Dusek: The problem with Twitter diplomacy

by Andrew Dusek | March 9, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

In 1964, Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.”  McLuhan asserted that the form of a medium embeds itself in the actual message it sends. As a result, the media and the message create a symbiotic relationship wherein the medium influences how the message is perceived. This inadvertently gives the medium as much significance as the actual content. 

In the 46 years since McLuhan’s prophetic concept was unveiled, media and technology have changed drastically. We now live in an age of increasing media use and decreasing human contact. While social networking is convenient and keeps us connected, it also limits or skews the messages we are trying to convey. 

A text message can’t effectively convey complexity and nuance the way an actual person, a phone call or even a handwritten letter can. Nevertheless, text messages, tweets and IMs have replaced more personal forms of outreach and now limit most interaction between people to the darkness and anonymity of cyberspace. As the personal element of communication is removed from the equation, signals will get mixed, confusion will ensue and self-imposed isolation will increase. For this reason, social networking technology may eventually be the death knell of interpersonal communication as we know it. 

Soon, people may even stop meeting altogether and conduct all communication via social networking. I therefore implore you: How much is social networking affecting how important communication is facilitated? When is the medium going to render the message it’s transmitting obsolete? 

As Internet dependence replaces interdependence, professions once reliant on personal contact are bound to suffer. The art of diplomacy may just be one of the first to feel the effects.

A few weeks ago, Washington sent a delegation to Russia in an attempt to persuade the former communist country’s thriving online social networks to take up social causes like fighting corruption and human trafficking. The ambassadors assembled were not professional diplomats or congressional representatives. Instead, they were computer nerds and Silicon Valley CEOs. The delegation included the 33-year-old creator of Twitter, the “chief lizard wrangler” of Mozilla, the chief executive of eBay and, since no one else must have been available, Ashton Kutcher, the world’s most high-profile tweeter.

The rationale for the delegation seems to be that by advocating policy changes through new media, Washington can reach broader audiences and enable citizens to pressure their government for true reform. This broad support for social networking is being viewed by some as a means to democratize authoritarian states through a sort of “techno-utopianism.” But democracy can’t come from a computer screen alone.

The idealistic belief that the world can be changed through social networking is naïve and can produce fatal consequences. Authoritarian states, such as Iran, have already begun viewing Twitter users with suspicion. Scrutiny of China’s Internet censorship policies is causing backlash against foreign critics.

I feel very uneasy about the idea of seeing statecraft one day conducted via Twitter. The very fact that personal interaction takes place between individuals, especially unfriendly ones, conveys an important message. That’s why it’s such a breakthrough when warring leaders even sit down to chat. We can’t take that away.

If increased speed is the rationale, that hasn’t been an issue since before WWI. Diplomacy is an art form that is not designed to move at hyper-speed. As Joe Klein from Time magazine writes, “In an era when Twitter haiku messaging rules, diplomacy moves at the speed, and requires the nuanced complexity, of literature.” If statecraft, then, is like composing prose, true art cannot be created hastily. In a profession where each punctuation mark must be chosen with extreme care, the slightest mistake can prove antithetical to the true meaning of the message a state is trying to convey. If a semicolon is used in place of a comma, negotiation can break down and stalemate can ensue.

Matters of speed aside, imagine the disastrous implications the very limits of social networking can have on diplomacy. I can’t even begin to fathom what would happen if Hillary Clinton’s T9 malfunctioned or the crucial part of her message was cut off at the 140 character limit during an important text to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I understand the possible benefits social networking may one day serve for politics. Technology is revolutionizing the way we live our lives, but the human factor is an important component of statecraft that can’t be replaced. As a living medium, we convey a pretty important message.

Andrew Dusek is a senior majoring in print journalism and international relations and comparative politics.

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