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Large data and small stories: a triangulation approach to evaluating digital diplomacy

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dc.contributor.authorSpry, D.
dc.contributor.authorLockyer, K.
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.abstractThis article outlines how data-driven and computational methods can be integrated with traditional forms of discourse and linguistic analysis to examine and evaluate online public diplomacy activities ('digital diplomacy') and the publics' engagement with these artefacts. Combined with reviews of strategy and policy documents, the three techniques - large data, small stories and policy analysis - offer a triangulation of combined approaches to create a rigorous approach to evaluation. We aim to provide an adaptable methodological template for replicable studies, with the underlying premise being that combining three lines of inquiry - document review, large data sets and computational analyses, and close, contextual reading - can triangulate to produce nuanced, robust evaluations with both granularity and generalisability. If, as one UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) report argues, evaluation efforts can seem "like a forester going out to measure how fast his trees have grown overnight without a ruler" (Vitner and Knox in Engagement: Public diplomacy in a globalised world. UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, 2008), in our triangulated approach, one line of analysis uses distant reading to map the 'forest', another uses close reading to examine the 'trees', and a third references policy and strategy to determine the seemingly absent 'ruler'.
dc.identifier.citationPlace Branding and Public Diplomacy, 2022; 18(3):272-286
dc.identifier.doi10.1057/s41254-021-00248-w
dc.identifier.issn1751-8040
dc.identifier.issn1751-8059
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11541.2/26387
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherPalgrave Macmillan
dc.rightsCopyright 2021 The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-021-00248-w
dc.subjectdigital diplomacy
dc.subjectpublic diplomacy
dc.subjectevaluation
dc.subjectdigital methods
dc.subjectsmall stories
dc.titleLarge data and small stories: a triangulation approach to evaluating digital diplomacy
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished
ror.mmsid9916583945201831

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