Visual Diplomacy: Reflections on Diplomatic Spectacle and Cinematic Thinking

Abstract

Summary In engaging the visual aspects of public diplomacy, this article has three objectives. First, it introduces the notion of visual diplomacy — the ways and means by which images are used by plural diplomatic actors to transmit ideas to audiences, producing and circulating meanings that serve particular purposes, with the aim of influencing, shaping and transforming relations between actors and across publics. Second, it examines how the spectacle of diplomacy is enacted by focusing on a particular case of commissioned cinematography of Cypriot public diplomacy. Third, it engages visual diplomacy cinematically, employing Deleuze’s insights on the cinematic apparatus, and by producing an essay film, The Blessed Envoy , linked to this article. The film reuses, through creative montage, nine official documentaries of Cypriot public diplomacy, revealing the key narratives and hidden transcripts that the visual material disseminates, thus encouraging a reflexive focus on the use of imagery in diplomacy.