Public diplomacy activities of Armenia and Armenian diaspora against Turkey and Azerbaijan

Rapidly developing technology and the globalization that accompanies it have changed the life of society and also witnessed changes in the field of diplomacy. In addition to traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy involving the public has emerged. Especially with digitalization, the concept has been moved to a further dimension. Public diplomacy aims to reach people and influence them in line with their own views by actively participating in every field with its actors and types. As a result of influence, it becomes possible to influence the government decisions of that country. This situation constitutes the main goal of public diplomacy. This extremely effective field is Armenia's most important weapon. Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, which are very successful in this field, carry out activities against Turkey and Azerbaijan in order to achieve their national goals. While Armenians are implementing anti-Turkey public diplomacy activities through the so-called Armenian genocide allegations, they are also implementing anti-Azerbaijani public diplomacy activities through the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenians find support by playing the role of victim and oppressed on both issues. It causes negative effects for Turkey and Azerbaijan with its economic, social and political activities through lobbying, education, media and technology. News agencies, which are of great importance for public diplomacy and enable us to be informed about developments about countries, are within our immediate reach with today's internet access. The news contained here has the feature of guiding the reader and creating ideas. Armenia offers its local newspapers to the world public in different languages on the internet. These news agencies frequently contain negative news for the two Turkish states. These news are both public diplomacy activities and provide information about public diplomacy activities. In this study, the purposes of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora's use of public diplomacy were touched upon and the fields in which they were active were examined. In order to make the activities more understandable, three Armenian news sources and three Armenian diaspora organizations were analyzed. While examples were selected from the news on the official websites of news agencies, the posts on the official Twitter accounts of diaspora organizations were discussed. The study revealed the existence of image-damaging public diplomacy activities against the two Turkish states.