DIPLOMACY AND SOCIAL MEDIA: THE UTILISATION OF INSTAGRAM AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INDONESIA’S ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY

Primadiana Yunita, Pantri Muthriana Erza Killian

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed various aspects of interstate relations, including the practice of economic diplomacy. Conventional diplomatic methods which rely on direct interactions have shifted to digital methods, including the use of social media. This research aims to analyse how the Indonesian government utilises Instagram as one instrument of its economic diplomacy. The conceptual basis for this research is adopted from Kishan Rana’s three stages of developing countries’ economic diplomacy model which are salesmanship, networking, and regulatory management (Rana, 2012). Employing a mixed method approach based on volume and thematic analysis, several findings can be identified. First, Indonesia’s economic diplomacy through Instagram tends to be most active in Asia with three accounts having the highest public engagement, namely the Indonesian embassy in South Korea, Kazakhstan, and Cambodia. In all cases, the role of the private sector within – or in cooperation with – the embassy was a determining factor. Second, based on the patterns of Instagram content, Indonesian representative tends to only focus on network building, with little regard for salesmanship and regulatory management activities. This shows that the utilisation of social media for economic diplomacy by Indonesian representatives is mostly still an extension of Indonesia’s classic diplomatic practice which relies more on building and maintaining the network.

 

 

Keywords: big data, digital diplomacy, economic diplomacy, social media

Keywords

Social Science; International Relations; Journal

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14203/jpp.v21i1.1482

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