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Figure 1. Internet users by region and country, 2010-2016

Source: ITU (2017b) at https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/treemap.aspx

It is clear that the increased utilization of Internet affects the use and access of social networks worldwide according to the number of users. As of 2018, Facebook had 2.3 billion active users per month, YouTube 1.9 billion, WhatsApp 1.5 billion, Twitter 330 million users, Instagram 1 billion, and LinkedIn 575 million, (Statista, 2018a). Therefore, it is clear that a lot of information will be disseminated by these networks and that politicians as well as citizens are now taking advantage of exposing their criteria, expressing their opinion, and validating their position, and will continue to do so.

1.1. Public diplomacy and digital public diplomacy

Public diplomacy has made use of traditional tools for establishing contact with the public and communicating issues of the international policy of each state. By their very nature these tools provide information in a single direction from those who define policy or perform specific actions toward the public. This format has made it difficult for citizens to express their views simply and plainly regarding the actions of decision-makers, especially on issues as profound as those that are discussed at the diplomatic level. With the appearance of Internet and the interaction provided by Web 2.0, spaces for discussion and analysis have been opened. At the same time, a concept called digital public diplomacy is being developed, and within the framework of this research, it is necessary to address this idea in order to define its meaning.

The concept of digital public diplomacy cannot be understood without resorting to the concept of public diplomacy. Some references cite the concept of Public Diplomacy within the framework of the Cold War. It has been mentioned that with the creation of the Information Agency of the United States in the decade of the 1960’s of the twentieth century, there were signs of a new way of conducting diplomacy by using the media to approach different audiences (Azpíroz, 2011). For his part, Oviamionayi (2004) points out that public diplomacy as an instrument of soft power used by states to promote foreign policy and their national image arose thanks to the general spread of democracy and the technical and sociological advances of social communication media, and also as a result of the good intentions of President Wilson with the Open Covenants. In this way, diplomacy would not only be considered in its traditional sense as an activity between governments, as an instrument of occidental-style national states, the fundamental actors of which were diplomatic agents (Saenz, 2016)