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31. The data divide: How emerging technology and its stakeholders can influence the fourth industrial revolution

Author:
Joseph T. Bonivel Jr. and Solomon Wise
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is highlighted by the interconnection of devices and sensors to the internet. The computing and communication capabilities of these devices allow for roughly 2.5 quintillion byes of data to be produced, stored, and analyzed daily. For example, every second, an exponential amount of healthcare data is generated and mined for valuable insights. Today, approximately 30% of the world’s data volume is being generated by the healthcare industry. By 2025, the compound annual growth rate of data for healthcare will reach 36%. This data is fed into machine learning and artificial intelligence models that have strong impacts on multiple healthcare domains that have the potential to impact the socioeconomic statuses of billions of people across the world. Those entities that have functional access to data capital have more options than those that do not. The data divide is the gap that exists between individuals who have access, agency, and control with respect to data and can reap the most benefits from data driven technologies, and those who do not. The data divide can only be reduced if the there is optimization in the data process, monitoring and evaluation of the policies and programs from major stakeholders, and alignment of public private partnerships for social good.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Communications, Innovation, Data, and Fourth Industrial Revolution
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. Securing Asia’s Subsea Network U.S. Interests and Strategic Options

Author:
Matthew Goodman and Matthew Wayland
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
More than 1 million kilometers of submarine cables traversing the ocean floor, each about as wide as a garden hose, transmit up to 99 percent of international data, underpinning global trade and communication. This vital digital infrastructure faces myriad threats, from earthquakes and typhoons to fishing nets and saboteurs. The United States derives significant advantages from its centrality in Asia’s subsea cables, which contribute up to $169 billion to the U.S. economy annually and could benefit more U.S. workers and businesses as demand for digital products and services grows globally. But realizing those benefits will require the United States to step up its policy engagement on Asia’s cable networks, which are changing with China’s rise, the emergence of new regional hubs, and new transpacific routes designed to reduce risks and increase network resiliency.
Topic:
Security, International Trade and Finance, Communications, Maritime, and Commerce
Political Geography:
China and Asia

33. The Rise and Fall of Military Strategic Communications at National Defence 2015-2021: A Cautionary Tale for Canada and NATO, and a Roadmap for Reform

Author:
Brett Boudreau
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
On November 2, 2020, the Ottawa Citizen ran the front-page headline “Canadian Military Wants to Establish New Organization to Use Propaganda and Other Techniques to Influence Canadians.” This seemed an unbelievable story, and one initially denied by a spokesperson for the minister of National Defence. Just three days later, though, then-chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Jonathan Vance shuttered the group in question, terminating an initiative more than five years in the making that called into question the Department of National Defence’s (DND) commitment to objective and appropriate public communication, at a time when truth decay, misinformation and disinformation have gained much traction around the world and in Canada. In June 2021, the day Parliament adjourned for the summer, DND acknowledged to select media that acting CDS Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre and then-deputy minister Jody Thomas had determined the initiative was “incompatible” with government communications policy and the vision, mission and principles of DND Public Affairs. In a surprising self-indictment, the leaders also admitted a lack of “institution-wide strategic level direction and guidance,” to build information-related capabilities that were “governed by appropriate authorities and oversight.” Deliberate influence campaigns by malign state, non-state and increasingly by domestic actors to disturb, disrupt and create disorder in democratic societies have become widespread and commonplace. The volume of vitriol is increasing. This is fast eroding citizen faith, trust and confidence in government and public institutions and may be the greatest contemporary threat liberal democracies face – arresting this trend and then restoring trust, the ultimate challenge. National Defence’s entire program – to be successful on operations; secure sufficient funding; recruit, train and retain; effect culture change; reconstitute the force post-pandemic and procure the equipment needed to contest, confront and defeat adversaries – will largely depend on whether the institution can modernize its approach to strategic communications to manoeuvre more agilely and to better effect in a complex, frenetic and hostile information environment.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Communications, Reform, Propaganda, and Military
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

34. The Role and Importance of Disaster Risk Communication in Disaster Risk Reduction

Author:
Emin Yahya Menteşe
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
The communication model defined as disaster risk communication is one of the main components of disaster risk reduction and is often described along the lines of sharing critical information with the public and relevant parties during and after a disaster. However, the meaning of disaster risk communication goes beyond that single feature. This communication model aims to explain and create an accurate understanding of risk reduction activities, encourage people to integrate the concept of risk into their lives, and make the risk reduction approach a priority policy by turning it into a societal norm.
Topic:
Communications, Governance, Public Policy, Disaster Management, and Risk Assessment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. The Cyber Sea: Conflict and Security

Author:
Kevin Doherty
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
The interchange that drives world economics in the past now intersects with and will rest on the electromagnetic spectrum’s (EMS) structure that includes cyberspace. Historically, the world’s oceans played this crucial role in great power competition, but today that key geography now sits within the EMS’s exponential exchange in services between nations for maximal productivity output in free and open markets. The U.S. military must help sustain these crucial lines of communication to channel the spirit and capacity of their nation’s people into the new activities that war calls for and efficiently employ them against a threat. Sea lines of communication were of foremost importance in this regard until now, when the EMS, tapped by cyberspace, connects the most amount of people and their productivity to win the next conflict. Cyberspace has consumed the sea.
Topic:
Communications, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, Seapower, and Non-Traditional Threats
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

