The Use of Soft Power in Digital Public Diplomacy: the Cases of Brazil and India in the EU

The focus of this comparative study is on the use of soft power in the digital public diplomacy of two Global South players, Brazil and India, in EU member states. The main objective of this research is to find out how their embassies use digital diplomacy in communication through their official websites and to identify which soft power resources they dominantly use. Quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis were used to analyze the categories and subcategories on the main menu and special banners on each embassy's home page, and the associated content. Unlike the Indian embassies, which fully embraced digital diplomacy 2.0, the Brazilian embassies do not utilize the full potential of digital diplomacy and primarily remain reliant on websites only. According to this research, the Brazilian embassies in the EU use film as a dominant soft power resource in their digital diplomacy, while the Indian embassies use yoga as a powerful diplomatic tool. Still, both approaches are not enough to attract European publics. There remains a lot of space for improvement and better usage of soft power resources and digital public diplomacy potentials in communicating the powers of Brazil and India in EU countries.