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1. Information Integrity and Information Pollution: Vulnerabilities and Impact on Social Cohesion and Democracy in Mexico

Author:
Anita Breuer
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
Equal access to reliable information is essential for democracy and social cohesion. The rise of information pollution, particularly in digital spaces, poses significant challenges to democratic societies worldwide. While extensive research has focused on its impact in developed, English-speaking democracies, there is a gap in understanding its effects in younger democracies, conflict zones, and less developed contexts. This study fills that gap by analysing Mexico as a case study. Based on interviews with Mexican media professionals, public sector officials, academics and human rights defenders, the study provides insights on the root causes of the problem and and strategies to combat information pollution, safeguard democracy, and promote social cohesion, underscoring the urgency of proactive measures both within Mexico and on a global scale in Mexico, information pollution significantly threatens the country's social cohesion and democratic principles. Structural conditions like poverty, inequality, violence, corruption, and media landscape issues enable societal vulnerability to digital information pollution. Factors directly driving information pollution include the exploitation of digital spaces by drug cartels, divisive narratives against marginalised groups, an increasingly media-hostile environment as well as the incumbent government’s post-factual approach to reality and politics. Information pollution has fostered a polarised discours, contributed to eroding trust in traditional media and amplified identity-based societal cleavages. It weakens the deliberative, participatory and liberal dimensions of democracy dimensions by decreasing the quality of public debate, damaging civil society watchdog roles, and reducing government transparency and accountability. Recommendations for Mexico encompass enhancing public resilience to information through civic education and targeted communication campaigns, empowering media capacity, and fortifying an open data culture in the Mexican public sector. Internationally, efforts should address elite-driven information pollution by reinforcing independent accountability institutions and leveraging diplomatic and economic incentives against leaders attacking these institutions.
Topic:
Development, Democracy, Media, Social Cohesion, and Information
Political Geography:
North America and Mexico

2. Factsheet: Sebastian Gorka

Author:
Bridge Initiative Team
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Sebastian Gorka is a political commentator who appears on Salem Radio Network and Newsmax. He previously worked for Fox News and served as the Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump in 2017. In 2024, President-elect Trump picked Gorka to serve in his second administration as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism. Gorka supports religious profiling, has targeted Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups, and has publicly worn a medal affiliated with a Nazi-linked Hungarian group.
Topic:
Media, Islamophobia, Political Extremism, and Sebastian Gorka
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. Digital legislation: convergence or divergence of models? A comparative look at the European Union, China and the United States

Author:
Aifang Ma
Publication Date:
11-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
Abstract:
In 1964, when the Canadian pioneer of media studies, Marshall McLuhan, argued that media is an extension of man, he did not foresee that future media, at the beginning of the 21st century, would produce increasingly pernicious effects[1]. While media have indeed extended human capacities, they have also shown to be generators of complicated social and ethical problems. In the same year philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, who analysed relations between Man and Machine from a deeply pessimistic viewpoint. His predictions seem to be corroborated by what we are now experiencing: the easy life made possible by technological progress has progressively gnawed into the individual critical reasoning. Instead of imposing their control over technologies, human beings are increasingly at their mercy. The domination of technology over individuals is all the stronger, since it seems harmless and is pleasant to use. In this context, the regulation of digital technologies[2] is flourishing in autocracies and democracies alike. Its importance goes far beyond the need of authoritarian regimes to cut off the transmission of destabilising content. It is universal since digital technologies set common challenges to national governments: illegal collection of users’ personal data, precarious working conditions for gig workers, monopolistic practices of large platforms, threats to human dignity and domestic security. These problems are causing trouble to all governments around the world. This article aims to be pragmatic. Beyond differences in political regime, it studies the regulatory approaches of the three largest digital economies in the world: China, the United States, and the European Union. The three models can potentially hinder or stimulate the development of digital technologies without necessarily opposing each other.
Topic:
European Union, Media, Legislation, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4. Effective US government strategies to address China’s information influence

