This article mainly focuses on the current situation of the use of social media in China’s public diplomacy, the difficulties of the use of social media in China’s public diplomacy, and how to better use network social media to serve China’s public diplomacy. First of all, this article studies the current status of the use of social media in China’s public diplomacy, including the media use of public diplomacy subjects, the audience of relevant network social media, and the impact of social media use on China’s public diplomacy. Secondly, it discusses the difficulties in the use of social media in China’s public diplomacy, mainly including various problems faced by the subject audience and the mechanism, and lays the foundation for the third part through the relevant analysis of these problems. Finally, this article proposes countermeasures for the problems at three levels. At the subject level, it focuses on the joint efforts of multiple forces to encourage the enthusiasm of various non-state actors to participate in public diplomacy of social media. At the audience level, it attaches importance to audience research and formulates corresponding communication strategies to avoid cross-cultural communication barriers. At the mechanism level, it closely relies on the national public diplomacy system to ensure the consistency of foreign policy and maintains the public nature of social media public diplomacy.

Yifeng Xu. The Use of SNS in China’s Public Diplomacy. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2021) Vol. 4, Issue 8: 20-28. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2021.040804.

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