DIGITAL PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND NATIONAL IMAGE-MAKING: CHINA’S TWITTER COMMUNICATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

Abstract

Twitter’s global reach impacts countries’ digital public diplomacy and image-building efforts. It provides a highly dynamic public space for government agencies to directly engage with a diverse international audience in near real-time, effectively promoting national interests and building a favorable image. This article explores China's digital public diplomacy and image-making efforts within the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through Twitter communication in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It uses a census of tweets posted by Chinese diplomats or embassies/consulates on their official Twitter accounts and public responses to those tweets between August 1, 2019, and March 30, 2023. We used Python programming powered by machine learning algorithms and deep learning models to extract and analyze data to excerpt insights and knowledge from the large volume of unstructured textual-based data, shedding light on China's digital public diplomacy and image-making efforts in the MENA regions. The study identifies 12 key themes in China’s Twitter communication in the MENA region. Among them, China's Foreign Relations (CFR) emerged as the most dominant theme. Secondly, we explore three aspects of public engagement: the frequency analysis, the sentiment analysis, and the geographical distribution of the sentiments.