Russian digital diplomacy is a communication policy that engages with foreign target groups through social media and the Internet. The official beginnings of digital diplomacy date back to the year 2012, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Russia’s new practice of government-sponsored dissemination of the country’s political stance via social networks. At that time, the Ministry opened its first account on YouTube; however, Russian digital diplomacy existed before, in terms of Twitter diplomacy, or “twiplomacy”, of various Russian informational agencies—like Russia Today (RT), RIA Novosti, and Voice of Russia—and in terms of personal accounts of Russian political establishment in global social networks.
In contrast to such countries as the United States, France, Germany, Iran, and China—which quickly developed the digital apparatus of public diplomacy and became global leaders in shaping public opinion through the Internet in target countries—Russian digital diplomacy was relatively modest until 2013 (Simons, 2015b). In subsequent years, however, Russia has unexpectedly emerged as a new digital power, revisiting traditional and forgotten propagandistic approaches that were not seen since the end of the Cold War.
This chapter reveals the new methods of digital diplomacy that have modified the face of public diplomacy in terms of exploiting, provocative, inflammatory, and proactive informational measures. This chapter addresses such notions as public diplomacy and digital diplomacy, as well as the related topics of propaganda and strategic communication . Public diplomacy implies informational, educational, cultural, sports, religious, and digital projects sponsored by the government and aimed at promoting the security interests and foreign policy goals of a state. Digital diplomacy (or Internet diplomacy) is a key part of public diplomacy and is defined as the instrument for promoting the political interests of a state through the cyberworld. The concepts of propaganda and strategic communication are often defined as analogous terms and are also referred to as informational and digital projects of public diplomacy.
Current public diplomacy, digital diplomacy, propaganda, or strategic communication, and all other active measures of information are applied to some extent by all leading countries, in order to make an impact on domestic political affairs in foreign communities. The rainbow of this impact can be very broad, from meddling in local elections, to the change of a political regime, to the establishment and reinforcement of dialogue, cooperation, and partnership. The fusion of sharp and soft instruments reflects a new trend in public diplomacy and in Russian digital diplomacy in particular (Nye, 2018). The most important factors that have determined this fusion must be noted here.
First, the explosive growth of social media has produced a unique situation in the field of public diplomacy, in terms of the unpredictable effects of cyber-propaganda. The speed of engagement and the emotions have greatly increased, and users can be mobilized in months, days, or even hours; thus, political life in an offline world can change rapidly due to developments online. Twitter revolutions in Arab countries in 2010–2011, liberal demonstrations in Russia in 2011, Ukraine protests in 2014, Iranian small-scale rallies in 2017, and more are reported to have been stimulated by the information disseminated within local social media. It is the speed of dissemination of information, and its invisible effect on target audiences, that create opportunities for different entities and users to interfere in domestic political events of foreign countries and impact a target audience. In addition, instruments incorporated in social media platforms—such as inexpensive advertising, targeting users according to their political interests, and widespread dissemination of a post by means of “likes” by friends and by friends of friends—have shaped new approaches for the expansion of influence on target audiences through Facebook and Twitter. The actions of loyal users on a post contribute to the post’s profound dispersion among those who are interested in reading about and discussing a problem.
Second, the unprecedented number of citizens who use social media and the Internet also contribute to the efficacy of digital diplomacy. In the United States, for example, more than 87% of the population uses the Internet, and United States ranks 13th among 139 countries where access to the cyberworld is available. In Russia, 70.5% of the population are Internet users, and it ranks 40th (The Global Information Technology Report, 2016, pp. 163, 189, 239). Most developed countries host high numbers of citizens who use social media to read or watch news and to consume political reality through the lens of news feeds. The rise of mass consumption of political information and news through visual presentations, short videos, or footage taken by unprofessional journalists (such as bloggers on YouTube) has contributed to the fast spread of information, ideas, values, and more. News broadcasts via television have lost their popularity, creating wide possibilities for amateur broadcasters “cooking” special political videos on social media sites to make an impact on target audiences.
