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Over the last couple of years, digital diplomacy has become a fascinating area of research among Mass Communication, Peace and Conflict Studies, and International Affairs scholars. Social media and new technology open up new avenues for governments, individuals, and organizations to engage with foreign audiences. However, developing countries' governments are still lacking in the realization of the potential of social media. This study aims to analyze the usage of social media (Facebook & Twitter) by the two biggest countries in South Asia (Pakistan and India). I selected 10 government officials' social media accounts including prime ministers', national press offices', military public relations offices', public diplomacy divisions', and ministries of foreign offices' profiles. The study relies on quantitative content analysis and a comparative research approach. The total number of analyzed Twitter tweets (n=1,015) and Facebook posts (n=1,005) include 10 accounts, five from each country. In light of Kent and Taylor's (1998) dialogic communication framework, the results indicate that no digital engagement and dialogue occurs between government departments and the public through social networking sites. Government departments do not engage with local or foreign audiences through digital media. When comparing both countries, results reveal that India has more institutionalized and organized digital diplomacy. In terms of departmental use of social media, the digital diplomacy division and foreign office of India is more active than other government departments in that nation. Meanwhile, Pakistan's military public relations office and press office is more active than its other government departments. In conclusion, both countries realize the potential of social media in digital diplomacy, but still lack engagement with foreign audiences.

Based on 15 in-depth interviews, the present study aims to understand the common challenges international graduate students face and the coping strategies they employed, types of social networking sites (SNS) used, and social support sought from their relationship during graduate school. Common challenges faced are loneliness, stress, feeling overwhelmed with graduate school, and difficulties adjusting to a new culture. Coping strategies include sharing experiences with relations whom they trust and understand their situation, and joining online communities via SNS. The participants use both public and private SNS to seek social support depending on the various functionalities offered. SNS use depends on the affordances such as convenience, affordability, trust issues, and privacy. Most sought-after types of social support are emotional and informational via SNS.

The COVID-19 pandemic has added significant stress to international students in the U.S. who already face myriad challenges in adjusting to their host country. We used a mixed-method approach combining survey and interview research involving international students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs at a U.S. university to analyze how their social media use and perceived social support and social adjustment are associated with their sense of mental well-being when taking into account demographic and social psychological characteristics. Our findings show that international students spent an increased amount of time on social media during the pandemic for both networking and information seeking purposes. Those who use social media primarily for networking purposes reported better mental health, whereas social media use for information seeking was not significantly associated with their mental health. Social support was an important predictor of international students' social media use. This study provides scholarly and policy implications for supporting international students during a public health crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic literature review was conducted to provide insights into how online readers' comments have been studied in the context of health over a 10-year span. About 593 studies published between 2010 and 2020; of these, 34 met the research criteria for inclusion. Our findings reveal that 60% of the studies focused on the United States, and a qualitative method was used in 74.3% of these studies. About 23.5% of the studies explored vaccine-related issues. Our results reveal that among the selected studies, 76.5% and 20.6% had female and male first authors, respectively. Textual analysis of abstracts shows that the top five keywords were news, HPV, vaccine, themes, and vaccination. However, 58.8% of the identified studies did not use any theoretical framework. In addition, nine health topics emerged: vaccines; health policies; nutritional and dietary choices; women's health issues; quality of life and wellbeing; smoking; engagement with health-related news content; COVID-19; and suicide and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media’s pervasiveness has created new demands for openness, transparency, realtime communication, and public engagement in diplomacy. In this study, we analyze public engagement strategies for diplomacy on Twitter that were employed by a German ambassador. By applying a text analytics approach, we explored the ambassador’s tweets’ core themes, how people reacted to those tweets, and what type of topics received higher engagement for 2 years. Eight themes emerged from our analysis of the tweets: democracy, politics and law; society and culture; conflict and violence; personality; environment and health; economic and social development; personal life; and embassy affairs. By analyzing the tweets’ content, we present a public engagement model (PEM) for social media communication by highlighting 3 key factors that promote online public engagement: self-disclosure, positive attitude, and inquisitiveness. Results suggest that over 2 years, the German ambassador was a highly engaging personality in Pakistan, with around 4,369 interactions and highlighted positive diplomatic communication on Twitter. Tweets were positive, courteous, respectful, personalized, interactive, and direct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]