This site is dedicated to serious and informed discussions concerning issues of democracy in today's world. If you seek claptrap instead of intelligent discussion, you should turn on broadcast or cable TV shows that talk about politics. Here we seek intelligent and rational discourse. This means logical argumentation with good source citations. Blathering is not encouraged. You can sign your message with your actual name and identity or you can sign as anonymous.
Watch how this TV show tries to get this political candidate to share his views on civil rights and how he tries with very little skill, to conceal his racism.
posted by Ken Hacker @ Friday, May 21, 2010
3 Comments
Dumb Politicians in New Mexico
posted by Ken Hacker @ Saturday, October 10, 2009
0 Comments
Two American men recently made asses of themselves in a very big way. One is simply an drunk man in Florida carrying a knife in his shorts and the other is a former Army officer who seems to have never learned that the President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief and that both presidents and commanders are to be treated with respect. What these two men share is the ability to throw out what should not be thrown.
posted by Ken Hacker @ Thursday, September 10, 2009
0 Comments
Smart Cops Can Do Stupid Things
posted by Ken Hacker @ Friday, July 24, 2009
0 Comments
POLITICAL INSANITY
Hannity flirts with political insanity and then pulls himself back in an interesting manner, probably so he does not get the same mentally ill diagnosing one might assign to Anne Coulter and others like her who say that liberals are diseased, Native Americans were once cannibals, Arabs and Muslims need to have their cultures cleansed, and Jews need to become Christians. O"Reilly can actually be rational and while suffering occasional moments when it looks like his head is going to explode with anger, can talk about facts and even admit a fact that might not have been handed to him by his staff.
posted by Ken Hacker @ Thursday, July 23, 2009
0 Comments
The Strategic Persuasion Problems of the United States Government
Kenneth L. Hacker
June 22, 2009
Today, it is irrefutable that the national image of the United States is suffering from low credibility of its political leaders, underuse of soft power, and eclipsing by terrorists in exploitation of the communication capabilities of the Internet. While attitudes of people in states of concern, particularly those most susceptible to pro-terrorism arguments, have declined over the past decade, there are signs of progress which show that the negative national image is not intractable. The attempts of President Obama to initiate dialogue with Islamic and Arabic leaders is promising even if the effects are yet to be seen (substantially).
Since the Cold War, the United State government (USG) has had formal means of disseminating messages encourage positives responses to its actions. These formal agencies and mechanisms are found the in the State Department, the intelligence community, and the United States military. What all three of the bodies do is known in the most general sense as strategic communication. Strategic communication is basically the use of numerous means of persuasion by the USG to persuade populations in other nations that we are working in our own best national interests while also respecting or aiding their interests. While the end of the Cold War led to reductions in strategic communication, new concerns about increasing the use of strategic communication have arisen in light of numerous surveys showing that the United States is not perceived as the world leader that it claims to be.
The Purpose of Strategic Communication
Two objectives of strategic communication is designed to a) improve perceptions of the United States by populations in other countries, and b) to decrease the persuasiveness of enemy persuasion which derides the United States. Strategic communication (SC) is an umbrella terms for component processes known as military information operations, public diplomacy, and public affairs (Josten, 2006). The agency with the most focus on SC is the Department of State (DOS). The goals for the SC efforts of the USG center around improving the national image of the United States and conveying is most important messages to other nations as effectively as possible (Josten, 2006). Public diplomacy is a form of strategic communication which entails overt international messages sent by the United States to other nations (Josten, 2006). It can include efforts to understand as well as influence foreign cultures (Josten, 2006).
For strategic communication to work well, it must involve common themes and messages that are reinforced by actions (Josten, 2006). It must also involve long-term rather than short-term image building (Josten, 2006). Terrorism involves strategic communication and to work more effectively against terrorism, the USG needs to confront the SC of the terrorist networks. Josten (2006, p. 19) describes the SC of terrorism as “message and action – using the global communications network more to influence than inform.”
Information operations, propaganda, strategic influence, psychological warfare and all of the other means of using message to influence other groups go back at leas as far as the Hebrew military leader Gideon and the ancient Greeks with their Trojan horse.
After 9/11, the State Department initiated the branding campaign run by Charlotte Beers. The White House set up the Office of Global Communications to coordinate government propaganda. The Defense Department had an Office of Strategic Influence agency which was intended to direct other-nation perceptions but which was canceled because of stories about intended uses of disinformation (Battle, 2002). All of these efforts were grounded in the premise that that world does not understand the good policies of the United States (Battle, 2002). Along with this assumption, it was also assumed that a neglect of public diplomacy (self-promotion) resulted in declining prestige of the United States (Battle, 2002).
Todays’ efforts can be related to efforts done after World War II. The United States used public diplomacy to attempt to increase its influence in the Middle East which was viewed as necessary for an anti-Soviet alliance and as important location of strategic oil resources (Battle, 2002). Public diplomacy was intended to channel revolutionary and nationalist movements in anti-Communist and pro-United States directions (Battle, 2002). The propaganda messages were directed at what were considered good target populations and those who shaped their views. As today, public diplomacy was a tool for attempting to change how realities are perceived. It was also a tool for inculcating American values into other cultures (Battle, 2002). It was also viewed in terms of dealing with Arab ignorance and resentment of the West (Battle, 2002).
The themes of this early PD effort said that American supports freedom and that it supports peace and the use of international institutions(Battle, 2002). Religion appeals were used to foster more anti-Comunist attitudes (Battle, 2002).
Problems with the early PD arose with contradictions between experience and claims. America claimed to support freedom at the same time that it supported dictatorships (Battle, 2002). There was also the problem of the fact that American interests were not the same as the interests of the receivers (Battle, 2002). Arabs distrusted the faith in Israel shown in 1948 and the Soviets used this to talk about American imperialism (Battle, 2002).