Third, the digital diplomacy of the United States began flourishing during the Obama administration. The government of the United States demonstrated to the world new approaches for mobilizing people and—more importantly—for promoting information related to problems neglected by mainstream media in target countries, which disparaged the images of local politicians and transformed online discussions into protest movements in the streets. The activity of US policy in the Middle East in 2009–2012 in terms of public and digital diplomacy had an enormous impact on Russia. These and other approaches of American digital diplomacy were taken on, replicated, and upgraded by Russians.
Many Russian approaches to digital diplomacy have been labeled by experts as immoral, cynical, and politically unethical. This position reflects the opinion of those receiving Russian digital diplomacy, and it is understandable. Nevertheless, the Russian move into digital diplomacy has some positive contributions. Moscow has raised new questions for experts about how powerful the political impact of social media is on citizens, opinions, and mass media. The Russian case has contributed to revisions in marketing and ethical norms in the policies of social platform companies. Putting aside the ethical aspect of cyber-diplomacy, this chapter evaluates the approaches of Russian informational activity on the Internet in terms of strategic communication and public diplomacy, as well as their prospective application by other countries and non-governmental entities.
Digital Diplomacy: As a Concept and in Practice
Digital diplomacy presents a number of communication opportunities for an actor in engaging foreign audiences. It has enabled two-way, dialogical foreign policy engagement via a wide spectrum of non-governmental and civil society organizations and actors whose participation is intended to be vital in attaining foreign policy goals. Engagement has come to be regarded as synonymous with the impact of digital media on the conduct of twenty-first-century diplomacy and the “necessity of actors from outside of government being able to share in the co-creation and co-delivery of policy” (Pamment, 2016, p. 2048). As such, the potential of digital diplomacy has influenced and affected traditional diplomacy elements by changes in the structure and processes of foreign ministries. It means information is disseminated faster and more widely, enabling people to interact with and reflect on the words and deeds of policymakers and practitioners (Adesina, 2017, p. 11; Ross, 2011; Westcott, 2008). As a result, leading global actors adopted digital diplomacy as a quick and cost-efficient means of reaching global target audiences.
The world is becoming increasingly digitally connected and networked via the proliferation of Internet access and the expansion of mobile information and communication technologies. By 2010 there were some two billion Internet connections worldwide and are rapidly growing. The growth in social media users, for example, has enabled direct connections among different audiences, the United States has seized upon this opportunity. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton pursued the policy of 21st Century Statecraft, where traditional foreign policy tools were complemented by innovating and adapting the instruments of the Department of State to enable the full advantage of technology to connect with global networked communities. This enabled rapid communication responses to crises and acted as a tool for empowerment of selected demographics, such as women (Ross, 2011). Digital diplomacy has been at the forefront of the Obama administration’s efforts to counter the narrative of Islamic extremism by revitalizing US soft power and public diplomacy and developing a creative means of communication to complement physical acts (Hallams, 2010). This was in response to the United States being put on the back foot through the skillful use of digital diplomacy by terror groups such as Al Qaeda, which was a tangible demonstration of the ability of a weaker actor to even the playing field.
Russia’s Digital Diplomacy, Early 2000s–2012: Looking for a Message and Target Audience
In the context of the current unfolding confrontation between Russia and the West, it is unbelievable that some years ago, in the early 2000s, Russia tried to convince the global community of its liberal development and democratization. Russian public diplomacy projects had a global outreach, which The Washington Post described as Russia’s desire to “tell its story of economic growth and opportunity for its citizens” and to declare “a conviction that the country [Russia] is a global player” (The Washington Post, 2008). At that time, promoting a positive image of Russia in the world was the main priority of the country’s public diplomacy, and the global community was defined as the main target audience for its cultural and informational projects.
The most illustrative example of that approach was the documentary series Cracking the Myths, aired in 2007–2008 by Russia Today, which sought to convince target audiences that the widespread perceptions of Russia as a threat and imperialist force were merely myths. The first part of each installment surveyed negative perceptions of Russia, and the second part debunked them. The approach was based on marketing a positive image using the formula in which the negative thesis meets with its anti-thesis and generates positive inference. Experts in the documentaries, as well as voices of ordinary people and images of economic development in Russia, convinced the global audience of Russia’s positive stance. In that sense, Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power and his ideas of engagement and attraction formed the cornerstone of that period of Russian public diplomacy. However, to experts in the field of public diplomacy, it was clear that an indefinite positive image was too intangible, and a global audience too wide, to promote Russia and attract people. Russia faced two known but crucial dilemmas in its digital initiatives: who was a target audience in foreign countries, and what kind of message must be sent to them?