Author:
Kenton Thibaut
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
China’s global influence operations have received increasing attention in the national security community. Numerous congressional hearings, media reports, and academic and industry findings have underscored China’s increased use and resourcing of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) tactics in its covert operations both in the United States and abroad. In response, US government offices the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), among others, have made strides in raising awareness of the issue and charting pathways to increase the resilience of the US information ecosystem to foreign influence. To date, however, the efforts to counter the influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been fragmented. That fragmentation is indicative of a lack of cohesion around the concept of influence operations itself. Across the government and nongovernment sectors alike, there is considerable variation regarding the definition and scope of information manipulation. For example, the Department of State’s (DOS’s) GEC has an expansive definition, which includes “leveraging propaganda and censorship, promoting digital authoritarianism, exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media.” Others define it more narrowly as disinformation and propaganda spread by a foreign threat actor in a coordinated, inauthentic manner, and largely occurring on social media platforms. This variation is a reflection of the holistic and multifaceted nature of Chinese influence. Coercive tactics and influence operations have long been a central part of China’s strategic tool kit and core to how it engages with the outside world. Because China conceives of the information domain as a space that must be controlled and dominated to ensure regime survival, information operations are part of a much bigger umbrella of influence that spans the economic, political, and social domains. It may be more useful to think of information manipulation as existing within the broader conceptual framework of China’s weaponization of the information domain in service of its goal to gain global influence. As previous work by the Digital Forensic Lab (DFRLab) has shown, China’s approach to the information domain is coordinated and proactive, taking into account the mutually constitutive relationships between the economic, industrial, and geopolitical strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The aim of its efforts is to gain influence—or “discourse power”—with the ultimate goal of decentering US power and leadership on the global stage. One of the main mechanisms through which the CCP seeks to achieve this objective is by focusing on the dominance of information ecosystems. This ecosystem encompasses not only narratives and content that appear in traditional and social media but also the digital infrastructure on which communication systems rely, the policies that govern those systems at the international level, and the diplomatic strategy deployed by Beijing’s operatives abroad to gain buy-in for the CCP’s vision of the global order. The DFRLab’s previous two reports, which explored China’s strategy and the impacts of its operations abroad, found that the United States will not be successful in addressing the challenges of Chinese influence if it sees that influence as separate from the interconnected economic, political, and technical domains in which its strategy is embedded. To this end, the DFRLab hosted a series of one-on-one expert interviews, conducted research and workshops, and held a virtual roundtable discussion with scholars and practitioners with expertise on or experience in addressing authoritarian influence and information operations, US government processes and policies around these issues, and Chinese foreign policy. This issue brief is part of a larger body of work that examines the Chinese government’s interests and capabilities and the impacts of party’s efforts to shape the global information ecosystem. The focus of this report is on how the US government can best respond to those challenges, including the architecture, tools, and strategies that exist for addressing PRC influence and information manipulation, as well as any potential gaps in the government tool kit. This report finds that, to mount the most effective response to Chinese influence and the threat it poses to democratic interests at home and on the international stage, the United States should develop a global information strategy, one that