3. Scanning the Foreign Use of Weibo

This chapter introduces the practice of e-diplomacy on Weibo by foreign embassies in Beijing. The key aim of this chapter is to bring an overall picture of foreign use of Weibo and identify the top five embassies that use Weibo frequently. It seeks to address three gaps in existing knowledge by empirical research. Firstly, at present, we simply do not know—in a systematic sense—what foreign embassies are doing on Weibo. We do not know which embassies have the most followers on Weibo, how often they Weibo, and what they are posting about. Secondly, this chapter seeks to address the fact that we do not have a clear understanding of the benefit that foreign embassies are gaining from the Chinese online platform. It is not clear that what these benefits are due to their Weibo behavior. Finally, this chapter seeks to address the deeper question: what the uptake of foreign embassy users of Chinese social media—and Chinese Weibo in particular—means for public diplomacy. Does Weibo offer better ways for public diplomacy workers to communicate with potential audience, or is it instead a fragmentary, dangerous, and disempowering distraction?