After the easy defeat of the Iraq army in 2003, U.S. planners directed attention to rising anti-American attitudes in face of startling findings such as the fact that bin Laden was a more trusted figure than Bush in some Muslim nations including U.S. allies Indonesia and Jordan (Kaplan, 2005). Some of these efforts made it clear that there was no national strategy for how to change the attitudes (Kaplan, 2005). In 2005, journalists reported that a classified strategy known as Muslim World Outreach was in operation (Kaplan, 2005). The goal of this operation was the highlighting of shared values with moderate Muslims such as womens rights and democracy (Kaplan, 2005).
The amount of channels now used by the U.S. government for strategic communication is daunting. In about 24 countries, it is funding Islamic radio and TV programs, programs in Muslim schools, Muslim think tanks, and federal aid to help with restoring mosques, saving ancient Korans, and building Islamic churches (Kaplan, 2005). The CIA is again using its powers of covert actions to seed messages in Islamic media, political parties, and among Islamic leaders (Kaplan, 2005). Other publicly known CIA operations include their work with Al Qaeda opponents and with discrediting various zealots who work against the U.S.
Despite the acceleration of strategic communication projects, there is evidence that the campaigns are chaotic and the results are not meeting expectations (Kaplan, 2005). Staff members of the White House National Security Council have written over 100 papers on actions to take against Jihadist propaganda and actions but few of the papers have been acted upon (Kaplan, 2005). The National Intelligence Council has cautioned about unemployed and alienated youths in the Arab world being susceptible to terrorist recruitment (Kaplan, 2005).
Anti-Americanism is one of the main factors encouraging terrorism in the world today. Rumors can be taken as truths in anti-American environments. One such rumor is that American soldiers harvest the organs from dead Iraqis (Kaplan, 2005). Themes circulating in such environments include those saying that America is at war with Arabs and with the religion of Islam (Kaplan, 2005).
Large-scale strategic communication in the U.S. began during the Cold War. The United States Information Agency (USIA) was a major agent in these efforts, to the extent that it had a network of hundreds of specialists in other nations and was producing movies that were of Hollywood studio quality (Kaplan, 2005). The central theme was the United States is good and Communism is bad. The overall strategic communication efforts included the work of the USIA, the Fulbright Scholarships, Radio Free Europe and other broadcasts, funds channeled by the CIA to journalists, political parties, scholars, and labor leaders (Kaplan, 2005). After the Cold War, these programs were pared back. While the CIA had hundreds of people working in strategic influence during the Cold War, the number was down to about 20 by later 2001. When visited in 2001, the visitors were greeted by a lady with a walker! (Kaplan, 2005).
After 9/11, Bush authorized more efforts for political warfare including political propaganda. The Pentagon showed people with political leaflets and distributed kites and comic books to influence people (Kaplan, 2005). Because of the lack of a well coordinated system of strategic communication, the defense expert created and Office of Strategic Influence (Kaplan, 2005). It closed its doors after 4 month when it was learned that the OSI planned to distribute disinformation.
The State Department ran into trouble when it attempted to employ the commercial marketing technique known as branding. Charlotte Beers, who ran the campaign, quit as head of public diplomacy just before the war began in Iraq in 2003 (Kaplan, 2005).
While Americans expected the fall of Saddam Hussein to symbolize liberation and freedom, many Arabs viewed it as confirmation of their belief that the U.S. has no problem with invading Muslim nations, ignoring the international community, supporting Israel while neglecting the concerns of the Palestinians, and supporting dictators while calling for democracy (Kaplan, 2005).
In 2002, amidst lots of complaining about not winning hearts and minds, National Security Adviser Condelezza Rice formed two inter-agency committees, one to work on strategic communication and the other to work on information strategies (Kaplan, 2005). Proposals included an information offensive on AQ and using music, comics, poetry, and the Internet to transmit American views to Arabs (Kaplan, 2005). The strategic communication group was to construct a strategy of public diplomacy (Kaplan, 2005). The group dissipated due to a lack of leadership (Kaplan, 2005). Another reason for failure was that members of these groups had trouble agreeing on what the target audience was (ex. World terrorism or Islamic extremism) and what the causes are for terrorism (Kaplan, 2005). Some participants feared the idea of criticizing a religion (Kaplan, 2005).
Three years after 9/11, there was no working effective strategic communication program for the United States (Kaplan, 2005). However, there were large-scale projects like Radio Sawa, Alhurra, as well as increased funding for the CIA’s strategic influence unit and the Pentagon’s psychological operations group (Kaplan, 2005).
A strategy called Muslim World Outreach began in 2004 (Kaplan, 2005). This program seeks to work with Muslim partners who believe in democracy, womens rights, and other key values (Kaplan, 2005). The program has critics who argue that America’s commitment to religious freedom should block criticizing Muslims (Kaplan, 2005). Supporters of the program believe that helping moderate Muslims publish and broadcast is a good way to challenge jihadist discourse (Kaplan, 2005).
There are Arab and other governments who have contributed to the terrorism problem and which require careful analysis. Saudi Arabia, for example, has spent $75 billion since 1975 to spread Wahhabism worldwide (Kaplan, 2005). Saudi-funded charities have been found to support jihadists I twenty nations (Kaplan, 2005).
U.S. intelligence officers are meeting with members of groups that have abandoned older commitments to violence. These include groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (Kaplan, 2005). The MB is not close to AQ. By meeting with members of groups like the Deobandi sect in Pakistan, the United States has been able to get conservative clerics to persuade people to abandon fatwas calling for an anti-American jihad (Kaplan, 2005).
