Description
Real-Time Diplomacy explores the media’s role in the process of political change. As a backdrop to the events of 2011, this book examines how diplomacy has evolved as media have gradually reduced the time available to policy makers. It analyzes the workings of real-time diplomacy and the opportunities for media-centered diplomacy programs that bypass governments and directly engage foreign citizens. The book also discusses the ways that lessons from recent electoral campaigns – such as Barack Obama’s use of social media in his 2008 presidential race – are applicable to emerging democracies around the world. Also examined are the root causes of the public anger that led to revolution: the social inequities, out-of-touch autocrats, repressive tactics, and other factors that were the tinder set afire by media’s sparks.