reflects the interconnected nature of regulatory, industrial, and diplomatic policies with regard to the information domain. A core assumption undergirding this concept is that US policymaking space tends to over-index on the threat of information manipulation in particular while under-indexing on the core national interest of fostering a secure, interoperable information environment on a larger scale. The limits of understanding Chinese influence as systemic and part of a broader strategy has sometimes led US response to be pigeonholed as an issue of strategic communications, rather than touching on the information and technology ecosystems, among others, where China focuses its information and influence efforts. Responding to Chinese influence with government messaging is not sufficient to address the complex nature of the challenge and places the United States in a position of reactivity. In short, understanding that the CCP (1) integrates its tech industrial strategy, governance policy, and engagement strategy and (2) connects its approach at home to how it engages abroad, the United States needs to do the same, commensurate with its values. It should not respond tit-for-tat but rather have a collective strategy for a global competition for information that connects its tech strategy to its governance approach to its engagement around the world. That is not to say that a US strategy on information resilience should mirror China’s, or that such a strategy should be developed in response to the PRC’s actions in the information domain. Nor is it to say that the United States should adopt a similar whole-of-government approach to the information domain. There are silos by design in the US system and important legal and normative foundations for the clear delineation of mission between them. What this issue brief argues for is a strategic breaking down of silos to facilitate proactive action versus a dangerous breaking down of legally required silos. This report emphasizes that the United States should articulate how major initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act, regulatory approaches like the recent executive orders on AI and data security, and the DOS’s recent cyberspace and digital policy strategy are part of a cohesive whole and should be understood and operationalized as such. The strategy should outline what the United States stands for as much as what it is against. This requires that the United States frame its assessment of threat within a broader strategy of what its values are and how those values should be articulated in its regulatory, strategic, and diplomatic initiatives to promote open information environments and shore up information resilience. This includes working with allies and partners to ensure that a free, open, and interoperable internet is a global priority as well as a domestic one; developing common standards for understanding and thresholding foreign influence; and promoting connectivity at home and abroad. One finding of this report is that the United States is already leaning into its strengths and values, including championing policies that support openness and continuing support for civil society. This, along with the awareness of influence operations as the weaponization of the information domain, is a powerful response to authoritarian attacks on the integrity of both the domestic US and global information spaces. The United States has a core national security interest in the existence of a rules-based, orderly, and open information environment. Such an environment facilitates the essential day-to-day tasks related to public diplomacy, the basic expression of rights, and investment in industries of strategic and economic value. Absent a coherent strategy on these core issues related to the integrity of the United States’ information environment that is grounded in an understanding of the interconnected nature of their constitutive parts, the challenges of foreign influence and interference will only continue to grow. This issue brief contains three sections. For sections one and two, experts in different aspects of the PRC’s information strategy addressed two to three main questions; during the course of research, further points were raised that are included in the findings. Each section represents a synthesis of the views expressed in response to these questions. The third section comprises recommendations for the US government based on the findings from the first two sections.
Topic:
Media, Disinformation, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

