The Internet Civil Diplomacy is a major revolution and an emerging trend witnessed in the information age. It poses a significant impact on foreign affairs and official diplomacy due to its unique characteristics—freedom, equality, individuality, real-time, low-cost, and convenience. This chapter reviews the development of Internet-based civil diplomacy and the practice of China’s Internet-based civil diplomacy, which has been greatly developed in recent years in multiple forms—e.g. Web forums, website signatures, event-driven purpose-build foreign affairs sites. Two types of impact of the civil Internet diplomacy—expansion effect and resonance effect—have been examined in the Chinese context through cases, events, and examples. The chapter also identifies challenges and proposes solutions for future development of the civil Internet diplomacy in China.
A Social Network Analysis and Comparison of Six Dark Web Forums