• USAbilAraby: Social Media, Public Diplomacy, and the Audience Conundrum


    On February 9, 2011, the U.S. State Department launched an Arabic-language Twitter account. Its first tweet declared:





    [“The U.S. State Department recognizes the historic role that social media is playing in the Arab world and we want to be part of your conversations #Jan25 #Egypt”]


    In its Twitter profile, the service was ascribed to the Arabic Media Hub of the State Department, an organization for which no publicly accessible info could be found on the State Department’s website, but implied additional social media presences to come. Sure enough, almost three months later, on May 4, 2011, subsequent to the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a YouTube channel was launched under the same account name.

    This Arabic-language social media initiative is actually part of a broader exploration of newer communication technologies as tools of diplomacy, grouped together by the State Department under the rubric “21st Century Statecraft.” This includes, among other elements, Twitter accounts in Russian, Spanish, Farsi, and Hindi.

    But what conversations does the service actually facilitate?

    In the forty-eight hours after the account’s first tweet, there were 400-plus mentions of USAbilAraby. Most were announcements of the existence of the account itself, such as this one from the Digital Communications Director at the State Department, which was then widely retweeted:






    There were few attempts to engage in direct conversation. None of these tweets—neither those describing it nor those addressing comments to it—were in Arabic.

    The first Arabic to appear in public conversation with/about USAbilAraby actually took the form of a translated retweet:








    The first exchange to occur at least partially in Arabic appears to be the following set of three tweets, beginning with a comment in English from alysaleh, followed by a retweet by the same user of one of USAbilAraby’s tweets, and then closed by a response—in Arabic—from USAbilAraby, thanking alysaleh for the mention:










    Soon after this, USAbilAraby starts to receive the occasional tweet in Arabic; for example:







    However, the overwhelming majority of tweets mentioning or addressing USAbilAraby remains in English, a trend that continues today.

    This doesn’t, of course, mean that USAbilAraby is a failure; there may be scores of people reading its tweets in Arabic, whether as followers or through retweets. But it is interesting, nonetheless, that an account that has explicitly stated a desire to take part in conversations of the Arab world remains enmeshed in conversations that occur in English rather than Arabic.


    What, then, is the content of these English-language mentions/exchanges?


    As one might expect, two of the most common content trends are retweets of official statements and criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. Thus, for example:










    Twitter users are also situating it within the context of other public diplomacy efforts:










    Using it to improve their Arabic language skills:









    And scrutinizing which accounts USAbilAraby follows:







    Finally, there is a significant metalinguistic thread in tweets mentioning USAbilAraby:










    To a certain extent, these trends are not surprising. Retweets of official pronouncements, critical comments, and careful dissection of linguistic choices and accounts followed are only to be expected. However, it is interesting that the conversation surrounding the account remains strongly embedded in English-language discussion. A number of possible explanations for this exist. It may be that USAbilAraby has been unable to engage many Twitter users who tweet in Arabic. It may be that this is a natural reaction to public diplomacy efforts that aren’t shuttered from view by geographical localization; USAbilAraby cannot limit its audience in the same way as organizations on the physical ground often can. It may be a function of the fact that, despite the ever-increasing online presence of other languages, English is still widely regarded as the lingua franca of the web. It may be due to some entirely different factor.


    Regardless, given that the spaces of social media aren’t tied to geographical borders—and the relationships between populations and languages may be hazier in these spaces—it will be very interesting to observe how public diplomacy efforts that attempt to target regional audiences through the use of global spaces and media develop. One can’t help but wonder if the first development might not be—shouldn’t be?—a redefinition of this limited conception of audience itself.


    By Amy Johnson

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