Digital diplomacy: Face management in MFA Twitter accounts

Assuming that states can be perceived as social, intentional, and communicating actors, this paper brings a sociopragmatic perspective to the study of digital diplomacy by contrasting three states that are actively trying to appeal to the international community while maintaining freedom of action: Israel, Russia, and Turkey. We analyze how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of each state uses its Twitter account to interact with other actors in the international arena and manage face. Using quantitative content analysis, we examined 597 tweets in order to map their topics and pragmatic functions. We found that the three MFAs tweeted mostly about interstate cooperation and international matters (52%) and that the dominant function of their tweets was presenting the state's positive face (45%). However, the three accounts differed in their understanding of the digital platform and the interactional strategy they preferred to deploy in pursuing their foreign policy goals. Lastly, we demonstrate that Twitter is seen as a legitimate platform for acting within the international arena, and discuss how the framework of sociopragmatics reveals that although public diplomacy is addressed to foreign publics, its recipients are international actors. Thus, Twitter affords the implementation of a state foreign policy in addressing multiple audiences. 摘要 通过假设国家能被感知为社会行动者、有意行动者和传播行动者，本文以社会语用视角（socio‐pragmatic perspective）比较三个正积极努力吸引国际社会同时保持行动自由的国家：以色列、俄罗斯和土耳其，进而研究数字外交。我们分析了这三国的外交部如何使用各自的推特帐户与国际舞台中的其他行动者互动并管理形象。我们对597条推文使用定量内容分析，以期映射推文主题和语用功能。我们发现，这三国的外交部基本发布的是关于国与国合作及国际事务的推文（52%），并且推文的主要功能是呈现国家的积极形象（45%）。不过，就对数字平台的理解以及为追求各自外交政策目标而青睐的互动策略而言，这三个推特账户存在差异。最后，我们证明，推特被视为用于在国际上行动的合法平台，我们还探讨了社会语用框架如何揭示“尽管公共外交面向外国公众，但其受众却是国际行动者”一事。因此，推特能执行面向多个受众的国家外交政策。 Resumen Asumiendo que los estados pueden ser percibidos como actores sociales, intencionales y comunicadores, este documento aporta una perspectiva socio‐pragmática al estudio de la diplomacia digital al contrastar tres estados que están tratando activamente de apelar a la comunidad internacional mientras mantienen la libertad de acción: Israel, Rusia y Turquía. Analizamos cómo el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de cada estado utiliza su cuenta de Twitter para interactuar con otros actores del ámbito internacional y gestionar el rostro. Utilizando análisis de contenido cuantitativo, examinamos 597 tweets para mapear sus temas y funciones pragmáticas. Descubrimos que los tres MFA tuitearon principalmente sobre cooperación interest