Defence Strategic Communications

12

Authors: Malik R. Dahlan

Dahlan examines three books, Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life, Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital age, and LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, and their conclusions about strategic communications in the age of fake news.

15

Authors: Tara Flores and Philip Hall

Social media in the West is shifting to become regulated and less free as backlash against uncensored content continues. This article looks at how this internet model has worked in China and East Africa.

32

Authors: Tassio Franchi and Leonardo Perin Vichi

This article discusses the development of the strategic communications of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the EZLN, between 1994 and 1996. During this period, the Zapatista movement transformed from a group focused on armed struggle into a social movement. The EZLN used rhetorical and communications strategies, not only to construct group identity but as a way to pressure the Mexican government into guaranteeing their rights as citizens and as an indigenous minority. The article also reflects on the discursive strategies employed by the group’s main leader, Subcomandante Marcos, and on the Zapatistas’ narratives and the structure of the communications they disseminated to their worldwide network of committees connected through the internet.

36

Authors: Karen Allen

This article assesses the dynamics of resistance and cooperation by Kenyan elites to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the ongoing pressure for reform to Kenya’s security services, which were heavily implicated by a commission of inquiry into the post-election violence (PEV) of 2007/08.1 This article highlights the specific context of the global war on terror (GWOT) and Kenya’s role as a strategic partner in fighting the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s African affiliate, as well as being a victim of al-Shabaab attacks. The terrorism narrative served to reinforce Kenya’s existing strategies of opposition. This does not imply that conflating justice and security issues was a strategy intentionally adopted from the outset. However, this article suggests that over time the utility of doing so became apparent. Moreover, the response of Kenya’s leaders to events at the ICC and Kenya’s resistance to security sector reform are worthy of close scrutiny. They highlight what appears to be an international realignment of principles of justice, driven by pragmatism. They also demonstrate the fragility of international justice mechanisms and how it is virtually impossible to divorce them from political contexts.

43

Authors: John D. Gallacher and Marc W. Heerdink

The Internet has given new opportunities to those who wish to interfere and disrupt society through the systematic manipulation of social media. One goal of these cyber-enabled information operations is to increase polarisation in Western societies by stoking both sides of controversial debates. Whether these operations are successful remains unclear. This paper describes how novel applications of computational techniques can be used to test the impact of historical activity from the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) on two social media platforms: Twitter and Reddit. We show that activity originating from the Russian IRA had a measurable effect on the subsequent conversations of genuine users. On Twitter, increases in Russian IRA activity predicted subsequent increases in the degree of polarisation of the conversation surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. On Reddit, comment threads started by Russian IRA accounts contained more toxic language and identity based attacks. We use causal analysis modelling to further show that Russian IRA activity in existing threads caused measurable changes in the conversational quality of the following 25-100 posts. By developing methods to measure the impact of information operations in online conversations and demonstrating a measurable effect on genuine conversations, our study provides an important step in developing effective countermeasures.

30

Authors: Nicholas Michelsen, Jonathan Woodier

This article draws on content and sentiment analysis of a sample of international English-language media reports to identify the core elements of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) strategic communications campaign conducted at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and to establish groundwork for an assessment of its effectiveness. Using the Olympics as a stage for strategic communications is as old as the games themselves. The article examines the structure and elements of a DPRK Strategic Communications campaign by locating it in historical and theoretical context, and shows how it bears the hallmarks of a carefully crafted and timed agenda-setting campaign. Subsequent to the games, the supreme leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un, met with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, to discuss a full peace treaty and, in June 2018, met with President Trump of the United States. Irrespective of the ultimate outcome of these engagements, a month before the games such a meeting would have been inconceivable. We contend that the 2018 Winter Olympics held in the Republic of Korea (ROK) provides a case study for assessing how influencing discourses in the media space may impact the conditions of possibility for international political action.