The effectiveness of public diplomacy depends on accurately defining a target audience or the consumers of messages. Two particular groups in a foreign society were likely to be the primary targets of Russian public diplomacy. The first was people who had some ties to the USSR, the Russian language, or Russia. This was a large and heterogeneous audience, including both old and young generations, with varying levels of education and political stances. Aspirations of the audience may be positive concerning Russia, its government, and even Soviet virtues. These Russian-speaking audiences living in all parts of the world had access to the Russian-language information coming from Moscow. For several years, Russia began unexpectedly broadcasting 90% of all news for Russian-speaking populations, outpacing American and European international broadcasters who had traditionally been leaders in the production of Russian-language news for the international community.
The second group was both left and right movements who resisted mainstream news, political establishments, and the social order in different countries. Russia aimed its public and digital diplomacy at divergent political groups in foreign countries, often opposing each other. In contrast to many other countries, whose target audiences were politically homogenous, Russia selected both the liberal and anti-liberal and the left and right target audiences, lightening their contradictory positions on a problem. It should be also noted that this approach of Russia in targeting opposing audiences is in stark contrast to Soviet informational activity, which had rigorously supported a limited audience, notably pro-Communists and leftists. However, the current variety of target audiences demanded a message that could unify all these different political and social groups (Tsvetkova, 2008).
It is well known that the effectiveness of public diplomacy depends on a persistent, convincible, and positive message. For example, American public diplomacy sells a message about human rights, freedom, and democracy, and this message transfers a brand of the United States. The German approach was to sell the brand of the nation as creative, comfortable, and technologically oriented. Some years ago, Germany developed a new brand in its cultural diplomacy, which was termed “Germany—Land of Ideas”. The digital diplomacy of Iran promotes the message of Iran as a successor to Persian and Islamic culture. The message of Soviet public diplomacy encapsulated as “Proletarians of all countries, be united!” was a convincible message for targets abroad. In the 2000s, Russia did not elaborate similarly. The failure to introduce a positive, attractive message shifted Russia to the policy of anti-messaging, in terms of “question more” campaigns that criticized a domestic life in target countries and promoted an alternative political stance of Russia (Simons, 2015b; U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 2018, p. viii).
What occurred later in Russian digital diplomacy can be described as a stage of revisiting, reshaping, and redeveloping. The priorities, messages, and target audiences of Russian public diplomacy became fixed and clear in 2013–2018, in the idea of a strong Russia with economic and political influence over a vast territory stretching from Eastern Europe to the Pacific. As this idea entered the discourse of both domestic and foreign policy, the goal of improving the country’s image on a global scale was substituted with smaller, more concrete regional interests. Moreover, Moscow was upset and humiliated by the policy of the United States, which supported both a liberal opposition inside Russia and “color revolutions” in the countries around Russia, severely undermining the presence of loyal and buffer states along Russian frontiers, which Russians historically saw as a security necessity. Moscow was eager for revanchism. Furthermore, global informational campaigns against Iraqi leader Hussein, Libyan leader Kaddafi, and Syrian leader Assad taught the Kremlin a lesson: offensive informational campaigns were better than defensive ones.
These factors, among others, led to modifying Russian digital diplomacy in terms of aggressiveness and a critical stance against the West. Russian public diplomacy reshaped its values and messages to be sold abroad. The disparity of life in Western countries—framed as a threat to Russian identity, politics, and culture—was revived in terms of a new digital offensive. Traditionally conservative values, such as a strong traditional family, statecraft, and religion, became the essence of Russian messages, and they were reported to be shared by those audiences who were inclined to conservatism (Simons, 2015a). This shift in Russian public diplomacy can be labeled in terms of the Russian conservative shift that can be contrasted with liberal soft power.