One of the main players in public diplomacy today is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In Indonesia alone, USAID is helping to fund over 30 Muslim organizations (Kaplan, 2005). Open efforts like this can be attacked and have been. For example, there is a continuous question about whether our government should be involved with funding religious efforts.
What has been alternatively called the "war on terror," the "global war on terror," and the "long war" is suffering from an absence of what most wars end with and that is a point of victory and a point of surrender. Some experts believe that better persuasion would begin with some lingustic analysis of terms like "war on terror." We have already seen what the use of the term "crusade" did to the USG during the Bush 2 administration.
Robert Pape, Paul Pillar and other experts in terrorism note that terrorist attacks can take years of organization and planning. Counterrorism experts must always be alert to the potential of terrorist attacks. We offer a method to detect terrorism communication longitudinally.
Antecendent attributes for terrorists alone do not predict terrorism as action. Pillar (2002, p. 31) says that “No one has produced a good algorithm for the many variables that, in combination, breed terrorists.” Our use of terrorism discourse is a way to get at a mulitiplicity of factors which work together to generate the intent to commit acts of terrorism. According to Pillar (2001, p. 130), “Everything that makes a terrorist group what it is- including its culture, ideology, demographic characteristics, and history – needs to be taken into account in formulating a posture toward it.”
We need to monitor groups of concern for what they have in terms of motivations for their leaders, what are their priorities, and what might cause them to decide not to be violent. Exogenous influences are important to ascertain when analyzing groups that might become terrorist groups. Intent should be related to agendas of the group as well as calculations of what are in its best interests. It is important that intent can fluctuate as objectives remain constant but conditions make success of violence less probable. While some groups are more formal and organized than others and some have links to larger groups, there are some that are ad ho in nature.
While it is clearly necessary to use anti-terrorism against terrorists in action, it is also necessary to prevent the actions from occurring in the first place. This is where the detection of intent becomes crucial for defense.
There are many analyses which indicate the terrorists have specific political missions and goals which they pursue with their political violence. Some intelligence analysts become so overwhelmed with complicated data about threats that they seek information in the data that confirm pre-conceived hypotheses (Gutjahr2005).
Younger terrorists are more savvy with computers and the Internet than their predecssors and become more capable of using the new networks to create more complex threats (Gutjahr2005).
Terrorism is a method of affecting political order Thomas (2004). What distinguishes terrorists from common criminals is their political motivation Thomas (2004). The goal of terrorist actions is to generate psychological impacts, mainly fear Thomas (2004). Understanding culture is critical to understanding how terrorists construct their groups, causes, and intentions. Useful cultural intelligence provides govermnet analysts information about group norms and values. Norms set the standards for appopriate behavior for groups and their members (Thomas,2004). Troy Thomas (2004) notes that norms can be identified by a)evidence showing that members believe certain behaviors are expected, b)most members share beliefs about expected behaviors, and c)the norms are supported by most members.
Groups are related to cultures external to themselves but also to a culture that is internal to the group itself. The strength of a group culture is shown by how much the members share its values and norms (Thomas, 2004).
Terrorist groups have varied and multiple avenues of influence into the group. Both direct influencers such as religious figures and indirect ones, such as weapons suppliers, can affect the intentions and planning of the group (Thomas,2004).
Webs of external and internal influence that are part of terrorist group interactions and information processing might reveal themselves to some extent in the discourse networks that emerge in various sets of conversations.
Thomas (2004) argues that the intent of a terrorist organization stems from its interests and the interests provide it motivation to do terrorist actions. He argues that intent is so difficult to identify that it is more efficient to identify capabilities - ascertain what they are capable of doing rather than what they plan on doing. We need to refute this argument. Thomas argues that if you have to choose between intent and capabilities, choose capabilities. This is essentially a false dilemma.
Certain types of discourse are more likely than others to resonate than other types. Religious discourse is one example as such discourse can motivate and mobilize believers (Lambert, 2005). Discourse of terrorist organizations can reveal strategic cultural factors and strategic narratives. The latter are cultural stories that are politically motivating (Lambert, 2005). Members of terrorist groups who are willing to die for their group are immersed in the groups social identity Lambert, 2005).
It may be possible to relate strategic cultures of these groups to their intentions and to the concept of persuasive centers of gravity. Centers of gravity for social identity, political motivation, and group attitudes are likely to be highly related to development of courses of action that will help the group reach its aspirations. Intent should not be the only target of the kind of analysis we are proposing by any means. It is one area of the total analysis.
Traditional methods of influence and persuasion work well for response shaping, response reinforcing, and response changing for certain topics, mainly commercial, health, and election campaigns. Without proper contextual understanding, these approaches fail when applied to foreign policy national image campaigns, and information operations influence. Marketing techniques like branding are likely to generate boomerang effects when applied sender centricly. Thus, we propose research and theory based methods of moving perceptions and attitudes in desired directions through various psychological and communication strategies and tactics, all of which can be tested before, during and after operations.
Numerous regime-change campaigns have bee attempted in the past that end up supporting new regimes as bad as the old ones.There is no reason to assume that cultural diplomacy is limited only State Department comunication with populations and leaders. For much of human history, cultural diplomacy has worked to build good will and international relations.French rap artist al Maliki can talk about quitting a plan to do a terrorst bombing and becoming peaceful as a Muslim in ways that reach young Muslims in his nation if not others. Tariq Ramadan can refute Islamic extremist justifications for terrorism that draw upon the Quran.
