ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS MODEL’S UTILITY IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ACTIVITIES VIA TWITTER

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze public relation’s model used by the government organization to conduct public diplomacy activities via Twitter. Using the method of directed qualitative content analysis by Hsieh & Shannon (2005) based on the four models of public relations by Grunig using the framework from Waters and Williams (2011) as the initial coding category towards @america’s Twitter account. @america is a unit managed by American embassy in Indonesia. The result of the study showed that @america’s Twitter account is working towards the implementation of two-way communication in order to engage and initiate conversation with its followers. Proved by the usage of the Twitter’s tools that facilitate two-way communication such as reply, @-mention, and also retweet function. But at the same time, they are still using one way communication and two-way asymmetrical communication in their public diplomacy activities in order to initiate engagement with its followers.

Keywords

• public diplomacy
• @america
• twitter
• public relations models