Restoring reputation through digital diplomacy: the European Union’s strategic narratives on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic
Main Article Content
Abstract

Combining computational methods with qualitative analyses, this research explores how the European Union (EU) employed digital diplomacy to manage its reputation during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, it addresses two influential dimensions of digital diplomacy: narratives and social networks. First, to identify how narratives evolved during the different phases of the crisis, dynamic topic modeling is applied to a sample of 12,935 tweets in English published by eight central EU authorities from January 1st, 2020, to March 11th, 2021. The most representative tweets of the six most predominant topics on COVID-19 are analyzed through the strategic narratives’ framework. Second, a social network analysis of the retweets of 215 authorities linked to the European External Action Service is conducted to identify the communication flow and the most influential actors. The results corroborate what the crisis communication literature anticipates. As the pandemic evolved, strategic crisis narratives became more consistent, and the diplomatic network less hierarchical and centralized. After an undetermined start, the COVID-19 crisis was ultimately rationalized as a challenge that reaffirmed the EU’s functionality and values. During the acute phase of the crisis, diplomats were less spontaneous, since their content was more dependent on their superiors, but in later stages they produced proportionally more original content themselves. Therefore, the findings suggest, first, that the EU’s performance on Twitter became more competent over time, and second, a potential correlation between narratives and networks: better defined strategic narratives seem to indicate a more genuine digital diplomacy.
Keywords
References
Aggestam, L. (2008). Introduction: Ethical power Europe? International Affairs, 84(1), 1-11. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/25144711
Bastian, M., Heymann, S. & Jacomy, M. (2009). Gephi: An Open Source Software for Exploring and Manipulating Networks. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 3(1), 361-362. https://www.doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v3i1.13937
Bjola, C. & Holmes, M. (2015). Digital diplomacy: Theory and practice. New York: Routledge & CRC Press.
Bjola, C. & Jiang, L. (2015). Social media and public diplomacy: a comparative analysis of the digital diplomatic strategies of the EU, US and Japan in China. In C. Bjola & M. Holmes (Eds.), Digital diplomacy: Theory and practice (pp. 71-89). New York: Routledge & CRC Press.
Bjola, C. (2019). In virality we trust! The quest for authenticity in digital diplomacy. Real Instituto Elcano. ARI 83/2019
Blei, D. M. & Lafferty, J. D. (2006). Dynamic Topic Models. Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning (pp. 113-120). Pittsburgh, PA: ACM Press. https://www.doi.org/10.1145/1143844.1143859
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, April 5th). Disinformation plays with people’s lives. Disinformation can kill… [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/josepborrellf/status/1246704128170000384
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, April 19th). Handling the corona crisis is a marathon, not a sprint. After a shaky start, the EU is now fully mobilized… [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1251919447926980609
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, May 4th). The impressive result of today’s global pledging event to respond to the #coronavirus pandemic clearly shows: If we work together... [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1257380511296741376
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, May 5th). The #coronavirus pandemic impacts every country & region of the world... [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1257677353024659465
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, June 8th). The EU demonstrates its leading role bringing global solutions to the coronavirus crisis. We are there for our partners… [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1270033886173696002
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF]. (2020, June 19th). The EU remains the biggest & most reliable supporter of our #WesternBalkans… [Retweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1258025770301231104
Borrell, J. [@JosepBorrellF] (2020, September 1st). European answer to #COVID19 is a good example of multilateralism. We have been able to improve the way we... [Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/JosepBorrellF/status/1300692893183729665
Carpenter, D. P. & Krause, G. A. (2012). Reputation and Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 72(1), 26-32. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41433140
Cassidy, J. (2018). Digital diplomatic crisis communication: Reconceptualising diplomatic signalling in an age of real time governance. DigDiploROx Working Paper No3.
Collins, N. & Bekenova, K. (2017). Digital diplomacy: Success at your fingertips. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 15(1), 1-11. https://www.doi.org/10.1057/s41254-017-0087-1
Coombs, T. & Holladay, S. (2015). Strategic Intent and Crisis Communication. The Emergence of a Field. In D. Holtzhausen & A. Zerfass (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication (pp. 497-507). Abingdon, Oxon/New York, NY: Routledge.