Russia’s Digital Diplomacy, 2013–2018: From Critics of Everyday Life to Reality Show Campaigns in Target Countries
Critics of everyday life and politics in target countries have encapsulated Russia’s digital diplomacy policy and defined its goals, messages, and target groups since 2013. The alternative news produced by Russian international channels sought to disrupt mainstream liberal discourse in the United States and Europe. As the approach of political advocacy began to prevail in Russia’s international broadcasting activities, Russia’s flirtation with anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-US elements, along with its dialogue with conservative, nationalistic, populist, and right-wing parties, narrowed the target audience of Russian public diplomacy. In contrast to depicting a decadence of values of the West, Moscow began using its information outlets to demonstrate itself as a guardian of traditional values. Putin’s famous 2013 speech about the denial of Christian values and traditional identities by many Euro-Atlantic countries became a strategic imperative of new Russian public diplomacy (Putin, 2013).
In order to save its identity, Russia was reported to promote a so-called Russian World, a worldwide culture of traditional and conservative values that embraced all those citizens who had positive perceptions of Russia and who spoke or wrote in Russian. The political crisis in Ukraine and the relinquishment of Crimea to Russia formed a message about a strong Russia that defended the Russian World. To justify the events in Crimea, the pillars of Russian information projects incorporated the message found in such slogans as “Russia defends Russians around the world”, “the Russian World comprises all the people who have cultural, language, and historic connections to Moscow”, and “Russia must protect its cultural and language legacies around the world”. As a result, they have constituted a new foundation for Russian digital diplomacy that will last a long time (Russia Today, 2015).
Strong criticisms of politicians and of failures in social, economic, and political spheres in foreign countries became a consistent part of Russian public diplomacy. Day by day, Russia intensified its proactive and reactive informational campaigns. RT’s advocacy campaigns broadcasted what fell outside the coverage of Western media and disseminated provocative, even incendiary information. In doing so, the channel won part of the global audience that had articulated anti-Western opinions or had praised Russian positions concerning world affairs. One illustrative example was the RT talk show “The World Tomorrow” anchored by Julian Assange. The show featured dialogues with members of anti-US groups, including a leader of Hezbollah and members of antigovernment parties in different countries, such as a leader of the antigovernment movement in Bahrain. The Russian diplomacy project stirred up enthusiasm among foreigners who participated in protest movements in the United States and European countries (movements known by hashtags like #Anonymous, #OccupyWallStreet, #OccupyChicago, and #Ferguson), movements that horrified mainstream news from rival channels in the United States, Great Britain, France, and others. RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement and framed the movement as a struggle of the people against the ruling class. The US political system was described as being dominated by corporations, and the White House was accused of being a toy in their hands. Moreover, RT claimed that the US system could be changed through revolution, demonstrations, and protest movements.
In particular, the dissemination of strong anti-US sentiment became a regularly revisited strategy. Russian public diplomacy revived Soviet propaganda tools, reacting immediately to critics and negative statements about Russian foreign policy from the United States and other countries with a technique known as whataboutism, as in “What about US foreign policy, relations with Iraq, protest movements, shootings, etc.?” The mantle of that approach was an RT advertising campaign targeted at Americans, posters for which were distributed in the streets of US cities in 2014; it sought to convince the audience that US military intervention in Iraq was based on lies and deception maintained by US media, and it invited the public to “go to RT.com for the second opinion” (Tsvetkova, 2017, p. 249). Russia’s informational messages became sharper in 2015–2018. Russia had learned how to present a sincere fact in a strong negative tone. For example, a documentary about the protest movement that unfolded in the United States after the victory of Donald Trump, called “Cultures of Protest”, detailed some violent cases of the political resistance to the new President. Despite giving some balanced facts, this documentary had presentism, tonality, and a degree of anti-mainstream opinion that could shatter the value consensus of a viewer. The West was not ready for this type of Russian public diplomacy and perceived it as propaganda on the offensive. From time to time, the mainstream media and experts announced the need for rebuttal information campaigns, but almost all of them brought forth only such alarmist messages as “Russians are coming”, “Russians are here”, and so on.