36

Authors: Kitty Lovegrove

Governments using strategic communications to influence an audience should continue to reassess the intellectual grounds of the discipline. Current thinking on how best to construct a campaign and influence an audience is mixed, sparse, and incomplete. Insights from musicology present an opportunity for a refreshed perspective. Music, as a social text, a practice, and an ecology, provides a powerful means of communication from which lessons of influence can be learnt. This article serves as a study into the parallels between two interconnected topics. It proposes that insight from musicology has the ability to improve strategic communications practice on two levels—constructing a compelling narrative and best influencing an audience. Two case studies are compared to illustrate the benefits of persuading through emotionally-based strategic communications—a Daesh nasheed with music and a counternarrative campaign without. This article highlights how communicating through a rational-actor model is outdated; to best affect the physiological and emotional state of the audience, musicology must be incorporated.

41

Authors: Gulizar Haciyakupoglu

This article analyses the information garboil caused by the politicisation of disinformation and the term ‘fake news’, and interruptions in the flow of information during the 14th General Elections in Malaysia. It pays particular attention to the distortion of the information environment by politicians and political parties, the control of the media (traditional and new), and the mobilisation of cyber troops and bots by political agents. The Anti-Fake News Act is central to the discussion as a law passed before and submitted for repeal after the elections. The article also looks into the subsidiary debate on foreign intervention and the supporting measures, such as cyber attacks and legal actions, that interrupted the information flow. An examination of these activities suggests a need for reform in the conduct of politicians and political parties, and of the media, as well as a closer look at other measures employed to disturb the information sphere. An evaluation of the problem and the introduction of a new approach are very timely, given the political changes the country is currently experiencing.

14

Authors: Charles Kriel

A Review Essay

27

Authors: Žaneta Ozoliņa, Jurģis Šķilters, Sigita Struberga

Humour entertains, but can also be used for propaganda purposes if it reaches a large audience and influences their emotional response to specific topics. The article focuses on humour as a comprehensive concept: elements of humour that serve a propagandistic function, including shared knowledge, the target audience, the perception of humour, the functions of humour, and the communication process, are identified and analysed in New Year’s Eve programming on Russian television.

32

Authors: John Williams

A Review Essay

36

Authors: Robyn Kriel

This research paper examines and assesses how members of the Somali jihadi insurgent group al-Shabaab have attempted to influence the mass media for strategic communications purposes. Using the group’s activities between the years 2005 and 2017 as a case study, this paper asserts that al-Shabaab’s attempts to influence the mass media for news coverage purposes, despite its own operational security concerns since it withdrew from Mogadishu in 2011,is forward-looking, fast-paced, aggressive, and by and large successful. But the conclusions also assert that despite the group’s focused strategic communications and its opportunistic use of Propaganda of the Deed, its successes correlate directly to the failure of the poor and generally uncoordinated communications efforts of the international coalition working to counter it. The generally poor handling of strategic communications by an expensive combination of the Somali government, the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), the United Nations (UN), and some members of the international community has allowed the strategic communications of al-Shabaab a relatively free, unchecked, and unchallenged passage. In some cases related to major attacks, al-Shabaab’s strategic communications are even viewed by members of the mass media as more authentic, realistic, timely, and truthful, than those of those of the coalition working to counter it.

18

Authors: Kevin Marsh

NA

22

Authors: Charles Kriel

NA

34

Authors: Anna Marazuela Kim with Tara Flores

To date, most discussions and analyses of strategic communications within the context of International Relations and Security Studies focus on the linguistic realm. Those that do recognise the power and role of images in these domains, particularly as they reflect upon the contemporary image wars waged by IS and other insurgent groups, tend to focus on the virtual realm of social media and globalized news networks. This article aims instead to articulate a methodological framework for understanding the force and potential of a distinctively spatial and material form of communication: graffiti. Taking Athens as a case study, the article articulates graffiti’s role as a form of strategic communications in areas of social and political crisis, and further suggests its value as a non-violent means of negotiating conflict in areas with limited avenues for democratic expression.

34

Authors: Abdullahi Tasiu Abubakar

Strategic communications is gaining traction as a potent tool of countering insurgency. State and non-state actors—including insurgent groups—are increasingly turning to it in pursuit of their goals. This article offers a comparative study of the use of strategic communications by both the Nigerian Armed Forces and the jihadi group they seek to obliterate: Boko Haram. It also assesses their impact on the media coverage of their activities. The jihadists deployed both their communications skills and their infamies to put their insurgency onto the global scene. The Army employed a range of tools—some effective, some less so—to counter them. The media’s obsession with jihadi stories gave the insurgents an edge, but the Army managed to disrupt most of their strategies. Extraneous factors do influence strategic communications campaigns, but honesty—or the perception of it—is a necessary condition for their long-term efficacy.