Council of the EU (2020). Council conclusions on Digital Diplomacy. Retrieved from https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12804-2020-INIT/en/pdf
Devlin, J., Chang, M., Lee, K. & Toutanova, K. (2018). BERT: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. arXiv Version: 2. https://www.doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1810.04805
Di Maggio, P., Nag, M. & Blei, D. (2013). Exploiting affinities between topic modeling and the sociological perspective on culture: Application to newspaper coverage of U.S. government arts funding. Poetics, 41(6), 570-606. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2013.08.004
Drylie-Carey, L., Sánchez-Castillo, S. & Galán-Cubillo, E. (2020). European leaders unmasked: Covid-19 communication strategy through Twitter. Profesional de la Información, 29(5), e290504. https://www.doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.04
EEAS (2016). Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe. A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. Retrieved from https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/eugs_review_web_0.pdf
EEAS (2019). The European Union’s Global Strategy. Three years on, looking forward. Retrieved from https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/eu_global_strategy_2019.pdf
EEAS [@eu_eeas] (2020, February 25th). #TeamEurope has arrived in Ukraine. The €190 million support package has. [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eu_eeas/status/1269547142139580418
EEAS (2020, March 24th). EU HRVP Josep Borrell: The Coronavirus pandemic and the new world it is creating. Retrieved from https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-hrvp-josep-borrell-coronavirus-pandemic-and-new-world-it-creating_en
EEAS [@eu_eeas] (2020, June 7th). #TeamEurope has arrived in Ukraine. The €190 million support package has reached… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eu_eeas/status/1269547142139580418
EEAS [@eu_eeas] (2021, March 2nd). Angola has received the first batch of #COVID19 vaccines. [Thread]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eu_eeas/status/1366840214325497856
EU Council [@EUCouncil] (2020, February 13th). #LIVE now: EU ministers discuss #covid19 #Coronavirus outbreak. [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EUCouncil/status/1227886888251359238
EU Council [@EUCouncil] (March 19th, 2020). [Thread] What is the EU doing to help fight the COVID-19 outbreak? We are working together with member states... [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EUCouncil/status/1240561416307904513
European Commission (n.d.). Timeline of EU action. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-response/timeline-eu-action_es
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, February 27th). We are working on all fronts to tackle the ongoing #COVID19 outbreak… [Thread]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1233040590947962880
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, February 28th). Italy has activated the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism, requesting… [Thread]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1233356692198432768
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, March 31st). Working together makes us all stronger against #coronavirus. None of us can do it alone and certainly no Member… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1244999110001930240
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, April 25th). We have been working tirelessly to coordinate efforts against #coronavirus… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1253941816161792000
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, April 30th). In April we approved 127 State aid measures to support businesses and protect livelihoods across Europe during the #coronavirus outbreak… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1255860382066970633
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, June 23rd). Two EU Humanitarian Air Bridge flights are being operated to Burkina Faso… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1275363517709914117
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, June 24th). What do @shakira, @coldplay, @QueensChristine and @IAMJHUD have in common?… [Thread]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1275820904191332352
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, September 16th). This is the moment for Europe. The moment for Europe to lead the way from fragility towards a new vitality... [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1306131168316788736
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, September 21st). Today is World #PeaceDay. The pandemic showed us just how fragile our community of values really is. Today we need… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1307935341018374144
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, November 16th). We are helping EU countries protect jobs and workers with the SURE instrument… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1328294408748404738
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, December 20th). With #NextGenerationEU and the new long term #EUbudget… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1340643110712426499
European Commission [@EU_Commission] (2020, December 27th). The #EUVaccinationDays are a touching moment of unity. The first vaccine was made available to all EU countries: at the… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1343227229757693952
Figgou, L., & Pavlopoulos, V. (2015). Social psychology: Research methods. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 544-552). New York: Elsevier. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.24028-2´
Freedman, L. (2006). Networks, culture and narratives. The Adelphi Papers, 45(379), 11-26. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/05679320600661640
Gilpin, D. R. & Murphy, P. J. (2008). Crisis management in a complex world. New York: Oxford University Press.
