How Diplomacy Reshapes Online Discourse:Asymmetric Persistence in Online Framing of North Korea

2026-01-14

AI Summary

This study investigates how high-stakes diplomatic summits reshape online narrative frameworks about adversarial nations, moving beyond transient emotional fluctuations to uncover persistent shifts in discursive structures. Leveraging Reddit data from the 2018–2019 U.S.–North Korea summits, the research employs a difference-in-differences design with multi-country control groups and introduces a novel integration of large language model (LLM)-driven frame coding and graph-theoretic community analysis to systematically assess both short-term and enduring effects of diplomatic events on online discourse. Findings reveal that while affective responses are brief and reversible, narrative frames exhibit notable stability: the proportion of threat-oriented edges declined from 48% to 28%, and diplomacy-oriented structures persisted partially even after summit failure. These results demonstrate that successful diplomacy can imprint short-lived yet durable narrative legacies, transcending the limitations of conventional sentiment analysis.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Natural Language Processing: Discourse, Pragmatics & Argument Mining
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Data Visualization & Summarization

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Sentiment analysis and opinion mining
• Responsible Web: Consent frameworks and practices on the web

Abstract

Public opinion toward foreign adversaries shapes and constrains diplomatic options. Prior research has largely relied on sentiment analysis and survey based measures, providing limited insight into how sustained narrative changes (beyond transient emotional reactions) might follow diplomatic engagement. This study examines the extent to which high stakes diplomatic summits shape how adversaries are framed in online discourse. We analyze U.S.-North Korea summit diplomacy (2018-2019) using a Difference-in-Difference(DiD) design on Reddit discussions. Using multiple control groups (China, Iran, Russia) to adjust for concurrent geopolitical shocks, we integrate a validated Codebook LLM framework for framing classification with graph based discourse network analysis that examines both edge level relationships and community level narrative structures. Our results reveal short term asymmetric persistence in framing responses to diplomacy. While both post level and comment level sentiment proved transient (improving during the Singapore Summit but fully reverting after the Hanoi failure),framing exhibited significant stability: the shift from threat oriented to diplomacy oriented framing was only partially reversed. Structurally, the proportion of threat oriented edges decreased substantially (48% ->28%) while diplomacy oriented structures expanded, and these shifts resisted complete reversion after diplomatic failure. These findings suggest that diplomatic success can leave a short-term but lasting imprint on how adversaries are framed in online discourse, even when subsequent negotiations fail.

Problem

• online discourse
• framing
• diplomacy
• North Korea
• narrative persistence

Innovation

• LLM-based framing classification
• graph-based discourse network analysis
• Difference-in-Differences design
• asymmetric persistence
• online narrative framing