#Cyberculture agenda: ” use of videos in Digital Diplomacy…”How Twitter’s Feed Algorithm Works…

Images & Diplomacy

Images have traditionally played an important role in diplomacy. For instance, paintings were often used to bare testimony to diplomatic summits and conferences. Such is the case with Gerard ter Borch’s painting of the treaty of Munster. Additionally, political cartoons were used to narrate a nation’s foreign policy, frame its adversaries, manage public expectations and raise support for government policy.  Such is the case with the cartoon below depicting the British monarch and Napoleon.  Finally, images could, at times, lead to diplomatic crises. Such was the case when Hans Holbein chose to depict Anne of Cleves as a rare beauty. The disappointment of Henry the 8^th with the actual Anne led to their divorce and the collapse of a union between England and Protestant German states.

  I have a new paper out in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers with Andrea Ballatore and Shilad Sen. In it, we ask (and empirically answer) questions about the the local-ness versus foreign-ness of content that Google serves up to people around the world. You can access the full paper below.