Good intelligence is a hallmark of the intelligence community in the United States. Strategic influence follows from good intelligence and uses communication to attract populations to the policies and arguments of the USG. While the USG has steadily improved its intelligence procedures, it has been faltering in the production of messages which constitute strategic influence.
Intelligence can improved in various ways noted by the IC itself. Here are some realizations by foreign policy experts in the United States government regarding past and current political situations and how communication must be carefully managed to protect the national interestions of the U.S. American intelligence and strategic influence experts still lack sufficient knowledge that might be called cultural intelligence -- knowledge of other nations akin to knowing them like we know the neighborhoods we grew up in. Accurate perceptions of the intentions guiding messages or signal from other nations are crucial. For example, China appears to be arming itself at a rapid pace to make itself a large power rather than for any specific acts of aggression. The CIA National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq did not have enough input from Iraq expert groups. The government is trying to avoid this mistake with Iran. The United States can and should communicate with states of concern ("rogue states," "enemies," etc.) and can be persuasive with them. In conducting analyis of the political cultures of other nations, we should include analysis of what the leaders are reading and what other sources give them ways of perceiving and thinking in certain ways. If you can study how a nation makes decisions about world events and its role in international relations, you are studying its "strategic culture."
Intelligence analysis involves intensive work at identifying patterns in observed data (Garst & Gross, 2005). Analysts attempt to isolate the most important data which provide the most information. To some extent, this means finding order in chaos (Garst & Gross, 2005). There are numerous problems which affect this process including biases, stereotyps, confusion of cause and effect, and simplistic thinking (Garst & Gross, 2005).
The data which get analyzed are fragmentary, ambigous and susceptible to deception or disinformation (Garst & Gross, 2005).There is a constant pressure to make predictions. Overall, analysts have to describe, explain, evaluate, and forecast (Garst & Gross, 2005). Evaluative steps include providing implications of what has been thoroughly described. Forecasting involves making predictions about likely events based on what has been described and evaluated (Garst & Gross, 2005). While information is critical to intelligence, intelligence is more than information. Intelligence is the continuous evaluation of information in ways that provide understandings of problems and situations in actionable terms (Bei, 2005).
One of the biggest mistakes in intelligence analysis was not forecasting the potential and likely actions of Al Qaeda before 9/11 (Dowling, 2005). The U. S. tended to view Afghanistan in terms of the Cold War and the nation resisting the Soviet Union. This caused us to support groups that were anti-Soviet but would later become anti-American (Dowling, 2005). Analysts did not pay close enough attention to the political problems in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Nothern Africa which would provide incentive to Al Qaeda and organizations like it to recruit and formulate plans for terrorism (Dowling, 2005).
There have been many problems with the ways that terrorist communication and behavior are analyzed. For example, the behavior of Hebollah indicating that they do not strike Americans in their homeland can be interpreted as Hezbollah is not interested in doing such an action, but such an inference could be deadly. Terrorist organization aims and plans are always subject to change. The discourse of Osama bin Laden was evaluated as as hyperbolic and wild until it was followed by physical attacks. Yet even after his attack on the U.S. Cole, U.S. analysts and leaders failed to take him as seriously as he needed to be taken (Dowling, 2005).
Another problem with analyzing Al Qaeda was an overeliance on received wisdom regarding the differences among Arabs and other Islamists and the assumption that they would not work together. Data like the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas were very important but were inadquately evaluated (Dowling, 2005). While the destruction of the giant carvings was assessed as vandalism by the Taliban, it later became apparent that bin Laden used the destruction to isolate the Talian regime from supporting states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who oppposed the destruction of the carvings (Dowling, 2005).
Robert Pape, Paul Pillar and other experts in terrorism note that terrorist attacks can take numerous years of organization and planning. Counterrorism experts must always be alert to the potential of terrorist attacks. We offer a method to detect terrorism communication longitudinally. Antecendent attributes for terrorists alone do not predict terrorism as action. Pillar (2002, p. 31) says that “No one has produced a good algorithm for the many variables that, in combination, breed terrorists.”
Our use of terrorism discourse is a way to get at a mulitiplicity of factors which work together to generate the intent to commit acts of terrorism. According to Pillar (2001, p. 130), “Everything that makes a terrorist group what it is- including its culture, ideology, demographic characteristics, and history – needs to be taken into account in formulating a posture toward it.”
The USG needs to monitor groups of concern for what they have in terms of motivations for their leaders, what are their priorities, and what might cause them to decide not to be violent. Exogenous influences are important to ascertain when analyzing groups that might become terrorist groups. Intent should be related to agendas of the group as well as calculations of what are in its best interests. It is important that intent can fluctuate as objectives remain constant but conditions make success of violence less probable. While come groups are more formal and organized than others and some have links to larger groups, there are some that are ad ho in nature.
While it is clearly necessary to use anti-terrorism against terrorists in action, it is also necessary to prevent the actions from occurring in the first place. This is where the detection of intent becomes crucial for defense. There are many analyses which indicate the terrorists have specific political missions and goals which they pursue with their political violence. Some intelligence analysts become so overwhelmed with complicated data about threats that they seek information in the data that confirm pre-conceived hypotheses (Gutjahr,2005).
Younger terrorists are more savvy with computers and the Internet than their predecssors and become more capable of using the new networks to create more complex threats (Gutjahr2005).Terrorism is a method of affecting political order Thomas (2004). What distinguishes terrorists from common criminals is their political motivation Thomas (2004). The goal of terrorist actions is to generate psychological impacts, mainly fear Thomas (2004). Understanding culture is critical to understanding how terrorists construct their groups, causes, and intentions. Useful cultural intelligence provides government analysts information about group norms and values. Norms set the standards for appropriate behavior for groups and their members (Thomas,2004). Troy Thomas (2004) notes that norms can be identified by a)evidence showing that members believe certain behaviors are expected, b)most members share beliefs about expected behaviors, and c)the norms are supported by most members.
