The Strategic Narrative of the US Digital Diplomacy Against China During the COVID-19 Pandemic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36941/mjss-2025-0002Keywords:
Digital Diplomacy, Strategic Narrative, Social Media, Corona Epidemic, US-China RelationsAbstract
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the diplomatic relations of the states were challenged. In this situation, the US government has sought to use digital diplomacy against China to build strategic narratives and to express its identity and images in the international system. The current study sought to answer the following questions: How does the US State Department articulate its goals and policies in the international system against China by constructing strategic narratives in the wake of the global pandemic crisis? What are the important reasons for this US government agency's producing and spreading these narratives? The study argues that the increasing popularity of social media in the world during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the importance of digital diplomacy as a US foreign policy tool for producing strategic narratives in comparison with China. Using the method of qualitative content analysis, the hidden meanings of the content of the three social media platforms of Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube of the US State Department are shown. It highlights two strategic narratives that can be named: the right behavior of the United States in foreign and domestic policy and the wrong behavior of China in foreign and domestic policy. In the strategic narrative of America's correct behavior in foreign and domestic policy, two genres were shown 'the saviors of the world in the COVID-19 pandemic, confronting China's misguided policies as a security threat'. At the same time, in the strategic narrative of China's misbehavior in foreign and domestic policy, two other genres were identified: 'the opaque and irresponsible government towards the COVID-19 pandemic, the authoritarian inside, and the aggressive outside'.
Received: 16 November 2024 / Accepted: 7 January 2025 / Published: 21 January 2025
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.