Abstract
Meaningful relationship-building with target audiences, or engagement, is the idée fixe of twenty-first-century public diplomacy. This article unsettles the prevalent view of engagement as self-evidently beneficial. In dire geopolitical circumstances, does conflicting parties’ engagement with their respective siloed audiences exacerbate global tensions rather than alleviate them? The essay probes engagement as a public diplomacy ideal by considering official humor during the Russian–Ukrainian War. Russian humor denigrates its Ukrainian and Western opponents to fortify Russia’s illiberal credentials among left- and right-wing global audiences. In turn, Ukraine jokes about Russia to liberal Western audiences to maintain wartime assistance and convey its belonging within the Euro-Atlantic community. Russian and Ukrainian divisive humor simultaneously reflects and contributes to their miscommunication, while their struggles over basic terms and facts are quickly eroding common epistemic foundations. Public diplomacy humor in the Russian–Ukrainian War thus hastens global disengagement—communicative and epistemic fragmentation along geopolitical lines—rather than cultivating relationship- and trust-building. The essay concludes with humorless speculation about a (re)turn to public diplomacy 1.5, which combines contentious state-driven communication reminiscent of Cold War public diplomacy 1.0 with the inflow of new actors, technologies, and media formats like humor characteristic of public diplomacy 2.0.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig1_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig2_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig3_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig4_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig5_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig6_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1057%2Fs41254-022-00291-1/MediaObjects/41254_2022_291_Fig7_HTML.png)
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Not applicable.
Change history
08 January 2023
The original online version of this article was revised to correct the data availability text.
References
Center for Strategic and International Studies. 2022. NAFO and Winning the Information War: Lessons Learned from Ukraine. Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 5, 2022. https://www.csis.org/analysis/nafo-and-winning-information-war-lessons-learned-ukraine. Accessed December 16, 2022
Chernobrov, Dmitry. 2021. Strategic Humour: Public Diplomacy and Comic Framing of Foreign Policy Issues. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211023958.
Comor, Edward, and Hamilton Bean. 2012. America’s ‘Engagement’ Delusion: Critiquing a Public Diplomacy Consensus. International Communication Gazette 74 (3): 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048511432603.
Dolea, Alina. 2018. Public Diplomacy as Co-constructed Discourses of Engagement. In The Handbook of Communication Engagement, ed. Kim A. Johnston and Maureen Taylor, 331–345. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119167600.ch22.
Kurowska, Xymena, and Anatoly Reshetnikov. 2020. Trickstery: Pluralising Stigma in International Society. European Journal of International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120946467.
Meyer, John C. 2000. Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication. Communication Theory 10 (3): 310–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2000.tb00194.x.
Russia. 2021. Dear @Ukraine, the Red Wine Headache Aka #RWH Has You Confused. Tweet. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Russia/status/1468908945024692228. Accessed December 16, 2022
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2022a. Today is International Day for Universal Access to Information. Twitter. https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1575061626260058112. Accessed December 16, 2022
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2022b. Foreign Reprisals Against Russian Journalists and Media Since the Start of the Special Military Operation to Defend Donbass. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 12, 2022b. https://mid.ru/en/press_service/journalist_help/repressions/?lang-center=en. Accessed December 16, 2022
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2022c. Ukraine’s ‘Foreign Minister’ Dmitry Kuleba Has Frankly Admitted in His Native Russian that Ukraine is Responsible for Terrorist Attacks in Crimea and Belgorod During Prank Call. Twitter. https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1580912536857333763. Accessed December 16, 2022
Snow, Nancy. 2020. Rethinking Public Diplomacy in the 2020s. In Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, 2nd ed., ed. Nancy Snow and Nicholas J. Cull, 3–12. New York: Routledge.
Ukraine. 2021. Types of Headaches. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1468206078940823554. Accessed December 16, 2022
Ukraine. 2022. Twitter. https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1496716168920547331. Accessed December 16, 2022
Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. 2022. We Usually Express Gratitude to Our International Partners for the Security Assistance. Twitter. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1563851548643426304. Accessed December 16, 2022
Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2022. #Ukraine and Europe were Always Friends. Twitter. https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1580925126597484544. Accessed December 16, 2022
USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 2022. Public Diplomacy 3.0: Map** Next Stages of Tech Disruption. CPD Conversations, January 20, 2022. https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/event/public-diplomacy-30-map**-next-stages-tech-disruption. Accessed December 16, 2022
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Budnitsky, S. Global disengagement: public diplomacy humor in the Russian–Ukrainian War. Place Brand Public Dipl 19, 211–217 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00291-1
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-022-00291-1