Defence Strategic Communications

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 This article highlights how communicating through a rational-actor model is outdated; to best affect the physiological and emotional state of the audience, musicology must be incorporated.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.