Just a little tired of the Twitter Machine

Dominique Lopes

SIS-628-02 Applied Public Diplomacy
10/11/2012

Blogs and Bullets 2 Report and the Jillian York offer a healthy dose of skepticism about the role of technology in the Arab uprisings. How does this skepticism affect your views of social media in the service of PD?

  Twittering Machine, Paul Klee 1922 

Where York claims that new social media and technological networking were the obvious stars to rise out of the Arab spring, myself and the authors of the Blogs and Bullets 2 Report are a little more skeptical. While social media sites like Twitter and Facebook played a role in allowing for information to be disseminated more widely, they were not the keys to the revolutions the Arab nations witnessed in the spring of 2011. Social media allows for wider audiences virtually, but it can never replace the face to face, and to suggest in order to make real change we must update our blog or get one more a hundred or so words out there is missing the point of Public Diplomacy.

In the Blogs and Bullets 2 Report the authors rightfully, I feel, point out that social media is a tool, one among many. There are many more steps and apparatuses that a public diplomat must utilize in his or her position. For example, today I sat at a panel discussion with two musicians who were acting as public diplomacy officers. Both women were from the Middle East and spoke on the role of social media for their countries and their line of work. Both admitted that social media allowed them to get started, but pointed out that it was the music that allowed them to be successful public diplomats and not social media. They set down with other musicians from countries around their home of Pakistan and were embraced, because in this “last three feet”, whether or not they had a Twitter feed became a non sequitur.  

Honestly, I am very weary of social media. It has its place, especially in today’s social world, but we should never use it as a substitute for face to face interactions. It is quick and can be informative and must remain just one of many tools for public diplomacy.