36. RUSSIA’S COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES ABOUT CRIMEA IN SPANISH-LANGUAGE SPUTNIK AND RUSSIA TIMES (2014-2018)

Author:
Ludmila Gonzalez Cerulli and Sybil Rhodes
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
We analyze Russia’s communication strategies in the period leading up to and following the seizure (2014-2018) of the Crimean Peninsula in the Spanish editions of its digital platforms, Sputnik and Russia Times. Drawing from theories of political communication, we show how Russia used storytelling and framing to build an international image and political brand consistent with, and try to justify, its foreign policy actions. Specifically, Russian messages transmit no room for doubt about the legality of any of its strategies in Crimea. We argue that this communication strategy is consistent with the concept of ‘sharp power’ to describe Russian projection in the world. Cultural and emotional appeals designed to generate positive emotions about Russia, i.e., ‘soft power’, were far less common. In recent years, Russian projection of sharp power appears to have increased in the Spanish-speaking world, particularly in South America. In addition to helping explain Russian foreign policy, our findings contribute to broader debates about political branding and truth in a ‘post-truth’, multipolar world.
Topic:
Communications, Media, Soft Power, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, and Crimea

37. Communicating humanitarian learning: What do we know?

Author:
Jo-Hannah Lavey
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
Effective communication of critical lessons is essential to improve response to crises. This paper identifies what we know about how the sector communicates what it has learned to improve policy and practice. Humanitarians produce a wealth of research and knowledge. There is, however, little evidence on how to best communicate this knowledge to maximise its impact. This scoping paper is aimed at producers and communicators of humanitarian knowledge. It provides a brief overview of core concepts and existing literature related to communicating humanitarian learning. It identifies five useful findings: Change is complex: it takes time and often does not succeed. Documented evidence is a small contributor to change. Humanitarians prefer tacit, networked knowledge over documentation. Humanitarians access knowledge that is immediately relevant. National actors are not sufficiently included. The paper also outlines what the literature tells us about humanitarian preferences for how to communicate learning. It concludes by finding that those aiming to share documented learning to improve policy and practice are operating without a solid evidence base to guide them, and proposes a future research agenda to fill these evidence gaps.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Communications, and Organizational Learning
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. The impact of quantum technologies on secure communications

Author:
Robert Clark, Stephen Bartlett, Michael Bremner, Ping Koy Lam, and Timothy Ralph
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This ASPI report examines the impact of quantum technologies on secure communications. It provides an overview of the key technologies and the status of the field in Australia and internationally (including escalating recent developments in both the US and China), and captures counterpart US, UK and Canadian reports and recommendations to those nations’ defence departments that have recently been released publicly. The report is structured into six sections: an introduction that provides a stand-alone overview and sets out both the threat and the opportunity of quantum technologies for communications security, and more detailed sections that span quantum computing, quantum encryption, the quantum internet, and post-quantum cryptography. The last section of the report makes five substantive recommendations in the Australian context that are implementable and in the national interest. A key message on quantum technologies relates to urgency. Escalating international progress is opening a widening gap in relation to Australia’s status in this field. It is critical that, in addition to its own initiatives, the Defence Department transitions from a largely watching brief on progress across the university sector and start-up companies to a leadership role—to coordinate, resource and harness the full potential of a most capable Australian quantum technologies community to support Defence’s objectives.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Communications, and Quantum Computers
Political Geography:
Australia

39. Somebody might hear us: Emerging communications security technologies

Author:
Andrew Davies
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Militaries have been trying to keep their communications safe from prying eyes for centuries. But they have also sought to be able to communicate as quickly as possible and as widely as possible with their own forces. Those requirements are in tension with one another. Today, militaries can communicate globally over increasingly capacious data pipes. But the same technological evolution that allows them to do that has also given would-be eavesdroppers new and powerful tools to collect and exploit signals. In this report, author Dr Andrew Davies explains the principles of secure communication and uses some examples of emerging technologies to illustrate what the next generation of secure communications might look like.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Communications, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Australia

40. Media Reporting on International Affairs

Author:
Andrew Shaver, Leonardo Dantas, Amarpreet Kaur, Robert Kraemer, Tristan Jahn, Grady Thomson, Hank Cheng, Katherine Gan, and Jazmin Santos-Perez
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:
We consider how the U.S. news media reports on international affairs. Analyzing ≈40 million news articles published between 2010 and 2020, we explore whether the American news media report differently on various international affairs topics based on partisan leanings. We then analyze ≈25 million articles published by top online news sites to determine whether collective reporting shows disparities between the level of attention afforded major global issues and objective measures of their human costs (e.g. numbers of individuals killed). We find that left- and right-leaning news outlets tend to report on international affairs at similar rates but differ significantly in their likelihood of referencing particular issues. We find further strong evidence that the frequency of reporting on the international issues we study tracks only modestly with their associated human costs. Given evidence U.S. public and policymakers dependence on news reports for foreign affairs information, our findings raise fundamental questions about the influence of these reporting biases.
Topic:
International Relations, Communications, Media, and Internet
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus