Dialogues for Peace: Unpacking the European Union's Narratives on Social Media in China and Brazil

The European Union (EU) aims to be a global leader in supporting what it considers to be international peace. The EU seeks to establish itself as a peaceful actor through mediation and also by exerting political, moral, and economic influence. As an emerging trend in the literature proposes, international actors strive to propel their identities as defenders of peace through social media. However, how states or international organizations portray themselves as peaceful actors in digital environments still needs to be studied in International Relations and Peace Studies. This study aims to mitigate this gap through discourse analysis of some of the EU's official social media accounts in Brazil and China. As these two states recently self-claimed as potential mediators in international conflicts, this study focused on the EU online discourses about peace in their accounts dedicated to the Brazilian and Chinese audiences. We analysed the narratives shared by the EU on platforms like Instagram, X, and Weibo. These platforms offer a digital space where the EU can communicate directly with citizens of these countries, increasing its power of influence beyond the limits of sovereignty. Drawing on Oliver Richmond's research on the potential of such digital platforms to achieve peace, this investigation analyses and compares the EU's efforts to build its identity as a peacemaker in these two countries. By doing so, it aims to identify possible variations in the EU's discourse as a defender of international peace.