CNA_社交媒体作为外交政策工具的效用初探.pdf

DOP-2012-U-002538-Final September 2012 1 4825 Mark Center Drive,Alexandria,VA 22311-1850 703-824-2000 a.org An Initial Look at the Utility of Social Media as a Foreign Policy Tool A CNA Occasional Paper Christopher Steinitz with Hilary Zarin In 2009 a handful of countries were rocked by protests.While not unusual,a new phenomenon was observed when dissidents took to the streets in Honduras,Moldova,China,and Iran of that year.For the first time,social media platforms were being used by people to organize protests and communicate their grievances with the outside world.The interaction between social unrest and social media garnered even more attention as protests spread across Tunisia,Egypt,Bahrain,and other Arab countries in 2011.That people around the world could watch these events unfolding in real time was not new,cable and satellite television has made this possible for decades.This was different.The fact that they could participate by“friending”or“following”protestors caught the popular imagination.People around the world sat glued to their Twitter feeds as they watched a medium they used primarily for sharing pictures of cats become a vehicle for the mobilization of people po