The amplification of divisive problems and polarization of political issues have recently become the main attributes of digital diplomacy. Digital projects promote polarized opinions and positions on important issues and promote oppositional profiles in foreign states. The most famous illustrations were posts on Facebook, which focused on divisive messages across the ideological spectrum, touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues and from immigration to gun rights, in the United States (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017). Such accounts as “Secured Borders” and “LGBT United” are reported to be promoted by Russia in order to impact American audiences. The accounts advertise the divergent values that inflame discussions among users in both the cyber and the real world. Social media has certainly maximized user “engagement” that is exploited by propagandists. Advertising a message among favorable users assures the users of their opinions and positions more and more and leads them to be the expanders of a message that amplifies an issue (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017). An illustrative case was the posts published by “Secured Borders” on Facebook. Some of the posts declared that the borders of the United States must be secured from illegal immigration, but other posts demonstrated all the sufferings, grievances, and hardships of the deported immigrants. Thus, the profile skillfully showed two sides of the problem, but political differences were exacerbated and divisions over the problems were consequently worsened (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2017, p. 22).
Discussions about problems have been intensified by establishing multiple sources of information and profiles on social media, which has been found to be more persuasive than a single source, profile, or account. A variety of posts have emotionally resonant content. It must be noted that the establishment of twin profiles, which have invisible differences in their titles and were accompanied with popular hashtags—for example, #blacklivesmatter or #patriotic—increased the number of followers and likers and thus expanded a message among users. Some experts argue that during 2015–2017, Russia created 120–470 Facebook pages for American citizens (The New York Times, 2017a). These pages posted more than 80,000 posts and were seen by 126 million Americans, with 29 million users engaging in some action with the posts, notably sharing, liking, or writing a comment (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017). The most popular of such pages are “Blacktivists”, “United Muslims of America”, “Being Patriotic”, “Heart of Texas”, “Secured Borders”, and “LGBT United”. They dealt with the thorniest issues, such as immigration from Muslim countries, illegal immigration, liberal values and xenophobia, racial problems, and issues about sexual minorities. These six platforms are reported to have accumulated nine million active interactions and responses (The Washington Post, 2017).
Hosting on YouTube and the visualization of information have proven to be effective approaches to disseminating information. YouTube has been the most effective platform of influence on foreign audiences. No bots and no advertising/advocacy campaigns can reach the eyes and ears of users like videos and footage on YouTube can. Self-made videos about protests and video blogs (vlogs) by independent journalists produce an illusion of truth and confidential information seen in feeds. The news broadcasted through YouTube also turned out to be a main source of information. For example, “RT America” received most of its views from Americans who watched YouTube. The channel had more than 800 million views and 400 million followers on YouTube, hundreds more followers than Facebook and Twitter (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2017). Most audiences who watched RT did not search for its TV broadcasting; rather, they watched the YouTube content.
Promoting and advertising a hashtag is another effective tool in intensifying divisive issues. Promoting and advertising a hashtag, which can expose numerous details about a problem, has become one of the well-known approaches to digital diplomacy since the Arab Spring of 2010–2011. During that period, hashtags were successfully applied by activists to mobilize people for street demonstrations. Hashtags played a role in protest movements in Russia in 2011 and 2012, and today this element of social media is used by any entity that develops digital campaigns. For example, the tweets of RT and other agencies of Russian digital diplomacy frequently shared hashtags posted about WikiLeaks and vice-versa. The #podestaemails hashtag campaign proposed a long read about the details of the presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, contributing to some extent to a negative image of this candidate. Later, it became clear that the administration of Twitter made a decision to deter the expansion of the hashtag in summer 2017 (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017).
The engagement with target audiences through social media cannot be effective without a clear understanding of the aspirations, interests, and intentions of the target audience itself. Nowadays, digital diplomacy creates effective approaches to deal with the targets. Social media reconnaissance has become the preferred tactic for infiltrating and influencing a like-minded audience. In previous years, social media platforms provided open and robust data on people, which led to selecting key influencers on social media. Facebook offered available insights into key targets’ political preferences (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017). Up to 2018, social media provided a unique chance to quickly and effectively mobilize active users and the ordinary public in different countries. This effective mobilization is not centered on vague ideas, as earlier, when Russia disseminated ambiguous messages about its positive image; rather, it is centered on specific problems identified by short and attractive hashtags sent to the infiltrated target audiences. Here, bots—machine-driven communication tools—disseminate a view to the targets. Bots, not traditional international broadcasting, promote and share the stories with many thousands of users; bots can compose thousands of tweets with false and true information, accompanied by a set of hashtags; and bots can put a hashtag on Twitter’s trending list, leading to a story being picked up by genuine supporters and thus further finding its way. The main effect of the bots is that they can broadcast hashtags and topics that advance a county’s narratives directly into the feeds of social networks.