Grimmer, J. & Stewart, B. (2011). Text as Data: The promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts. Political Analysis (2013), 21(3), 267–297. https://www.doi.org/10.1093/pan/mps028
Grootendorst, M. (2022). Bertopic: Neural topic model-ing with a class-based tf-idf procedure. arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.05794. https://www.doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2203.05794
Hall, B., Johnson, M. & Arnold, M. (2020). Italy wonders where Europe’s solidarity is as coronavirus strains show. Financial Times (March 13, p. 1). Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/d3bc25ea-652c-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5
Health, R. (2004). Telling a Story: A Narrative Approach to Communication During Crisis. In D. Millar & R. Health (Eds.), Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication (pp. 167-187). NY: Routledge.
Hedling, E. (2020). Storytelling in EU public diplomacy: Reputation management and recognition of success. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 16(2), 143-152. https://www.doi.org/10.1057/s41254-019-00138-2
Isoaho, K, Gritsenko, D. & Mäkelä, E. (2021). Topic Modeling and Text Analysis for Qualitative Policy. Policy Studies Journal, 49(1), 300-324 https://www.doi.org/10.1111/psj.12343
Kantar (2020a). Public opinion in the EU in time of coronavirus crisis. European Parliament. Retrieved from www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/en/be-heard/eurobarometer/public-opinion-in-the-eu-in-time-of-coronavirus-crisis
Kantar (2020b). Public opinion in the EU in time of coronavirus crisis. European Parliament. Retrieved from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/es/be-heard/eurobarometer/public-opinion-in-the-eu-in-time-of-coronavirus-crisis-2
Kantar (2020c). Standard Eurobarometer 93. Summer 2020. Public opinion in the European Union. European Commission. Retrieved from https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2262
Kantar (2020d). A glimpse of certainty in uncertain times: Parlemeter 2020 – A European Parliament Eurobarometer survey. Retrieved from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard/eurobarometer/2020/parlemeter-2020/en-key-findings.pdf
Lichtenstein, D. (2021). The EU: The Story of a Tragic Hero and the 27 Dwarfs. In I. Coman, A. M. Gregor & E. Novelli (Eds.), Political communication and COVID-19: Governance and rhetoric in times of crisis (pp. 79-87). London/New York: Routledge & CRC Press.
Manfredi-Sánchez, J. L. (2022). Vaccine (public) diplomacy: Legitimacy narratives in the pandemic age. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. https://www.doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00258-2
Mann, M. (2015). The European external action service and digital diplomacy. twiplomacy. Retrieved from http://twiplomacy.com/blog/the-european-external-action-service-and-digital-diplomacy/
Manners, I. (2002). Normative power europe: A contradiction in terms? JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 40(2), 235-258. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5965.00353
Manor, I. (2019). The digitalization of public diplomacy (1st Ed.). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Michel, Ch. [@eucopresident] (2020, March 10th). The last days have proven that the #COVID19 virus is spreading in all… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1237429457218134016
Michel, Ch. [@eucopresident] (2020, March 16th). Full support to health workers working day & night to fight #COVID19 crisis… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1239593952870834177
Michel, Ch. [@eucopresident]. (2020, April 23rd). A new #MarshallPlan, an unprecedented investment effort will fuel the recovery… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1253240571700883456
Michel, Ch. [@eucopresident]. (2020, December 11th). Europe is the leader in the fight against climate change. We decided to cut our greenhouse gas emissions of at… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1337296150580383744
Miskimmon, A., O’Loughlin, B. & Roselle, L. (2013). Strategic Narratives. Communication Power and the New World Order. New York: Routledge.
Miskimmon, A., (2017). Finding a Unified Voice? The European Union through a Strategic Narrative Lens. In A. Miskimmon, B. O’Loughlin & L. Roselle (Eds.), Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations (pp. 85-109). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Miskimmon, A., O’Loughlin, B. & Roselle, L. (2017). Introduction. In Forging the World: Strategic Narratives and International Relations (pp. 1-22). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Murakami, A., Thompson, P., Hunston, S. & Dominik, V. (2017). ‘What Is This Corpus about?’: Using Topic Modelling to Explore a Specialised Corpus. Corpora, 12(2), 243–77. https://www.doi.org/10.3366/cor.2017.0118
Niţoiu, C. (2013). The narrative construction of the European Union in external relations. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 14(2), 240-255. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/15705854.2013.785264
Panebianco, S. (2021). Towards a human and humane approach? the EU discourse on migration amidst the covid-19 crisis. The International Spectator, 56(2), 19-37. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2021.1902650
Park, S., Chung, D. & Park, H. (2018). Analytical framework for evaluating digital diplomacy using network analysis and topic modeling: Comparing South Korea and Japan. Information Processing and Management, 56, December, 1468-1483. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2018.10.021
Pozzi, F., Fersini, E., Messina, E. & Liu, B. (2017). Sentiment Analysis in Social Networks. Morgan Kaufmann. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/C2015-0-01864-0
Riessman, C. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. London: SAGE.
