The co-constitution of digital diplomacy and information operations in conflict-driven platformised statecraft

This study theorizes the co-constitution of digital diplomacy and information operations (IO) as symbiotic vectors of platformized statecraft, addressing a gap in scholarship predominantly centred on state-versus-state conflicts. Using methodological triangulation (netnography, Botometer analysis, computational network analysis, and NVivo coding) to examine a state-versus-non-state civil war, the author conceptualizes digital power as a tripartite dialectic of strategic exercise, institutional contestation, and discursive negotiation. The findings demonstrate how actors weaponize digital ecosystems to produce legitimacy, amplify transnational advocacy, and privilege narratives algorithmically. These findings confirm their co-constitution via a diplomatic-informational complex, formalized as: Geopolitical Influence = α(Platform Manipulation) + β(Discourse Capture). This model establishes their combined function as a constitutive element of 21st-century statecraft and an operational bridge between digital and physical conflict domains.