13

Authors: James P. Farwell

NA

24

Authors: Nicholas O’Shaughnessy

This article poses an unsettling question. Was Hitler’s regime not so much a historical accident as a prototype—a creation of modernity and a response to the conditions precipitated by modernity? It constructs an answer via the exploration of the interdependency of a number of constructs. Through the building blocks of symbolism the propagandist constructs an imaginary world that is neither true nor false, but a pseudo-reality energised by the emotion of fear and both defined and constricted by ideology and beliefs. The article highlights significant differences between this Nazi prototype and modern practice to be taken into account. For example the Nazis had no theory of soft power; however, they were much more aware of the value of entertainment as propaganda than contemporary populist autocracies. The article promotes a rigorous examination of the evidence for the ‘impact’ of propaganda—How effective is it really?—and the need for a more sophisticated understanding of its effects and purpose.

26

Authors: James Rogers, Andriy Tyushka

Contrary to the narrative in much of politics and academia, Russia’s alienation from the West did not start in 2014—it is a lasting and inherent phenomenon. Since the mid-1990s, Moscow’s attempts to ‘capture’ the narrative of Europe or even portray itself later on as a ‘better Europe’, transcended in 2014 into a more overt and antithetical approach of strategically juxtaposing Russia versus Europe, or placing ‘Russia being not (declinist and decadent) Europe’, a part of the likewise allegedly declining ‘West’. Russia’s appeal for European ‘self-denial’ does not only find its supporters in Europe, predominantly populist and radical parties, but also contributes to a more general frustration among Europeans regarding their own self-perception, as well provokes Western ambiguity and uncertainty about its responsibility for regional security affairs, particularly in the European neighbourhood. This article argues that, by destabilising the immediate vicinity and regional security order, the Russian leadership does not pursue a policy of balancing the Western hegemonic formation, thus strategising a positive competing (counter-hegemonic) framework. Rather, it engages in an anti-hegemonic strategy through a deeply negative spoiler offensive. The article conceptualises Russia’s anti-hegemonic drive as a three-pronged strategic narrative offensive that operationally seeks to 1) ‘desynchronise’ political developments in the European Neighbourhood to ‘distort’ European perceptions of reality; 2) ‘de-articulate’ the West, i.e., splitting the Atlantic democracies from the European mainland; and 3) ‘saturate’ the vacuum with false and fictitious narratives, to sow confusion and maintain manageable disorder.

27

Authors: Ofer Fridman

During the last decade, ‘information warfare’ has become a much-politicised term in Russian domestic and foreign affairs. This article sheds light on the conceptual roots that have been shaping this idea in the Russian academic, political, and public discourse. Moreover, the article points to the major actors leading the politicisation of this idea by promoting narratives describing the so-called ‘Western information war against Russia’. In the context of Russia’s contemporary attempts to re-establish itself as a global power and Western fear and distress associated with Russian activities in the information domain, a grounded understanding of the major conceptual narratives influencing Russian thinking about information warfare, as well as perspectives on how these narratives have been politicised, is of paramount importance.

31

Authors: Thomas Colley

Communications practitioners continue to see strategic narrative as vital to securing domestic support or opposition to war. Yet despite an extensive literature on the narratives states construct, the stories domestic citizens tell about war are rarely examined. Consequently, the formation of strategic narratives is only informed by the stories governments think citizens tell, rather than those they actually tell. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of the stories the British public tell about their country’s role in war. Focusing on genre—the general pattern of a given story—­ it reveals five narratives citizens use to interpret Britain’s military role. These portray Britain as Punching Above its Weight; a Vanishing Force; Learning from its Mistakes; being Led Astray, or a Selfish Imperialist. At a time of uncertainty about Britain’s international role following the ‘Brexit’ vote, it provides an in-depth perspective on a state where military intervention is commonplace but understanding of public interpretations of war remains limited.