The Council on Foreign Relations’ presence on Instagram seeks to fulfill the organization’s mission to be an independent, nonpartisan resource that helps interested citizens to better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Our Instagram account utilizes and adapts the fact-based, nonpartisan writing of our editorial team, as well as the foreign policy expertise and analysis of our fellows, to educate and inform.
Our data visualizations, such as charts, maps, and graphs, help our audience compare data, as we did in a country breakdown of aid to Ukraine; visualize the impact behind numbers, such as to which countries Palestinian refugees are fleeing; and track trends, including the growing annual emissions from Canadian wildfires.
We expanded our video content after noticing the growth in interest in vertical format video and a need for more faces to humanize our content. Our videos provide quick analysis for our audience on world events. Our event clips offer soundbites from our conversations with world leaders, officials, and experts. Our Q&As with our think tank fellows answer questions to provide a deeper understanding of the world. Our expert opinion videos with fellows also provide quick takes on news and events from our fellows.
We also use informational carousels to break down complex issues and to provide quick lists to our audiences. These include an outline of why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be difficult, a list of the elections to watch in 2024, and a historical timeline of intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