Disclosure campaigns or doxxing are also related to the current digital diplomacy. These approaches of digital diplomacy involve obtaining and disseminating confidential information by hacking, in order to embarrass or harm opponents. The most recent and serious event was the breaking into servers and the stealing of data from the Committee of the Democratic Party in August 2016. The disclosure of correspondence between Hilary Clinton’s assistants, herself, and the leaders of the Democratic Party demonstrated “dirty politics” and damaged her trustworthiness. The danger is that any political campaign in many countries could wittingly or unwittingly use doxxing against opponents that would widen possibilities for various entities to impact elections in foreign countries. Moreover, creative hashtags and videos could inflame thousands of social media users to resists the efforts of mainstream media to smoothen a situation. For example, RT disseminated an English-language video called “Julian Assange Special: Do WikiLeaks Have the E-mail That’ll Put Clinton in Prison?” that kept anger at a fever pitch in those who were against Hilary Clinton (Russia Today, 2016).
The final and possibly the strongest digital approach was an information campaign aimed at pushing users to make public actions, termed reality show campaign. The most famous and widely discussed case was the so-called “vote-by-text” campaign, which “encouraged” American users to vote by SMS and tweets and not to go to voting centers. The other case, provoked by a fake social media campaign, was the street demonstrations of supporters and opponents of a Muslim library in Texas. These cases, ascribed to Russia, have been found to play a central role in global digital diplomacy and might be applied by those countries who develop digital diplomacy (The New York Times, 2017b; U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2017).
The practice of bots, disclosure, and offline campaigns brought digital diplomacy to the next level. It is clear that a machine will win target audiences. Artificial intelligence and its application in digital diplomacy will become the next level in the development of public diplomacy, as seriously discussed by both American and European experts (Department of State, 2017). A robot would be able to give a precise and convincible answer to thousands of commenters under a post and to disseminate a message among millions of people.
Conclusion
Russian digital diplomacy has gone through two stages in its development. Its beginning can be referred to the early 2000s, when Moscow tried to promote a positive but ultimately too-abstract image of Russia as a part of the global community system. Problems with elaborating attractive messages and with defining a target audience demonstrated a weakness in its first steps. In 2013, the goals of Russian foreign policy started being revised in terms of replacing indefinite global outreach with a definite regional approach to build a new empire; when conservatism began to dominate in politics, Russian digital diplomacy found its target audiences, goals, and messages.
To some extent, Russia’s digital diplomacy was born as an e-replica of the digital diplomacy of the United States, who appealed directly through Twitter and Facebook to pro-liberal communities around the world. Russia has learned this approach, among other American digital approaches, and has exploited them to attain its own political goals. Moreover, Russia polished these tactics, introducing such new ideas as: narrowing the target audience to anti-establishment and marginal groups; highlighting and expanding hot problems neglected by mainstream mass media; changing a stance of the audience by countless posts, tweets, and smart hashtags; and making disclosure campaigns become a part of digital diplomacy.
Unsurprisingly, digital diplomacy—or rather, the unexpected digital offensive or neorevanchism of Russia—has caused concern in governments and experts in Germany, Great Britain, France, and the United States. Recent emotions that inflamed citizens show that nobody was ready for Russia’s active position in terms of imperialistically promoting its own opinion and position. If we put aside emotions and evaluate these digital approaches in terms of communication and influence, it is clear that Russia was the first to accumulate and apply all the possible instruments provided by the development of social platforms that would be used by countries who develop Internet diplomacy. Moreover, Russia has contributed to a public understanding of social media’s power to mold public opinion and has contributed to re-assessments and to revisions in the policies of transparency and of political advertising on social media. Finally, Russia has gained its status as a digital empire by changing Internet diplomacy in countless ways, big and small.