Ben O'Loughlin

Panel and Q&A: Shaping the Discipline- How Strategic Narratives Transformed Assessing the impact of "Strategic Narrative" on the study of public diplomacy

On April 13, the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy will host a webinar focusing on the topic: Shaping the Discipline: How #StrategicNarratives Transformed the Study of #PublicDiplomacy. Kindly convened by Ilan Manor. Free registration here: www.eventbrite.com/e/panel-and-...

We hope you can use this in your own research. Any feedback is welcome. Thanks to editor @swaisbord.bsky.social and managing editor Kady Bell-Garcia.

Resistance takes effort and creativity to find new ways of engaging with AI. And humans get tired. Many offload cognitive labour to chatbots. What does it take for humans to grasp that this surrenders power to create meaning to AI? Is the only alternative to switch the AI off and walk away?

This takes us to the “so what” question. From our typology you can treat human-AI as a terrain of contestation in which resistance is possible. We highlight what we would call counter-hegemonic modes of engaging with AI. But its difficult.

We look at who is deciding what kind of knowledge and discourse is created, and agency can be distributed across human and AI in many ways. Who is “encoding” meaning in these interactions and who is doing the “decoding”?

To help you explore this, we offer a typology of discourses, relations, structures and moments that shape the context of human-AI interactions, and bear upon those interactions.

Let me explain our new article in International Journal of Communication. We ask who can create meaning in discourse in human-AI interactions, and the impact on power relations broadly.

Our new article is out! When we interact with ChatGPT and other Generative AI systems, who is shaping whom? Does the machine gradually substitute our interpretive capacities, or can it extend them? Thanks @ijoc-usc.bsky.social:
ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Synthetic dissidents: how AI protects dissent under repression Michal Malý and Asker Bryld Staunæs argue that synthetic dissidents mark a new form of opposition politics. In authoritarian regimes, AI avatars and chatbots can propagate risky speech without exposin...

In autocratic contexts, 'Visibility becomes vulnerability. Silence becomes rational.' But AI can speak. Great new piece by @michalmaly.bsky.social and Asker Bryld Staunæs theloop.ecpr.eu/synthetic-di...

Russia, Disinformation, and the Liberal Order by Stephen Hutchings, Vera Tolz, Precious Chatterje-Doody, Rhys Crilley, and Marie Gillespie | Hardcover | Cornell University Press Through the prism of the first comprehensive account of RT, the Kremlin's primary tool of foreign propaganda, Russia, Disinformation and the Liberal Order sheds new light on the provenance and nature....

Similar findings to what @stevhutch.bsky.social Tolz @preciouschatd.bsky.social @rhyscrilley.bsky.social Gillespie found with RT in: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Do Western diplomats and embassies need to learn how to navigate ambient parapolitics?

The counter-hegemonic hegemon: A cross-platform analysis of a Kremlin-backed strategic narrative - Boris Noordenbos, Marc Tuters, 2026 This article examines how, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has adapted its digital diplomacy strategy to promote anti-Western narrativ...

1/2 Great article by Noordenbos & Tuters: Russia is v.good at using digital platforms to narrate resistance to the West across the Global South. Its not just narrative content but how narrative elements circulate that creates effects - #ambient #parapolitics: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Wonderful that my friend and collaborator @profvaccari.bsky.social's #inaugural lecture will happen 11th March, Edinburgh, in-person. A great moment for Cristian and an urgent topic he addresses: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inaugural-...

X is hiring a creative writing specialist at $40 an hour to make Grok better at writing and a true LOL at the qualifications

I had a chat about what @profmiskimmon.bsky.social and I wrote recently about how many narratives used in politics are deliberately ambiguous - watch here, responses appreciated:

Today’s topic: spiritual warfare.

This sums a lot of what AI offers, some blurry vibes, and how its promise is part of a longer history of dealing with some pretty big dilemmas. By @tomdivon.bsky.social + Christian Pentzold: AI can make the dead talk – why this doesn’t comfort us: theconversation.com/ai-can-make-...

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is a comprehensive journal examining the interplay of brand strategy and public diplomacy in city, region, and country ...

This is in a special issue devoted to strategic narrative (link.springer.com/journal/41254) convened by public diplomacy expert Ilan Manor. Huge thanks to Ilan, and papers by @elsahedling.bsky.social @rhyscrilley.bsky.social and others are well worth exploring.

Future research paths: ethics + power, audience reception, AI-enabled narrative production, and measurement of effectiveness. We argue that strategic narrative analysis remains essential for understanding global politics—and for enhancing diplomatic literacy in contested communicative environments.

Our central normative claim: the need to move from narrative domination to narrative alignment. Effective public diplomacy requires dialogue, reflexivity, and recognition of plural histories and temporalities—especially in engagements with non-Western actors and Global South audiences.

We situate strategic narratives in today’s multipolar, digitally mediated context. We examine shifts in EU, US, and Chinese narratives—highlighting how order is produced through contestation, not transition, and how misalignment (rather than rivalry per se) undermines credibility and influence.

We trace the concept from our early work inspired by @ldfreedman.bsky.social to its expansion. Strategic narratives are not just top-down tools: they are multi-level, contested, often ambiguous, and shaped by formation, projection, and reception across states, institutions, and publics.

Emerging from debates on influence and legitimacy in the 2000s, strategic narrative explains how all kinds of political actors construct meaning about past, present, and future to shape international order.

Strategic narrative: its origins and evolution, its connection to public diplomacy, and some future paths - Place Branding and Public Diplomacy Place Branding and Public Diplomacy -

Thread 👇 on a new article by @profmiskimmon.bsky.social and I, Strategic narrative: its origins and evolution, its connection to public diplomacy, and some future paths. Read here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Researching how and why journalists are being targeted and killed in huge numbers today? Apply to attend our journal's event in Cape Town in June. 31 Jan abstract deadline: link.icahdq.org/discussion/c...

New book by @maydinger.bsky.social - Discourse, Voice, and the Politics of Participation in the Scottish Independence Referendum - important on the difficulty of creating inclusive #participation: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

New online: A PhD thesis exploring how Russia does #strategic #narrative work against the West, by @christierns.bsky.social [bias: I examined it ✋]. Adds historical perspective re: why certain actions to address Russia's efforts will or won't work today. Read here: cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/c...

Great time at the @psampg.bsky.social annual conference in Bournemouth. #AI #theory #discourse and #moderation discussed by our team me, Marco Guglielmo and @andreucasas.bsky.social. Thanks Dan Jackson and all the organisers.

2026 Statistic of the Year is already decided 🤷 Very interesting analysis here of how #Trump uses #shrugs to communicate several different things, by @chrishartlinguist.bsky.social and Steve Strudwick, here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

How to help young people become full political agents? They want to be. The new 'civic mentoring model' from @jamessloam.bsky.social, based on what works or doesn't, in various cities. How to help local authorities make this pathway happen? Read in detail at: www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

The Vacancy is being written. @paulisci.bsky.social and I have caffeine and words to write.