Global disengagement: public diplomacy humor in the Russian–Ukrainian War

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.