy aligns with or departs from traditional models of diplomatic relations, any effort to theorize and track the implications of the social web for this policy sector will be stunted. The findings presented here suggest that officials operating in this policy sector are themselves ill-equipped to define the relationship between digital diplomacy and earlier models of diplomatic relations. On the one hand, civil servants in DFATD and the FCO describe digital diplomacy as the product of changing social and technological conditions that mean foreign ministries can no longer reach their objectives without collaborating with civil society through open, networked web technologies. On the other hand, officials were also quick to assert that digital diplomacy is, in practice, adopted because the tools and practices of the social web are a natural fit for the well-entrenched communications, intelligence gathering and networking functions of diplomacy. Analysis of each department’s central Twitter accounts provided a second route for evaluating digital diplomacy as a policy change, and suggested that in practice, digital diplomacy represents a mere digitization of traditional ways of working in DFATD and the FCO. Twitter was not used as a platform for open, networked collaboration with non-government actors. In this case, these findings suggest that digital diplomacy is simply ‘busi- ness as usual’. These findings represent only a modest attempt to define and measure the extent to which digital diplomacy initiatives depart from status quo models of diplomatic affairs. For instance, Twitter is only one piece of the broad range of platforms and tools that comprise the social web, and future studies should explore how other aspects of the social web are integrated into the work of foreign ministries, such as Facebook, blogging, crowdsourcing and big data analytics. It may very well be the case that the affordances of Twitter are simply ill-suited to a more open, collaborative model of diplomacy. Likewise, while the Twitter study presented here only addressed central, departmental adoption of the social web, scholars must also evaluate how individual foreign service officers and over- seas missions employ the social web. It is possible that in these cases, diplomacy does become more networked, open and collaborative when it is digitized on the social web. Finally, while the Twitter data presented in this chapter focuses on the communications, or ‘output’ component of digital diplomacy, researchers should also address the extent to which the monitoring, or ‘input’ component of digital diplomacy departs from traditional ways of working in foreign ministries. It is possible, for example, that much of the networked collaboration associated with digital diplomacy happens not ‘on the screen’ in open exchanges but rather as foreign service officers collect intelligence from online communities of non- government actors. In short, the uptake of digital diplomacy initiatives presents researchers with a broad range of phenomena that is ripe for empirical analyses. Through rigorous studies that present these empirical analyses, researchers will be better placed to develop descriptive and explanatory theories of digital diplomacy which can be pitted against the ‘mixed messages’ we receive from diplomats them- selves, extending our understanding of this increasingly prominent component of 126 Amanda Clarke contemporary international relations. This chapter represents an early and modest contribution to this broader research agenda. Notes 1 Note that prior to 2013, and during the time at which data collection took place, DFATD operated under the name the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). 2 In 2012–13, DFATD comprised 12,383 full-time employees and managed a budget of $3.1 billion (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada 2013a). In 2013, the FCO employed 14,087 full-time employees (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2013b) and managed a budget of £2.1 billion (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2013a). 3 Staff in DFATD and the FCO can be situated in either headquarters (Ottawa and London, respectively), in regional offices across Canada (in the case of DFATD) or in diplomatic offices abroad (embassies, high commissions, consulates, and other offices, including, in the case of the FCO, administrators in British overseas territories). DFATD manages 260 offices in 150 countries (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada 2013b). The FCO manages 270 offices in 160 countries (Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2014). 4 In 2009–13, 86.8% of Canadians were Internet users; in the same period, 87%t of UK residents were Internet users. Source: World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ IT.NET.USER.P2 5 http://hot.openstreetmap.org/about 6 www.ushahidi.com/ 7 See www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1808582&goback=%2Enpp_%2Fpeter*5mcgovern %2F15%2F835%2F1b9&trk=prof-groups-membership-logo 8 See www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/social-media_medias-sociaux.aspx# twitter 9 See www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office/about/ social-media-use#twitter 10 As of March 2014, DFATD operated twenty-five Facebook pages, twenty-eight Twitter accounts, two YouTube channels, a Foursquare account, a Flickr account, a Sina Weibo account (a Chinese language microblogging service) and also led a Trade Commissioner Service group on LinkedIn (which included eight subgroups). Uptake of the social web in the FCO has advanced somewhat more quickly and evenly than in DFATD. The department operates a significantly larger number of social media accounts than its Canadian counterpart: 148 Facebook accounts, 246 Twitter accounts, 103 Flickr accounts, four Google+ accounts, three Storify accounts, two Pinterest accounts, three Tumblrs, and ninety-five blogs. These are in addition to single accounts hosted on You- Tube, Instagram, Foursquare, LinkedIn, MixCloud, AudioBoo, BuzzFeed, Sina Weibo and YouKu (a Chinese video hosting service). 11 In the case of DFATD, the following accounts were included in the analysis: @DFAIT_ MAECI and @TCS_SDC (the account of the Trade Commissioner Service, managed centrally in Ottawa). In the case of the FCO, @foreignoffice was analyzed. 12 Note that for each department the total number of users mentioned in retweeted messages exceeds the total number of retweeted messages because, in some cases, multiple users were referenced in a single retweeted message. 13 As above, note that for each department, the total number of users mentioned in @mes- sages exceeds the total number of @messages because in some cases, multiple users were referenced in a single @message.