Blog

  Written by: Miriam Možgan Former journalist, former Secretary-General of the Bled Strategic Forum, strategic communication advisor, digital diplomat, currently working at the Slovenian Diplomatic Academy   The digitalisation of diplomacy has been constantly shaped by offline events. From remote working to diplomacy, banking, and online retail, the pandemic has compressed a year’s worth of transformation into months, bringing with it a dramatic shake-up in how people live, where they work, and how they socialise, and in how governments communicate to each other and with their public. We have witnessed diplomats adopting Zoom and Webex technologies, dropping their risk-averse costumes and adopting [...]

Written by: Marina Marković Head of the Public Diplomacy Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia   First of all, I hope that you are all well, that these strange, sometimes even scary times marked by COVID-19 have not been too harsh on you, that you and your close ones are all doing well, and that we shall soon have an opportunity to meet in person to do a proper EDDE (European Digital Diplomacy Exchange … I like all these words, but my favourite one has become exchange, in the sense of a proper, in-person chat—the EDDE has [...]

Written by: Ilija Zhupanoski Digital Communications Advisor to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia   The use of information and communication technologies can be very helpful when it comes to attaining traditional diplomacy goals. The information shared on social media rapidly spreads across the globe, carrying messages, images or videos from one country to attract sympathies of citizens in another country. In the modern world of today, digital communications have allowed governments to significantly increase transparency of their institutions by regularly providing information to citizens and enhanced their openness, maintaining the citizens’ high level of trust in the authorities. The same [...]

Written by: Alex Roitman Moldovan career diplomat, a founding member of the European Digital Diplomacy Board.   Audio-only social media app. My morning started unusually. I was listening to what seemed to be a phone conversation between Russian bloggers (Ilya Varlamov), civil activists, lawyers (Ilya Novikov), and participants all the way from Moscow and Saint Petersburg down to Rostov. They were sharing their thoughts on coronavirus restrictions and vaccination, politics in Russia and worldwide, or weather, as if they are gathered in a room, to which I was also invited, better said, to which I got by mistake. I kept my [...]

Written by: Mykolas Mazolevskis Chief Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania Communication and Cultural Diplomacy Department Public Information Division, who is responsible for MFA’s digital communication on different social media platforms.   At the beginning of 2021, when we talk about the year 2020, when we even (dare to) remember the year that passed not so long ago we tend to think about it in a bad way. Well apparently most of us do. We watch video reviews about how the year was the worst in a century or spend an evening sitting on a [...]

Author: Alex Roitman Moldovan career diplomat, founding member of the European Digital Diplomacy Board The year 2021 started with the implementation of the Brexit Deal—video cameras were installed in the busy Port of Dover, a border crossing between the UK and France, recording hundreds of trucks passing through the Eurotunnel, customs and borders, under new rules. The EU as an organization and its member states are still trying to acknowledge the new looming reality. This situation was once difficult to imagine, yet we witnessed the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, bearing all of its political, social [...]

Authors: Matthew Jacobs Digital Coordinator, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State Ingrid Omahna Project Coordinator, Centre for European Perspective This article was originally published as part of the 2018 edition of Bled Strategic Times, the official gazzette of the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) international conference.  Just as the advent of the printing press precipitated a vast rise in global literacy and interconnectivity over five hundred years ago, the development and proliferation of modern digital communication technologies has revolutionized the way individuals across the globe are creating, transmitting, receiving, and internalizing information. The emergence of inexpensive and [...]