The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

24 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL sion, including coverage of the United States that is frequently biased. While some newspapers and a few FM radio stations provide more balanced cover- age, their audiences tend to be limited—reaching mainly young and educated readers, and listeners in large cities. That leaves social media, whose use has grown tremen- dously in Russia over the last few years, as perhaps the best approach to avoid Kremlin distortions and communicate directly with the people. Russia has the largest digital audience in Europe, with one survey finding that the proportion of Rus- sians using the Internet jumped from 5 percent in 2001 to 60 percent in 2013. During that period, the Russian blogosphere mushroomed to more than 14 million blogs featuring a wide variety of view- points, including some from outspoken critics of the Kremlin. The vast social media audience is varied, but its most enthusi- astic participants are younger, well-educated Russians who enjoy platforms such as Twit- ter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs. Engaging the Twitterverse At Embassy Moscow, Amb. McFaul encouraged nearly every section to produce regular social media content, and the eco- nomic, cultural, consular, political, environment and science staff have all emerged as regular contributors to the embassy’s blogs and Twitter feeds. While Facebook tends to be reserved for a “soft diplomacy” approach, policy-related themes are often discussed in blogs linked to tweets. The public affairs staff wants to set up an embassy account with Russia’s most popular social media network, VKontakte , but intellectual property issues have so far prevented that step. “We try to respond quickly and get our voice into the first Nearly every section of Embassy Moscow produces regular social media content. Amb. McFaul responds to a question (projected onto the screen) during a Twitter Q&A session at Embassy Moscow on Nov. 29. To his left is Deputy Press Attaché Stacy Mactaggert. Stefan Mizha