Research On The Strategies Of Chinese Diplomats’ Twitter Platform From The Perspective Of Dialogue Theory

The rise of social media has allowed information to flow without borders,and global social media platforms such as Twitter are increasingly becoming important tools for foreign diplomatic departments to carry out foreign communication activities.With more and more diplomats joining the Twitter communication ecosystem,it has become a direction for diplomats to consider and work on how to effectively utilize the flattened dialogue hierarchy of social media to better establish dialogue with foreign people.This paper adopts Kent and Taylor’s dialogue theory and evaluation theory’s "intervention system" as the framework for analysis,and selects Hua Chunying’s personal Twitter account(@Spokesperson CHN)as the research object,the 1597 tweets she posted between January 1,2022 and June 30,2022 were included in the full sample count.The characteristics of Hua Chunying’s tweets were explored by content analysis,and the representative tweets were interpreted by text analysis,and the dialogue strategies adopted by Hua Chunying’s tweets were summarized,and the characteristics of the dialogue relationship between diplomats and Twitter users under the strategies were summarized,and finally suggestions were made for optimizing the dialogue pattern dilemma.The study finds that the Twitter accounts created by Chinese diplomats such as Hua Chunying have the dual identity of personal account and official authentication,and can carry out dialogue communication activities more flexibly than institutional accounts such as embassies abroad.However,both personal and institutional accounts will face complex communication challenges when they enter the Twitter space,which are far different from those at domestic: the challenge of the political environment brought about by the continued escalation of tensions between China and the U.S.,the challenge of the right to speak due to the restricted development of Chinese diplomats’ Twitter accounts,and the challenge of the psychology of the audience whose attitudes toward China are influenced by Western politicians and media.In the face of multiple communication context constraints,the dialogue strategies adopted by Hua Chunying’s Twitter account include four types,namely,circular strategy: actively constructing dialogue topics to stimulate users’ interest in interaction;intervention strategy: cleverly using dialogue intervention strategies to contract or expand the dialogue space to achieve the effect of implicitly guiding public opinion;proximity strategy: fitting Twitter users’ media contact habits to build a dialogue base and increase the probability of dialogue;retention strategy: reasonably Retention strategy: using multimodal content to prolong users’ stay.However,due to the lack of interactive links,the absence of proximity and commitment in dialogue relations,and the poor empathy in dialogue relations,the dialogue mode between Chinese diplomats and foreign people still suffers from the fact that the dialogue circuit is not yet completely open,some dialogue agenda settings are out of touch with the audience’s reality,and the audience’s interest in dialogue participation needs to be stimulated.In the future,the Chinese Foreign Ministry should focus on building a three-dimensional collaborative dialogue matrix to support diplomats in carrying out Twitter dialogues;Chinese diplomats,who are the main subjects of dialogue communication practices,can make the practice of Twitter dialogues smooth by improving audience-oriented dialogue agenda setting,borrowing from Western "strategic narratives" and innovating dialogue formats,etc.Chinese diplomats,as the main body of Twitter dialogue communication practice,can make the practice of Twitter dialogue "land" smoothly,and gradually build a benign dialogue relationship with Twitter users,and try to reverse overseas people’s deeply buried negative impressions of China in the dialogue communication.