April 24, 2026

Online

Deadline: March 16, 2026

For more details, click here https://ierlab.com/influencer-diplomacy/

The Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab)  is calling for submissions for our upcoming symposium on Influencer Diplomacy, to be held online via Zoom on 24 April 2026. 

Recent research on influencers has highlighted their growing presence in political arenas. Concepts such as ‘political influencers’ (Schwemmer & Riedl 2025), ‘political relational influencers’ (Goodwin et al. 2023), ‘propaganda influencers’ (Woolley 2022), or ‘influencers as ideological intermediaries’ (Arnesson 2023) capture the varied ways creators engage with political content, whether by shaping public opinion, amplifying state messaging, or embodying ideological narratives. Within these political capacities, influencers are playing an increasingly prominent role in diplomacy, though their involvement is met with mixed responses. For example, the European Union’s use of influencers on platforms such as TikTok to engage younger audiences reflects an institutional embrace of influencer-led diplomacy (DiSario 2026), as does the positive reception of American streamer iShowSpeed’s state-sanctioned tour of China (Latifah Aini 2025). By contrast, Chachavalpongpun (2025) critiques how influencers have leveraged the Thai–Cambodian border conflict to expand their digital visibility in ways that intensify geopolitical tensions, while Colombian influencers have faced backlash for promotional activities in Israel (Freixes 2025). Together, these examples reveal that the involvement of influencers in diplomatic arenas warrants closer attention, as they are not merely amplifying diplomatic messages but are actively shaping diplomatic processes, mediating between publics, political conflict, and state agendas.

Research on political influencers has shown how digitally native creators blend advocacy (Riedl et al. 2021; Martin et al. 2024), self-branding (Ong et al. 2022), and platform vernaculars (Harris et al. 2023) to engage audiences through affective and narrative labour (Goodwin et al. 2023; Martin et al. 2024). While this literature has focused primarily on domestic politics, recent studies demonstrate growing overlaps between influencer practices and diplomacy. For example, Lo Presti et al. (2025) identify ‘geopolitical influencers’ shaping public discourse around international conflicts, while Arnesson (2024) shows how state-sponsored trips by Swedish influencers function as soft power and perception management. Influencers also enact diplomacy through semi-official and spontaneous practices, including war influencing (Divon & Eriksson Krutrök 2025; Taher et al. 2025;) and activist interventions that reshape international perceptions of nationhood (Casas 2025). Taken together, these studies reveal influencers operating across multiple diplomatic registers, yet without a shared definition of ‘influencer diplomacy’.

The uncertain boundaries of ‘influencer diplomacy’ reflects broader transformations in diplomacy itself. Diplomacy has traditionally been understood as negotiation among states through official representatives (Cornago 2022). However, diplomacy has expanded beyond its traditional focus on state actors, to include a broader range of actors and practices. Cultural diplomacy shifts representation away from diplomats, with the state using culture to foster trust, promote the nation, and shape international perceptions (Kim 2017). Citizen diplomacy moves diplomacy further from the state, as individuals undertake diplomatic work through journalism, activism, and community initiatives, acting as political agents in their own right (Anton & Moise 2022). Meanwhile, everyday diplomacy highlights how diplomacy unfolds in ordinary, mundane encounters, showing how international relations are experienced and enacted outside formal state institutions (Jones & Clark 2015; Marsden et al. 2016).

In the age of influencers, diplomacy is shaped further by branding infrastructures, visibility economies, and platform logics. For example, government–influencer collaborations are often regulated through commercial frameworks that inadequately capture their political implications (Annabell et al. 2025), while political and diplomatic communication increasingly adopts influencer-oriented logics of metrics, relatability, and attention—or ‘wanghong thinking’—shaping practices in China (Xu 2024). Meanwhile, influencers on platforms like TikTok also enable states to reach foreign audiences while circumventing official restrictions (Fjällhed et al. 2024), raising concerns about instrumentalisation and blurred boundaries with propaganda (Ong et al. 2022; Reveilhac 2025; Wooley 2022; Xu & Schneider 2025). Scholars further question who counts as an influencer and what agency these actors hold: Anton and Moise (2022) situate influencer diplomacy within citizen and informal diplomacy; Casas (2025) includes artists, minor celebrities, activists, and indigenous cultural producers; and Tian et al. (2025) and Manfredi et al. (2024) highlight overlaps between politicians, influencers, and citizen journalists, underscoring the lack of a shared definition.

