The Role of Social Media in International Relations

In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, Doyle Hodges, executive editor of the Texas National Security Review, explores how social media has played an increasingly prominent role in the public discourse. Listeners to the War on the Rocks podcast may recall an episode featuring Camille Francois of Graphika, and Jessica Brandt, head of policy and research for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, dealing with the question of disinformation. These topics have also been covered in more popular press with books such as Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media, by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, and War in 140 Characters, by David Patrikarakos. But very few of these explorations have gone into how social media effects international relations. Professor Sarah Kreps, the John L. Wetherill professor in the Department of Government and adjunct professor of law at Cornell University, unpacks that very idea in this episode.