Shakespeare Lives on Twitter: cultural diplomacy in the digital age

If you are interested in how organisations can promote a national culture, Ben and his colleagues have published a new article which you can read here. They worked with the British Council to explore how the UK could promote Shakespeare throughout 2016 to commemorate his life. Money from the UK government was used to stage events, activities and online discussions around the world. This became the Shakespeare Lives campaign. The purpose was to create engagement with Shakespeare and his work. As a soft power project, this was intended to bring benefits to UK identity - an indirect or subtle form of promotion. It allowed audiences in different countries to talk about which artists they valued and why. This created an often cosmopolitan dialogue of undoubted value, even if the UK itself was not often mentioned. We hope you enjoy the article.