5. A Strategy for US Public Diplomacy in the Age of Disinformation

Author:
Bret Schafer, Rachael Dean Wilson, and Jessica Brandt
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
“Would you rather have the bitter truth or more sweet lies?” This is the question posed by an assertive series of videos produced by the State Department in recent months, targeting Russian audiences, that juxtapose statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin with evidence that he is lying about the course of the war in Ukraine. DOWNLOAD PDF The effort, alongside revelations laid bare by Washington and its allies at the start of the war, reflects a new understanding: that the information domain is perhaps the most consequential terrain that Putin is contesting and that it is an essential theater of the broader, emerging, persistent, asymmetric competition between liberal democracies and their authoritarian challengers. As part of this competition, autocrats—in Moscow and Beijing, but also elsewhere—have leveraged multiple asymmetries. Both Russia and China operate vast propaganda networks that use multiple modes of communication—from state media websites to popular social media accounts to leading search engines—to disseminate their preferred, often slanted, versions of events. Both have spread multiple, sometimes conflicting, conspiracy theories designed to deflect blame for their own malfeasance, undermine the soft power of the United States, and erode the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth. Both also deploy proxy influencers to agitate anti-American sentiment and frequently engage in “whataboutism” to cast US policy as hypocritical to audiences around the world. Some of this content is targeted at broad swaths of the public within Western societies—in Russia’s case with the goal of polarizing them, and in so doing, weakening Europe and the United States from within. Other content is targeted at the global south, with the goal of eroding popular support for Western policies and, in China’s case, promoting alternatives to the Western model. For the United States, like other democracies, an open information environment confers enormous long-term advantages, but it also creates vulnerabilities that can be exploited using low-cost tools and tactics, often with plausible deniability. Where democracies depend on the idea that the truth is knowable and citizens can discern it to govern themselves, autocracies have no such need for a vibrant, open, trusted information environment. In fact, autocrats benefit from widespread public skepticism in the notion of objective truth. Because autocratic regimes tightly control their own information environments, they are more insulated from criticism than democratic ones. Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping effectively ban many Western social media platforms from operating within their borders in order to close space for dissent, all the while using them quite effectively to target audiences abroad. In doing so, unlike their democratic competitors, autocrats face few normative constraints on lying—a dynamic they freely exploit. As a result, autocrats have made remarkable advances in the contest that is now underway in the information domain. To push back on these advances, the United States should leverage its own asymmetric advantages—including its economic might, cyber capabilities, soft power, and the legitimacy that comes from democratic governance—recognizing that successful competitors play to their strengths. A focal point of US strategy should be to harness truthful information to contest the information domain, recognizing that competition in this realm is ongoing and there is a first mover advantage to setting the terms of the debate. Such an approach should entail simultaneously highlighting the strengths of liberal democracies (such as their openness to new information and ability to course correct, innovate, and improve) and the failures and false promises of authoritarian regimes (like kleptocracy and repression). It must do so not just to reach those who live in closed spaces, such as Russia and China, but to reach those who live in countries that are backsliding or where democracy is not fully consolidated. This paper—which is based on conversations with more than a dozen subject-matter experts, including current and former diplomats—offers recommendations for updating US public diplomacy to compete successfully with Russia and China. The focus, however, is limited to US international broadcasting and strategic communication activities and does not include recommendations to improve other elements of US public diplomacy, including but not limited to cultural diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges. The authors recognize that public diplomacy is not merely about crafting a winning message and that an effective US approach must include activities that lie outside of the information domain. This paper should therefore be viewed as an attempt at improving a piece of, but not the whole, public diplomacy puzzle.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democracy, Media, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. The Representation of the Iranian Nuclear Program in the American Media

Author:
Mikail Ugus and Fatma Dogrusozlu
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
This article aims to unfold what sort of ideological representation the Iranian nuclear program has had in two of America's predominant newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post (through their headlines). The study, which sets out for this objective, concentrates on Edward Said's work titled "Orientalism", an exclusive theorist of post-colonial theory. In other words, this article will examine the "Islamic Threat" generally described in the West in conjunction with the theoretical framework of Orientalism and the reflection of the Iranian nuclear program in these two newspapers in terms of controlling it. Consequently, in this media news, the Iranian nuclear program is described as an object that might cause harm at any moment through the discourse of the Islamic enemy. Therefore, it is represented that the subject must control this dangerous object.
Topic:
Nuclear Power, Media, Representation, Orientalism, Edward Said, New York Times, and Washington Post
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