Groups are related to cultures external to themselves but also to a culture that is internal to the group itself. The strength of a group culture is shown by how much the members share its values and norms (Thomas, 2004).Terrorist groups have varied and multiple avenues of influence into the group. Both direct influencers such as religious figures and indirect ones, such as weapons suppliers, can affect the intentions and planning of the group (Thomas, 2004).Webs of external and internal influence that are part of terrorist group interactions and information processing might reveal themselves to some extent in the discourse networks that emerge in various sets of conversations.
Thomas (2004) argues that the intent of a terrorist organization stems from its interests and the interests provide it motivation to do terrorist actions. He argues that intent is so difficult to identify that it is more efficient to identify capabilities - ascertain what they are capable of doing rather than what they plan on doing. We need to refute this argument. Thomas argues that if you have to choose between intent and capabilities, choose capabilities. This is essentially a false dilemma.
Certain types of discourse are more likely than others to resonate than other types. Religious discourse is one example as such discourse can motivate and mobilize believers (Lambert, 2005). Discourse of terrorist organizations can reveal strategic cultural factors and strategic narratives. The latter are cultural stories that are politically motivating Lambert, 2005). Members of terrorist groups who are willing to die for their group are immersed in the groups social identity (Lambert, 2005).
It may be possible to relate strategic cultures of these groups to their intentions and to the concept of persuasive centers of gravity. Centers of gravity for social identity, political motivation, and group attitudes are likely to be highly related to development of courses of action that will help the group reach its aspirations. Intent should not be the only target of the kind of analysis we are proposing by any means. It is one area of the total analysis.
The Need for More Critical Analysis
Intelligence professionals know that intelligence gathering and analysis should gude the formation of hypotheses and not the other away around. They also know that analysis must always be as objective as possible. There are many problems with intelligence analysis including some noted above and others like information assimilation and mirror-imaging. With information assimilation, data are fit into preconceived patterns (Brei, 2006). In this instance, analysts avoid the necessary steps of determining probabilities for various hypotheses. Mirror-image is the process in which analysts project how they would act on their assessments of how adversaries will act (Brei, 2005). In WWII, this occurred when British military intelligence analysts inferred how Germany would use its air power by inferring that the Luftwaffe thinking was like that of the Royal Air Force (Brei, 2005). Another interesting problem is simply fatigue of not getting behaviors that might be indicated by repeated analysis of possible threats. For example, certain admirals noted that analysts were weary of checking out reports Japanese submarine activity near Pearl Harbor. Seven reports had been examined the week before the attack (Brei, 2005).
Intelligence analysis involves intensive work at identifying patterns in observed data (Garst & Gross, 2005). Analysts attempt to isolate the most important data which provide the most information. To some extent, this means finding order in chaos (Garst & Gross, 2005). There are numerous problems which affect this process including biases, stereotyps, confusion of cause and effect, and simplistic thinking (Garst & Gross, 2005).
The data which get analyzed are fragmentary, ambigous and susceptible to deception or disinformation (Garst & Gross, 2005).There is a constant pressure to make predictions. Overall, analysts have to describe, explain, evaluate, and forecast (Garst & Gross, 2005). Evaluative steps include providing implications of what has been thoroughly described. Forecasting involves making predictions about likely events based on what has been described and evaluated (Garst & Gross, 2005). While information is critical to intelligence, intelligence is more than information. Intelligence is the continuous evaluation of information in ways that provide understandings of problems and situations in actionable terms (Bei, 2005).
Moving From Intelligence to Influence to Strategic Influence
The USG employs some communication theory and some persuasion theory its development of strategic influence. Much of the theory that is applied is outdated however and there is a strong need to get communication scientists who work on cutting edge research to get involved in the IC's effort to develop more effective strategic influence.
Many present approaches to strategic influence sufer from inadequate audience analysis. Consequently, fundamental principles of effective influence campaigns such as encouraging self-persuasion as much as possible, are neglected.
Traditional persuasion theory says that persuasion consists of changing attitudes in the direction desired by the persuader. Before the traditions based on social science, classical theories from the ancient Greeks and Romans were used. Some of the ideas from the classical and traditional lines of work are still used today but contempory studies of human behavior and persuasion have made many of those ideas incapable of explaining current influence problems.
Classical notions of persuasion assumed rational receivers and powerful senders who could influence them with good argumentation.
Strategic influence for the USG must be treated as a set of persuasion campaigns. Campaigns require large-scale funding, multiple theoretical guides, channel systems, methods of tracking and adjusting, and careful monitoring. Many campaigns fail because they do not target the right audience with the most effective messages. Millions of dollars were wasted on anti-smoking, drug abuse, and unsafe sex until better audience research was conducted and more fitting messages were designed and tested. For example, with children and cigarette smoking, researches found that how children evaluate the consequences of smoking is more important than what they think about smoking alone. The consequences include what they think their friends will think of them if they smoke or others like how much they will feel grown up by smoking (Perloff, 1993).
Cigarette brands like Virginia Slims are sold by pairing the allegedly female product with women’s rights. This was actually done with other brands by Edward Bernays (Freud’s nephew) in the days of the marches for women’s suffrage in the United States.
Internet communication or CMC offer more rapid diffusion of persuasive messages. This requires much faster rapid responses for SI sources. This appears to be a problem.
Effective campaigners do note assume passive receivers, but rather they know that receivers of persuasive messages are most likely to be persuaded if they are involved in the persuasion process. The principle of self-persuasion indicates that people are more likely to be persuaded of things they can or want to accept than things they are most likely to reject.
