The Role of Social Media in Public Diplomacy - Florina Lepadatu

The Role of Social Media in Public Diplomacy. A comparison between Romanian Embassy to P.R.China and Chinese Embassy to Romania. The main objective of the present dissertation is to explore the role played by social media in the field of diplomacy within the Romanian Embassy to the P.R. China and Chinese. Embassy to Romania. The aim of this research is to answer the question whether the social media plays or not an essential role in public diplomacy strategies performed by Chinese and Romanian Embassies? In order to pursue the objective and answer the research questions, data was gathered with the help of the Romanian Embassy to P.R. China and Chinese Embassy to Bucharest (Romania). Public diplomacy is unquestionably a very fascinating area, but in Romania, it is still at an early developing stage, both theoretically and practically. Chinese Embassy to Romania has got an official Facebook account and page, where it interacts with the Romanian public in order to gain a wider popularity, and implicitly promoting a positive image of China. Conceding that Chinese Embassy in Romania is making use of a large number of tools to achieve a perfect diplomacy, the Romanian Embassy to the P.R. China is way behind inusing any of these gears. After analyzing the present literature, conducting five-month observation inside the Romanian Embassy and interviewing diplomats, it has been found that Romanian Embassy deficiency is reflected in the adoption of a "media diplomacy" strategy. The absence of mediation through social media scores a bad point for Romania. Moreover, the results of the interviews showed that the main gap is represented by communication, which is either inside or outside the Romanian Embassy.