Authors

Discussion

This paper studies the phenomenon of digital diplomacy i.e., the use of digital technologies by top diplomats communicating both with the international and domestic audiences on social media. It focuses on several channels of Russian diplomatic communication in social networks: the official Twitter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the personal Facebook account of its official representative, the Director of the Ministry’s Information and Press Department, Mariia Zakharova. Using the theoretical framework of critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the discursive repertoire of Russian diplomats and their communicative strategies that help to impart meaning to political events, construct power relations and build ingroups and outgroups. In particular, it explores the instrumentalization of impoliteness (considered using conceptual tools from impoliteness theory) in addressing the Internet audience as well as the emergence of the figure of a diplomat as a digital media influencer and celebrity.