Stacking up public relations firms, marketing consultants, speech writers, and pollsters is not enough to have a successful campaign. Cults in the United States and other nations use persuasive techniques effectively. The 1950’s concept of “brainwashing” does not explain their force. Cults develop intense leadership-followership patterns in their social dynamics, isolate themselves from interaction with outside groups, provide loving environments for lonely people, and provide simple and clear explanations for all of the problems of life (Perloff, 1993). The more dedicated a cult member belongs to the sect, the more he or she feels good in terms of self-esteem. Individual identity is subordinated to group identity (Perloff, 1993). Terrorist organizations also use strong social identity formation to instill loyalty to a collective cause. Recruits are not automatons, but rather active receivers who like the meaning they find in the terrorist causes they join (Perloff, 1993).
Three of the most fundamental challenges to persuasion are response shaping, response reinforcing, and response changing. Shaping is the easiest and changing is the most difficult. Commercial and election campaigns have often successfully associated brand names and candidate names with favorable psychological symbols in ways that encourage positive responses to the products or candidates. This works best when a product is being introduced and is part of response shaping strategies.
Response reinforcing is important for two reasons. The first is to keep loyal receivers loyal. The second is to block attraction to competing messages. This includes what is known as the Inoculation Effect – giving audiences small doses of a coming competing argument along with a ready-made refutation for the argument when it arrives. The effect is analogous to a flu vaccine.
Response changing is dealing with entrenched attitudes. It requires hard work based on good audience analysis and theory-guided message design.
Unlike attitudes about commercial products and brand names, political subjects involve attitudes that are linked to emotional reactions and prejudices known as symbolic predispositions (Perloff, 1993). In these cases, the building of attitudes by building beliefs can be overpowered by strong emotional reactions to political issues. Issues like abortion and foreign policy can be charged with affective responses and are learned in socialization processes. Symbols can be attached to such issues and symbols can include communication related to attitudes about nations, values, ethic loyalties and various prejudices (Perloff, 1993). Symbolic predispositions can affect attitudes about social and political issues.
Political ideology is closely related to symbolic predispositions as ideologies hold together elements of a cognitive system such as attitudes, values, schemata, etc. This is why people of similar ideologies display what political scientists call issue constraint. This means that we can predict your view on one issue if we known your ideological view on another.
Ideologies are also closely related to values and not easy to change. Ideologies tend to promote reactions to persuasion that are top-down driven (Perloff, 1993). This means the receiver has attitudes that are organized by a set of political principles and predispositions. Interesting research shows that people can still be affected by bottom-up persuasion, however, because many people have mixed ideologies or multiple ideologies.
One opening for strategic influence is in the fact that many people have ambivalent attitudes about subjects rather than unitary or strong attitudes in one direction. This is different than not having an attitude. A population may like the American people but not the American government, for example. What then is their attitude about America? An attitude may not move in the desired direction because it is linked to another attitude or outcome cognition that prevents it from doing so. A person may want to work with the U.S., for example, but may think they will offend others in their village by doing so.
When faced with information and messages that contradict what they believe, individuals do through a process of biased processing and biased assimilation. They color what they hear and they see arguments that agree with their views as more similar to what they already believe. Thus, objective arguments can contribute to greater polarization of views. These receivers also increase their memory and resource searches to refute the messages that contradict what they already believe.
Older ideas of selective perception are challenged by more recent studies that show that people do in fact expose themselves to opposing points of view. They also remember what is said in these oppositional messages while rarely being persuaded by them (Perloff, 1993). While these receivers are seeking ways to make their own views stronger and ways to develop arguments against those they are attending, there is another open door here for SI. That is, receivers who are exposed to arguments that are stronger than those they already believe may become persuaded of certain facts and may experience some degree of attitude change.
Attitude accessibility theory in persuasion research indicates that attitudes are linked to evaluations. Attitudes with strong associations and affect can easily be retrieved. The stronger the links among what is associated with an attitude object, the easier the attitude is to access from memory and the easier it is for a persuade to activate those attitudes in relationship to advocated behaviors.
Forms of strategic influence today that will have the most likely productive effects will build on the traditional findigs just sketched above and focus on more contemporary focus areas from studies of strategic persuasion in political communication research.
Agenda Setting Theory can be applied to news, attributes of news stories, and also attributes of candidate images. This connection to attributes is called second-order agenda settting or framing. Thus, framing can be seen to connected to the construction of political images for any image object. The news media affect the cognitive more than the affective aspects of framing.
There are several types of agenda setting, There is public agenda setting which is news media affecting the public, media agenda setting which is sources affecting media, and policy agenda setting which is news media influence on public policies. Studies of priming can focus on some of the effects of agenda setting and framing. They examine how issues are used to evaluate various political subjects.
Subjects of agenda setting are called objects as in the case of psychology where things or people for which we have attitudes are called attitude objects. A political object (person, policy, etc.) has attributes which are characteristics linked to the object in framing. Framing is done in the ways that news media describe political objects. Some attributes are prominent and repeated while others are minimized.
In the process of priming, particular issues or attributes are highlighted to the extent that they are the most likely to influence evaluations of political objects. Priming works as it does because we draw on information (and attitudes) that are most salient and most accessible when making evaluations and expressing their political opinions. The link of agenda setting to priming is that agenda setting makes issues and attributes salient. Note that priming is directly related to evaluation.