Context-specific studies illustrate how influencer diplomacy operates across multiple registers and produces varied impacts. In Indonesia, for example, influencers can soften national symbolism, potentially signalling shifts in paternalistic governance, while also intersecting with nation branding moments such as sporting events (Li & Feng 2022; Ratriyana et al. 2024). In China, state-curated collaborations privilege particular racialised and national subjectivities, raising questions about imagined diplomatic audiences, while foreign YouTubers are incorporated into official networks through reposting by diplomats and state media (Brockling et al. 2023; Cho-Li et al. 2025). In Russia, unofficial actors such as the Night Wolves biker group are embedded within national influence ecosystems (Boichak 2023). Wartime and border-region contexts further illustrate these dynamics: Brazilian influencers shape narratives around the Russia-Ukraine war (Pelevina & Salojärvi 2025), and 'pro-China foreign political influencers' share content across borders in international contexts to reshape global reputation and national image (Tian et al. 2025). Studies also highlight influencers’ own strategies, balancing official collaborations, spontaneous content, personal branding, audience expectations, and political sensitivities, while leveraging participation for visibility and professional gain in China and Korea (Lee & Abidin 2022; Lee & Alhabash 2022; Xu & Qu 2025). At the level of everyday diplomacy and transnational imaginaries, Chinese vloggers also participate in shaping ‘unofficial geopolitics’ in Pakistan (Zoppolato & Culcasi 2026).

In this symposium, we focus on the generative concept that we call influencer diplomacy. We see this as the ways in which influencer cultures, practices, and industries impact diplomatic processes, from influencers assuming diplomatic roles and politicians adopting influencer strategies, to marketing firms leveraging influencer infrastructures in the mediation of international relations. Influencer diplomacy operates not only at formal state and institutional levels but also intersects with everyday politics, shaping public discourse and social engagement. Moreover, it must account for how influencers, as platform-savvy actors, tailor diplomatic communication to the vernaculars, norms, and affordances of specific digital platforms. 

To explore this phenomenon in more detail, the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab) will be hosting a one-day online symposium (on Zoom) to examine the evolving practice of influencer diplomacy. We invite submissions from humanities and social sciences, including but not limited to media studies, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, area studies, and international relations. We particularly welcome submissions that focus on empirically grounded research and comparative case studies. 

Selected papers will be considered for a peer reviewed edited collection. As such, we are only able to consider original, previously-unpublished abstracts/papers. Suggested topics include but are not limited to: 

• Influencers as official and unofficial intermediaries in diplomatic endeavours
  
• Motivations, labour, and negotiation in influencers’ diplomatic practice
  
• Politicians adopting influencer strategies in international communication
  
• The role of affect, intimacy, authenticity, and storytelling as diplomatic resources
  
• Audience participation, public formation, and the politicisation of influencer collaborations
  
• Influencer diplomacy as both a practice and a governing logic: how diplomacy increasingly ‘thinks like an influencer’
  
• Influencer diplomacy in crisis, conflict, humanitarian, and wartime contexts
  
• Regulation, disclosure, and governance of state–influencer collaborations

To be considered for the symposium, please submit a 250-word abstract and 100-word bio via the Google form below by 1700hrs (GMT+8) 16 March 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on 20 March 2024. We gladly welcome co-authored submissions; to keep presentations consistent, each submission is limited to one presenter, preferably the corresponding author. Please submit via this form: https://forms.gle/7EWBPEuR4gk3ceKK7 

All enquiries should be directed to contact@IERLab.com

Key Dates:

• 16 March 2026: Abstracts and biographies due
  
• 20 March 2026: Notifications of acceptance
  
• 24 April 2026: Influencer Diplomacy Symposium
  

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Faye Mercier, Wuxuan Zhang, Prof. Crystal Abidin

Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab), Curtin University

References:

Aini, Fauzia Latifah. 2025. ‘Changing China’s Global Image through IShowSpeed Visit’. Modern Diplomacy, April 26. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/04/26/changing-chinas-global-image-through-ishowspeed-visit/.

Annabell, Taylor, Catalina Goanta, Thijs Kelder, and Felix Pflücke. 2025. ‘Sponsored by the State: The Private Regulation of Government Influencers’. Journal of Consumer Policy, ahead of print, September 16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-025-09598-x.

Anton, Anca, and Raluca Moise. 2022. ‘The Citizen Diplomats and Their Pathway to Diplomatic Power’. In Diplomacy, Organisations and Citizens: A European Communication Perspective, edited by Sónia Pedro Sebastião and Susana de Carvalho Spínola. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81877-7_13.

Arnesson, Johanna. 2023. ‘Influencers as Ideological Intermediaries: Promotional Politics and Authenticity Labour in Influencer Collaborations’. Media, Culture & Society 45 (3): 528–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221117505.

Arnesson, Johanna. 2024. ‘“Endorsing a Dictatorship and Getting Paid for It”: Discursive Struggles over Intimacy and Authenticity in the Politicisation of Influencer Collaborations’. New Media & Society 26 (3): 1467–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211064302.

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Freixes, Josep. 2025. ‘Controversy over Colombian Influencers’ “War Tourism” in Israel’. Colombia One: News from Colombia and the World, November 12. https://colombiaone.com/2025/11/12/colombia-influencers-war-tourism-israel/.

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Lee, Jin, and Crystal Abidin. 2022. ‘Oegugin Influencers and Pop Nationalism through Government Campaigns: Regulating Foreign-Nationals in the South Korean YouTube Ecology’. Policy & Internet 14 (3): 541–57. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.319.

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