Rosenthal, U., Charles, M. & Hart, P. (1989). Coping with crises: the management of disasters, riots and terrorism. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Sottilotta, C. (2022). How not to manage crises in the European Union. International Affairs, 98(5), 1595–1614. https://www.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac064
Sellnow, T., Sellnow, D., Helsel, E., Martin, J. & Parker, J. (2019). Risk and crisis communication narratives in response to rapidly emerging diseases. Journal of Risk Research, 22(7), 897-908. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2017.1422787
Tuñón Navarro, J., Bouza, L. & Carral Vilar, U. (2019). Comunicación europea ¿A quién doy “like” para hablar con Europa? Madrid: Dykinson.
Tuñón Navarro, J. & Carral Vilar, U. (2021). Has COVID-19 promoted or discouraged a European Public Sphere? Comparative analysis of the Twitter interactions of German, French, Italian and Spanish MEPSs during the pandemic. Communication & Society, 34(3), 135-151. https://www.doi.org/10.15581/003.34.3.135-151
Valera-Ordaz, L. & Sorensen, M. (2019). Towards a European public sphere? A comparative study of the Facebook activities of Danish and Spanish members of the European Parliament. El Profesional de la Información, 28(6), e280611. https://www.doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.nov.11
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, February 24th). #Coronavirus As cases continue to rise, public health is the number one priority… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1231874566462541824
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, March 11th). We will use all the tools at our disposal to contain the spread of the #coronavirus… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1237847490478501889
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, March 19th). [Thread] What is the EU doing to help fight the COVID-19 outbreak?… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/EUCouncil/status/1240561416307904513
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, April 1st). This is European solidarity in action! @EU_Commission proposes the new short-time work scheme SURE… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1245297406054465541
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, April 24th). The EU is at the heart of coronavirus global response… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1253684957249187840
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, May 9th). If we remain united in solidarity and behind our values, then Europe… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1259058410558980096
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, May 27th). Generations before us have built a Union of peace and prosperity… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1265615607283752964
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, November 18th). There is light at the end of the tunnel… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1331525863301640192
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, November 25th). To slow down the spread of coronavirus, we need to scale up testing… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1329031292533542912
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2020, December 25th) #COVID19 has changed our lives and brought tragedy. But now there’s hope... [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1342486487250694146
Von der Leyen, U. [@vonderleyen] (2021, February 19th). We will only be safe if the whole world is safe. As announced in the #G7, the EU is doubling… [Tweet]. Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1362763971149897729
WHO (2020). WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-COVID-19---11-march-2020
Wright, K. A. & Guerrina, R. (2020). Imagining the European Union: Gender and digital diplomacy in European external relations. Political Studies Review, 18(3), 393-409. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1478929919893935
Details
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
RIGHTS TRANSFER
By submitting the article for evaluation and subsequent publication in Communication & Society, the AUTHOR exclusively assigns the rights of public communication, reproduction, distribution and sale for commercial exploitation to the University of Navarra through its Publications Service, for the maximum legal term in force -the entire life of the author and seventy years after his death or declaration of death-, in any country, and in any of the current and future edition modalities, both in print and electronic versions.
In the event that the article is not accepted for publication , this transfer of rights lapses with the communication of the refusal to the AUTHOR.
The AUTHOR affirms that the article is unpublished, that it has not been sent simultaneously to another publication medium and that the rights have not been transferred exclusively previously. He is responsible to the University of Navarra through its Publications Service for the authorship and originality of his work, as well as for all pecuniary charges that may arise for the University of Navarra through its Publications Service, in favor of third parties due to actions, claims or conflicts arising from the breach of obligations by the AUTHOR.