New technologies of communication require intense focus in enhanced SI research. Numerous scholars, for example, are drawing attention what is called the "You Tube Effect." A video showing Chinese soldiers shooting people "like dogs" on a snow-covered footpath in the Himilayas. Shown on Romanian TV, there was little international effect, but on You Tube the effects included the Chinese government justifying the slaughter as self-defense (against Tibetan refugees including monks, women, children). Video clips are posted and sometimes produced by individuals. YouTube gets 20 million visitors each month. There are 65,000 new clips posted each day. Most of the videos are frivolous but others are political and include videos posted by terrorists, human rights organizations, and soldiers. This adds to the previous "CNN Effect" which brought constant news and increased exposure of events. Some argue a "double echo chamber" effect to the new communication technologies and news. This means that content that is posted on the Web may diffuse into other forms of news media like TV news. Other new media examples include a human rights group called Witness giveing cameras to people to film human rights abuses and Al Qaeda having a media production unit called Al Sahab (The Cloud) to make and post videos on the Net.
Much more effort is also needed in studying and modeling how social identity and political identity formation processes affect both terrorism and counterterrorism.
Short-term persuasion involves cues, imagery, emotional appeals, and belief changes while long-term persuasion involves cognitive calculation, deliberation, attitude-value onnections, and the creation, change or reinforcement of social norms. When norms (collective drivers of behavior) are consistent with attitudes (personal drivers of behavior), the strongest type of persuasion is in operation.
Norms are related to social identity. Social identity is personal identity related to collective iidentity. The stronger the social identity, the stronger the persuasive forms of norms. Norms are standards for appropriate and expected behavior.
Norms are related to intersubjective agreements and are commonly verbalized to enforce behavioral conformity to group standards. Pre-norm ideas can be articulated or nominated by individuals for consideration by a collective, but those ideas do not become norms until they are adhered to by all or most members of the group. Only when they become rules of behavior and when they can be used to determine appropriate behavior vs. deviant behavior are they actual norms.
Norms are usually taken for granted and become traditional standards. When statements are made that are consistent with norms, they resonate with members of the collective. Even new ideas for new nominations resonate most when they are consistent with existing norms. Norm construction, norm reinforcement, and norm changing are all related to framing practices. This is because framing attempts to fix meanings with discourse and language. If particular frames can fix particular interpretations of events, they can direct appropriate behavior that the framing provides by way of context.
An example of effective norm construction is the land-mine ban. Land mines were framed by ban advocates as indiscriminate violence and that frame resonated with disgust previously associated with WMD. The norm of protection from WMD was applied to protection from land mines.
Norm construction or appeal resonates when their is cognitive consistency. Norm statements can alter behavior when they stimulate cognitive dissonance. Thus, resonating statements that are consistent with existing norms are most persuasive. This can also be fit to social judgment theory which shows that messages that match attitudes in one's cogntive latitude of acceptance are the ones that have the most persuasive effects.
The unfixed nature of group social norms and planning makes analysis of its discourse over long periods of time essential to detecting its commitments to various goals and plans of action. The shared identity and social norms within a group provide justification and reinforcement for the group's political planning. They also provide a way of viewing the actions of other people and groups. The group social norms are rules of behavior that are part of the group's shared ideology which includes values and political identity in a closed system of thought and discourse (van Dijk, 1998).
With strong social identity, group norms are internalized by individual members (Hogg & Reid, 2006). But group norms are not fixed properties; instead, they are subject to change, particularly in relation to other groups (Hogg & Reid, 2006). Group norms are generated and changed in group communication (Hogg & Reid, 2006). Group social interaction is therefore the generative mechanism of group norms (Hogg & Reid, 2006). When social identity is high and an indidivual attaches personal identity to group membership, the social norms of the group (group norms), influence the behavior of the individual because of his or her desire for group acceptance (Strano, 2006).
Studies of group discussions indicate that individuals learn group norms by observing the communication of others in their group. However, individual members are not simply maninpulated by group norms but actively contribute to the shaping and reinforcing of the groups norms attached to the group that they value (Price et al., 2006). The content of group communication over time produces what is known as a transactive memory system (Price et al., 2006).
Social identity theories argue that people construct their self-concepts through self-categorization processes and that categorization into an in-group is an integral part of the self-concept (Yanovitzky & Rimal, 2006). The stronger that group membership and social identity is to self-concept, the more deindividuated or depersonalized an invidual becomes (Yanovitzky & Rimal, 2006). An individual constructs perceptions of social norms through information they receive in communication processes including processes occurring with communication technologies (Yanovitzky & Rimal, 2006). Moreover, what the person does within those communication processes is guided by social norms that have already emerged (Yanovitzky & Rimal, 2006). Consistent with Sherif's classic experiment done in 1935, social identity research today continues to confirm that norms are formed in social interaction and those norms are something group members strive to conform to in consequent communication and actions (Yanovitzky & Rimal, 2006).
While it is now old news that political cognition and communication are heavily influenced by emotional factors, there is now refutation for claims that political behavior and communication are emotional only or mainly emotional. Instead, there appear to be complex interrelationships between emotional and cognitive processing of political messages and these relationships have yet to be explicated. Propaganda seeks strong sociological mechanisms in addition to individual-level changes in perceptions and atttiudes. The process of resonance generation is connected to group norms as much as possible. Framing can be related to frames of reference held by audiences. Research communication research indicates relating macro levels of frame projection to micro levels of frame reception/response may increase framing effeciveness.
Another area that the NSDS SI division will focus intensely on is network influence. Opinion leaders affect each other as well as opinion followers. In terms of networks, the leaders are more centrally located in their social networks. While marginals may not have the same social capital in the networks, they can provide information to the leaders that is then disseminated more widely. The existence of marginal’ provisions of information indicates that opinion leadership involves bidirectional interaction rather than top-down messaging only. Information is moving from mass media and Internet sources directly to citizens. People are influencing each other regarding what they perceive from the macro-levels of communication. Diffusion Theory helps us to recognize that individual level of exposure to macro-level channels is more about gaining information rather than being persuaded, while interpersonal communication involves both information and persuasion.
