US Ambassador to Kenya is broadcasting tweets, but is he listening back?
About two weeks ago the new U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger, a career foreign service officer with deep experience on the African continent, started a Twitter feed. The seven tweets so far have been lauded as another example of "Twitter Diplomacy." As Shashank Bengali who blogs for McClatchey put it, the Ambassador has "come out swinging" with highly charged comments about Kenyan presidential appointees and support of opposition votes.
It's excellent that the Ambassador is using this new tool for outreach. But is he using it in context? In conversations over the past few months with US Foreign Service officers, for forthcoming articles I am writing about the role of social media in foreign policy and public diplomacy, a theme has appeared: In the rush to use social media and appear technologically au courant, diplomats have expressed frustration that they are simply being told to use the technology without any context.
In the case of Ambassador Ranneberger, his follower list is approaching 200, but he is following no one. I find that Twitter's potential is maximized when it is treated as a conversation. Indeed, diplomacy and especially public diplomacy, is often most successful when the audience feels like they are being listened to. In 1992 when I was at the Voice of America, the mantra in the halls was "from monologue to dialogue," which was an effort to demonstrate that VOA was not just about broadcasting a message, but engaging listeners in a conversation.
In Twitter the best way to demonstrate "dialogue" is by following the people with whom you are trying to create discourse. Sure the Ambassador (or his staff if he is indeed writing the tweets) can follow replies in the Twitter stream. But savvy audiences know better. If you're not following someone it means their information is not a central or important piece of information to you. For people in the diplomatic corps who are ostensibly specialists in cultural nuance, the message one sends by not following someone can be as significant, and culturally insensitive, as showing the soles of your shoe to a diplomat in the Middle East.
The challenge with digital diplomacy is not just incorporating digital tools into your repertoire, but knowing how and when to use them.
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