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Telediplomacy: World politics and the collapse of time and space
Abstract
Diplomatic scholars and practitioners alike have long recognized that a relationship exists between communications and diplomacy. However, the extent, and especially the effects, of the interconnectedness between these two disciplines have yet to be thoroughly explored. This study argues that changes in the prevailing methods of communication have historically been determinative of diplomatic processes. Furthermore, recent developments have allowed communications to exert an affect upon diplomatic products as well. Two distinct paradigmatic changes in Western diplomacy have occurred, each precipitated by corresponding shifts in the prevailing method of communication. Using case study material from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, this study argues that a third diplomatic paradigm is just emerging. This third paradigm, “telediplomacy,” is being precipitated by the advent of real-time, global communications in the 1980s, which effectively collapsed time and space with regard to information flows. Telediplomacy is distinguished by the ability of global television to influence policy outcomes under certain narrowly circumscribed conditions. The 1991 humanitarian relief efforts undertaken on behalf of the post-Gulf War Kurdish refugees provide the first clear example of communications' ability to affect diplomatic products. The requisite conditions for communications to influence policy inhered in the case of the Kurds and a major international relief effort was mounted on their behalf. However, as the 1994 Rwandan genocide demonstrates, there are definite limits to communications' ability to affect policy outcomes. The historic interconnectedness between diplomacy and communications suggests that tomorrow's diplomacy can be better understood by studying today's prevailing communications method. Furthermore, communications' future influence upon diplomacy can be better understood by distinguishing between communications' historic ability to influence diplomatic processes and its more recent ability to influence diplomatic products. Today's increasing reliance upon real-time global television suggests that tomorrow will bring an increasing role for communications in determining diplomatic outcomes. However, a determination as to the incidence or extent of communications' ability to influence diplomacy's product must await further diplomatic practice and research.
Subject Area
International law|International relations|Mass media|Journalism
Recommended Citation
Ammon, Royce J, "Telediplomacy: World politics and the collapse of time and space" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9917818.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9917818