One means of manipulating interpersonal networks is by variables heightening in which key variables related to individual’s needs are attached to helping the dissemination of particular messages.Certain kinds of information and persuasion campaigns rely more on interpersonal networks than on mass media. The people we can call influentials are characterized by both good positioning in social networks and possession of personal traits (such as high knowledge) that make them persuasive. The influentials are high in media dependence (as argued by Dependency Theory). These people talk about the information they gain from media and the information is subject to changes made in the social interaction.
In large societies, people become more sensitive to their local social positions than to larger social issues. Micro-level effects of mass communication are not only cognitive (information, beliefs), but also affective, and behavioral. Viewing strategic influence in terms of systems helps us to recognize that various channels of communication have specific functions and also that these functions can change the activity situation of an individual. Thus, a person who normally attends political news with Internet and TV sources, may become a radio news listener during times of driving a car. When there is, a set of conditions encouraging, ubiquity, consonance, and cumulation, it becomes increasingly difficult for competing messages to generate sufficient counterarguments to be effectively resistant. Processes of social construction of realities can be related to communication networking, opinion leadership dynamics, and other processes of political communication known as agenda setting and framing.
There are myriads of reference to political resonance in literatures by academic and government communication experts, but as yet, now comprehensive theory of what such resonance is, how it works, and how it can be manipulated. I am attempting to work on this problem with basic propositions now that remain to be tested as hypotheses. Attitude accessibility and rapid cognition theories provide one starting point. According the work in attitude accessibility, much persuasion can be accomplished by linking behavioral messages to existing attitudes and social norms. Automaticity in behavioral choices is related to this line of behavioral research. People act out in ways that are consistent with attitudes they do not think about much. In such cases, attitudes are activated at moments of behavioral decisions. Little thought is involved. If the attitudes are not activated, the behavioral choices will be driven by social norms in the behavioral choice situation. To influence behavior, the activated attitude must be strong enough to help the person define the behavioral situation. Studies show that fast activation of political attitudes is more related to political actions than slow activation. Attitudes that are most accessible are the most complex in the cognitive system, having many links to schemata, but also very strong links and strong emotional links. Terrorists like Osama bin Laden are masterful at reminding people about their strong attitudes against American, Jews and other alleged enemies. Easily accessible attitudes with powerful emotional associations are likely to bias the processing of incoming messages and to encourage resonance with messages that are consistent with the stored attitudes.
A vigorous tradition of research in academic political ommunication research concerns framing of topics, issues, and policies. Framing is crucial an understanding of political comunication because political persuasion reduces argument to central conceps, symbols, and appeals. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding exact definitions of frames and debates about how maro-level and micro-level frmaing occurs. A very recent study on framing shows that less than one quarter of framing studies demonstrate what causes particular types of framing and about the same small percentage expaling the effects of framing (Matthes, 2007).
Most research regarding strategic communication is related to political marketing and campaign strategies. Some of these are effecive and others are speculative.
Research concerning the use of the Internet is more concerned with social networking, election campaigin communication, orgnaizational communication, and interpersonal relationships, than with political ideologies problematic political communication like terrorists' increasing usage of the Internet.
Automated text analysis of online and offline discourse remains limited to surface-level structures and patterns. Analysis of new communication technology effets on political communication remain limited to site indexing and surface-level theme recognition.
Important political processes like structuration remain untouched by experts in the analysis of threats to United States National security. Communication theories like diffusion may bet mention but are not used in any deep sense.
New lines of political communication research should include the following:
Numerous lines of inquiry need strong attention:
With better history, better stock-taking, stronger research, and more use of communication, the USG should be able to link better policy actions with more persuasiveness.
References:
Berreby, D. (2005). Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Berreby, D. (2000). Changing race. The Sciences, September-October.
Center for Strategic Intelligence Research. (2004). Global War on Terrorism: Analyzing the Strategic Threat. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Intelligence Research.
Davis, P., Kulick, J., and Egner, M. (2005). Implications of modern decision science for military decision-support systems. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Guthar, M. (2005). The Intelligence Archipelago: The Community’s Struggle to Reform in the Globarlized Era. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Intelligence Research.
Hogg, M. , & Reid, S. (2006). Social identity, self-categorization, and the communication of group norms. Communication Theory, 16, 7-30.
Kahneman, D., & Renshoon, J. (2007). Why hawks win. Foreign Policy, January/February, pp. 34-38.
Klueger, J. (2007). Why we worry about things we shouldn't... and ignore the things we should. Time, 168, 64-71.
Lambert. S. (2005). The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct.
Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Intelligence Research.
Littlejohn, S. & Foss, K. (2005). Theories of Human Communication, Eighth Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Monge, P. & Contractor, N. (2003). Theories of Communication Networks. New York: Oxford University Press.
Perloff, R. (1993). The Dynamics of Persuasion. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Pillar, P. (2001). Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Robinson. L (2006). The propaganda war. U.S. News and World Report, 29-31.
Thomas, T. (2004). Beneath the Surface: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace for Counterterrorism. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Intelligence Research.
Quartz, S., & Sejnowkski, T. (2002). Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Tells us About How We Become Who We Are. New York: William Morrow.
van Dijk, T. (1998), Ideology. London: Sage.
Yanovitzy, I & Rimal, R. (2006). Communication and normative influence: An introduction to the special issue. Communication Theory, 16, 1-6.
posted by Ken Hacker @ Monday, June 22, 2009
0 Comments
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]
