DMac
26th July 2010, 08:51 AM
A paper by the Joint Special Operations University. I find this to be an interesting topic worthy of more study.
(PDF Warning)
SOURCE (http://cryptome.org/dodi/jsou-06-5.pdf)
snip
Their analysis rightly starts with the foreign information environment against which blogs would be generated. Here lies the crux of the issue: can U.S. bloggers properly use language and culture, and an understanding of how information is spread within a specific culture, to influence members or sectors of a population? This is an extremely sensitive topic requiring much finesse. The idea is so difficult to implement, the authors note, that it may require the U.S. to “clandestinely recruit or hire prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nations, group, or community to pass the message.†Blogging for influence requires the ability to debate points that require inside knowledge about several topics.
Influence, therefore, starts with the characteristics of the blogger. According to researcher Kathy Gill of the University of Washington, the most influential blogs were generally written by professionals with excellent writing skills. Just as during World War II, the military recruited the top Hollywood directors and studios to produce films about the war (in effect conducting domestic influence campaigns in the name of maintaining the national morale and support for the war effort), waging the war against terrorism and its underlying causes, as spelled out in the National Security Strategy, may require recruiting the prominent among the digirati (probably those native to the target region) to help in any Web-based campaign.
(PDF Warning)
SOURCE (http://cryptome.org/dodi/jsou-06-5.pdf)
snip
Their analysis rightly starts with the foreign information environment against which blogs would be generated. Here lies the crux of the issue: can U.S. bloggers properly use language and culture, and an understanding of how information is spread within a specific culture, to influence members or sectors of a population? This is an extremely sensitive topic requiring much finesse. The idea is so difficult to implement, the authors note, that it may require the U.S. to “clandestinely recruit or hire prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nations, group, or community to pass the message.†Blogging for influence requires the ability to debate points that require inside knowledge about several topics.
Influence, therefore, starts with the characteristics of the blogger. According to researcher Kathy Gill of the University of Washington, the most influential blogs were generally written by professionals with excellent writing skills. Just as during World War II, the military recruited the top Hollywood directors and studios to produce films about the war (in effect conducting domestic influence campaigns in the name of maintaining the national morale and support for the war effort), waging the war against terrorism and its underlying causes, as spelled out in the National Security Strategy, may require recruiting the prominent among the digirati (probably those native to the target region) to help in any Web-based campaign.