Ben O'Loughlin and Alister Miskimmon will present a paper The Visual Diplomacy of the Iran Deal on 20 January 2017 at The Oxford Digital Diplomacy Working Group's Workshop in Images and Narratives. The topic they address is: how could the EU and IAEA lead long-time enemies Iran and the US to a deal in 2015 on Iran's nuclear programme? In their paper they show how the leading players - Kerry, Zarif, Khamenei, and Mogherini - used social media to visualise momentum and the inevitability of a deal. They show how these visuals kept a focus on scientific and economic cooperation and away from religious or geopolitical conflict. Finally, they trace how journalists were cut out of the loop so that domestic tensions could be sidestepped. This allowed a deal, but did the failure to fully explain the deal to publics in the US, Europe and Iran mean support for cooperation could be unravelled in years to come?
The full programme is below.
9:30 AM Welcome Remarks & Workshop Rationale - Mr. Ilan Manor and Dr. Rhys Crilley
9:45 AM Narratives and Images in Digital Diplomacy
. Images of #givingtoindia: Iconographies of transnational modernity in India’s Digital
Diaspora Diplomacy. Jennifer Dickinson (University of Winchester)
. Telling NATO’s story of Afghanistan: TakingSeriously the alliance’s digital diplomacy. Katherine Wright (University of Winchester)
. We Need a Hero! Just crusaders and vengeful villains in the post-heroic age. Julian Schmid (University of Warwick)
. The iconic FCO- On the Use of Iconic Imagery in British Digital Diplomacy. Ilan Manor (University of Oxford)
. Seeing Syria: The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces on Facebook. Dr. Rhys Crilley (University of Warwick)
11:30 AM Coffee Break
11: 45 AM Narratives and Images- From Trump to Iran
. From Trump to Daesh: The end of taken for grantedness and the digital production of narratives. Jan Wilkens (University of Hamburg)
. The Visual Diplomacy of the Iran Deal. Ben O’Loughlin (Royal Holloway) Alister Miskimmon (Royal Holloway)
. The Practitioners View. Alicia Kearns (Global Influence, FCO)
. Summary and Conclusions. Corneliu Bjola (University of Oxford)
Thanks to Ilan Manor, Rhys Crilley and Corneliu Bjola for organising the workshop.