Exploring the role of social media influencers in public diplomacy through the framing process for country image building and communication on cross- border social media platforms

Abstract

Since COVID-19, Social Media Influencers (SMIs) have increasing social influence, not least in shaping views and showing the social life of other countries. Nethertheless, existing research on public diplomacy (PD) has largely ignored SMIs, focusing instead on state-centered actors, and has not fully explored the role of SMIs in PD and their influence. Drawing from media studies and public diplomacy, this research aims to explore SMIs' and their self-presentation in relation to country image creation, to determine whether their involvement in public diplomacy is intentional or incidental. Additionally, it seeks to investigate their content and engagement strategies to understand the impact their practices have on the public. Bringing together frame theory, conceptualisation of country image model, and the lens of a humanity-centred public diplomacy paradigm, this research examines the SMIs producing content related to the United Kingdom (UK) on the Chinese video social media platform bilibili.com.
By adopting a qualitative and quantitative content analysis approach, this thesis finds that widely representative SMIs are intentionally engaging in public diplomacy and cross-border shaping of a country’s image, while being either unwilling or avoiding acting as outright endorsers of the given country. Their participation is driven by self- expression, prosocial motivations, and external incentives such as financial gain and fame, with no evidence of governmental control. The study identifies framing strategies used by SMIs in shaping a country’s image, employing diversity and inclusion frames that work through various themes, cultural links, cultural pegs, and humanized narratives as framing devices. Regarding framing effects, although the four content frames used by SMIs are not strongly resonating with user comments, the framing devices are effectively stimulating user engagement. SMIs are evoking users' awareness or feelings toward the country, as evidenced by online users engaging in discussions of the country’s image through personal frames identified in comments: the country experience frame, the country inquiry frame, and the emotional frame.
This study argues that SMIs act as independent practitioners of PD, through the human-centric approach, connecting with online public and promoting diversity. And it is making a novel contribution to defining the new role “independent practitioners” in the contemporary PD and offers empirical evidence the paradigm of humanity- centered diplomacies. It also provides a novel application of framing theory in public diplomacy on social media by highlighting its decentralized, grassroots nature and redefining the online users’ role as co-creators in the framing process.

Date of Award	17 Mar 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Nottingham
Supervisor	Shixin Zhang (Supervisor) & Tracey Fallon (Supervisor)