This chapter highlights the innovative potential of Web 2.0, and the experiences of governments actively using new online social networking applications, in order to examine the prospects, benefits and risks of Web 2.0-enabled public diplomacy. It concludes that the future of public diplomacy lies in collaboration, whereby governments and ‘global citizens’ build relationships and use them to develop cross-national initiatives to address policy challenges. A growing proportion of such collaborative activity will be online in virtual worlds. The discussion will be speculative, asking: Does it still makes sense to consider online and offline worlds as separate? What are the benefits and risks of using online tools for advocacy and policy development? How will traditional diplomatic skills, premised on understanding of local cultures and networks, adapt to virtual worlds?

Collaboration is increasingly the hallmark of a networked world.¹ The rise of virtual worlds (terms in bold are explained under ‘Glossary’ towards the end of this chapter) and an online culture of open sharing offer policy-makers new opportunities to move from one-way messaging (the speeches, statements and press releases of ministers and ministries) towards dialogue and cross-national engagement.²

A second generation of internet-based software, sometimes known as ‘Web 2.0’, has the potential to change fundamentally how foreign ministries manage knowledge and communicate with more connected, yet more diverse and fragmented, domestic and global publics. Web 2.0 applications – online collaborative working (‘wikis’), web logs (‘blogs’), and social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Second Life – can reinforce existing relationships and build new ones by educating and mobilising citizens, and encouraging the co-creation of policy.

Web 2.0 will redefine how foreign ministries communicate and collaborate with publics (and their own employees) more than any previous technologies. Why? Because Web 2.0 enables interaction.

by Evan H. Potter, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa

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