Last week, the UK Foreign Office held a Digital Diplomacy event. Chaired by the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones and promoted by Weber Shandwick, the event was designed as a showcase for the recent intensification of social media initiatives at the FCO. These come under the heading of “Bringing Foreign Policy Home.”

Cellan-Jones has a typically funny post about the event.

While it’s easy to be sceptical, it’s interesting to note that the FCO has not dumped its earlier internet enthusiasm overboard, as many predicted would happen when David Miliband and members of his team started blogging a couple of years ago.

The FCO bloggers are one of the several examples I discuss in my latest paper:Chadwick, A. (2009) “Web 2.0: New Challenges for the Study of E-Democracy in an Era of Informational Exuberance”I/S: Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society5 (1), pp. 9-41. Download pdf.

[First published at andrewchadwick.com]