CISD hosts cyberdiplomacy roundtable

By Fadil Elobeid|May 24, 2019|News|15 comments

The Centre for International Studies & Diplomacy (CISD), hosted a roundtable discussion “Cyber-Diplomacy: international affairs in the digital age” on Thursday 23 May 2019. The debate featured a range of SOAS academics and external participants, and ran from 12:00-17:00. The event was held under Chatham House Rules.

In a moment reflecting the significance of visual language in digital diplomacy, the day began with a “groufie”, courtesy of Twiplomacy’s Matthias Lüfkens.

Un-diplomactic use of #cyberdiplomacy has very high risks of people killing each other

Fascinating discussions @soas_cisd about #DigitalDiplomacy pic.twitter.com/3DCfACFtDW

— Twiplomacy #DigitalDiplomacy (@Twiplomacy) May 23, 2019

The first session focused on Shaun Riordan’s recent book “Cyberdiplomacy: Managing Security and Governance Online”, with responses from CISD’s Dr Dan Plesch and Dr Hanns Kendel.

Thanks to @DrJSimonRofe for having me at the @SOAS_CISD workshop on #CyberDiplomacy – International affairs in the digital age today 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Fn4EykcSrT

— Matthias Lüfkens 🇪🇺 (@luefkens) May 23, 2019

The session then opened up to a wider debate aimed at defining “Cyberdiplomacy”, and featured remarks from Dr Nicholas Westcott, as well as video contributions from Alexander Evans, Director Cyber, UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and Dr Ilan Manor, author of “The Digitalization of Public Diplomacy“.

The second session, which was opened by Oxford University’s Dr Corneliu Bjola, focused on future developments in cyberdiplomacy.

Fascinating discussions and presentations at @soas_cisd @SOAS Now @CBjola diving into #digital and monitoring disinformation @drjsimonrofe @DanPlesch @SYMConsult @shaun_riordan pic.twitter.com/n9GfQMf0fL

— Jose Gigante, FRSA (he/him) (@SportEducation) May 23, 2019

Dr Katharina Hone made the following contribution on the role of Big Data in digital diplomacy.

at a really timely event at @soas_cisd on 'Cyber diplomacy: international affairs in the digital age' I'm up next (after the wonderful @CBjola ) and will be talking about #bigdata. Want to know more? Here is our @DiplomacyEdu report on the topic https://t.co/azlVFN2XVu https://t.co/E8Ge72QQo0

— Dr Katharina E Höne (@KatHone) May 23, 2019

The next two presenters discussed the importance of visual media within cyber/digital diplomacy. Matthias Lüfkens explored the significance of “selfie diplomacy”.

Thanks to @DrJSimonRofe for having me at the @SOAS_CISD workshop on #CyberDiplomacy – International affairs in the digital age today 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Fn4EykcSrT

— Matthias Lüfkens 🇪🇺 (@luefkens) May 23, 2019

While Massimiliano Fusari from the University of Westminster discussed visual communication of diplomacy on digital media.

To keep up-to-date with news about cyberdiplomacy, follow the participants from the roundtable: @shaun_riordan, @Ilan_Manor, @CBjola, @KatHone, @NickWestcottRAS, @DanPlesch, @drjsimonrofe, @Twiplomacy, @luefkens, @imassimedia.