7. A US agenda for action in Sudan’s information environment

Author:
Cameron Hudson
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
There are few African countries that have received the same degree of high-level and sustained attention from the US government, during the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as the Republic of Sudan. While this engagement stems in large part from a long history of Washington leading diplomatic efforts to isolate the Sudanese government for its support for terrorism during the 1990s, advance the peace process in the country’s north-south civil war, and eventually punish the government for the Darfur genocide, Washington’s renewed diplomatic engagement at the time of Sudan’s 2018 popular uprising reflected a sense of opportunity that real change was potentially coming to the country. The historic events during the spring and summer of 2019, beginning with longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir’s arrest and removal by senior army officers and the brokering of a civilian-military hybrid government, created both an opportunity and what many in Washington saw as an obligation to help Sudan’s transition succeed. After decades of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, the installation of a civilian-led government created the minimal condition that allowed Washington and Western allied governments to begin the task of providing a trusted local partner with the assistance to begin reforming the political system, stabilizing the economy, and transforming the armed forces that would eventually enable a full transition to democracy, one of the popular demands of the revolution. By late 2019, during a historic visit to Washington by Sudan’s newly named prime minister, Abdallah Hamdok, the Trump administration announced a process to normalize diplomatic relations with Sudan through an exchange of ambassadors, among other steps. Privately, the Trump administration also set about the task of constructing an assistance package that would meet the moment and provide the technical, financial, and development assistance needed to demonstrate a true “democracy dividend” to the vast majority of average Sudanese who were by this time struggling under the weight of financial collapse brought on by the one-two punch of regime neglect and, soon, COVID-19 shutdowns. Washington, however, was both ill-postured and slow to foresee the monumental political opening occurring in the early days of the revolution and then further delayed by an interlocking web of restrictions and prohibitions, some of them self-imposed and some imposed by the US Congress, that limited its ability to scale up resources in a timely manner. In addition to the challenges of having to undo more than twenty-five years of bureaucratic restrictions and red tape, Washington also needed to scale up its human resources inside Sudan that had largely dwindled over the years.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Politics, Media, Internet, Conflict, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, North America, and United States of America

8. To Infinity and Beyond: Pixar’s Journey to Reinvent Animation

Author:
Helen Scantlebury and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
In 1923, a budding entrepreneur named Walt Disney left Kansas for Hollywood to create animated movies. Walt had worked as an advertising cartoonist but had little knowledge of the world of filmmaking. With the help of his brother Roy, he produced his first short animations via commissions from New York, but it was not a particularly lucrative business.1 The Disney brothers eventually made a deal with Universal Studios to produce an animated series with a new cartoon character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The deal was a relatively small sideline for Universal, but it was a big break for the aspiring duo and their little team of animators. Walt was particularly excited to work on the Oswald cartoons—of the two brothers, he generally focused on creative elements while Roy focused on financial matters. When Walt and his chief animator presented their first short film to Universal, however, the studio sent them back to the drawing board. Undeterred, Walt reworked the character and in September 1927, Universal released the first Oswald short film. After that, Walt produced a fresh Oswald the Lucky Rabbit short every other week for distribution by Universal.2 Despite the consistent work, the Disney brothers repeatedly clashed with Universal, who eventually forced them out. However, Oswald had to stay behind. The brothers had sold Oswald’s copyrights to Universal, so they could not feature him in their future work. Walt never forgot losing control of Oswald, so when he started his next animation project, he secured all copyrights for his new main character: a charismatic mouse with large, distinctive ears who looked strikingly similar to Oswald. That mouse, of course, was Mickey Mouse, who made his first on screen appearance in November 1928.3 4 With Mickey and other popular characters, the Disney brothers found quick success on their own. Beginning in 1932, Walt won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short film for eight years in a row.5
Topic:
Media, Capitalism, Business, Pixar, and Animation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

9. Analysis of the Botnets that Operated in Honduras During the Primary and General Elections of 2021

Author:
The Carter Center
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The Carter Center analyzed social media in Honduras during the 2021 electoral process, focusing on the period around the primaries in March and the general election in November. The purpose was to assess the political debate on social networks during the elections, the extent of disinformation and how it spread, and the role played by Honduran politicians.
Topic:
Elections, Media, Social Media, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
Central America, North America, and Honduras

10. News Media and its Influence on the American Debate over War and Peace

Author:
Violet Gienger
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Even the most diligent news consumers, flooded with information, disinformation, and infotainment, miss key elements of the biggest stories. Journalists, pressed by deadlines and ever-shrinking resources — due to staff cuts and the elimination of foreign bureaus and even copy desks, for example — leave crucial gaps in coverage. The result is a dearth of the kinds of in-depth, well-rounded news and accountability journalism that the American public and their leaders depend on for decision-making in a democracy.
Topic:
Democracy, Media, News Analysis, Journalism, and Decision-Making
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America