from the grasping-at-anything-that-floats dept.
Weaponized narrative Is the new battlespace and the U.S. is in the unaccustomed position of being seriously behind its adversaries.
An article from defenseone by co-directors Brad Allenby and Joel Garreau discusses the idea that narrative, or storytelling, "is basic to what it means to be human" but it can be "weaponized" by professionals, making it "a deep threat to national security."
What's new is the extraordinary power of today's weaponized narrative. It attacks our group identity – our sense of who we are, our privilege of not being identified as "other." The rise of the Connected Age allows attacks that tear down old identities that have bound us together. But it also allows the creation of narratives that define the new differences between "us" and "them" that are worth fighting for.
Weaponized narrative comes at a critical juncture. The speed of upheaval in our lives is unprecedented. It will be filled by something. We are desperate for something to hang on to.
By offering cheap passage through a complex world, weaponized narrative furnishes emotional certainty at the cost of rational understanding. The emotionally satisfying decision to accept a weaponized narrative — to believe, to have faith — inoculates cultures, institutions, and individuals against counterarguments and inconvenient facts.
This departure from rationality opens such ring-fenced belief communities to manipulation and their societies to attack. These communities can be strengthened through media tools and messages that reinforce the narrative — crucially, by demonizing outsiders. Trust is extended only to those who believe, leaving other institutional and social structures to erode.
In the hands of professionals, the powerful emotions of anger and fear can be used to control adversaries, limit their options, and disrupt their functional capabilities. This is a unique form of soft power. In such campaigns, facts are not necessary because – contrary to the old memes of the Enlightenment – truth does not necessarily prevail. It can be overwhelmed with constantly repeated and replenished falsehood. Especially powerful are falsehoods or simplifications that the target cohort has been primed to believe by the underlying narratives with which they are also being supplied.
[...] Far from being simply a U.S. or U.K. phenomenon, shifts to "post-factualism" can be seen in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, France, and the Philippines, among other democracies. Russia, whose own political culture is deeply post-factual and indeed post-modern, is now ably constructing ironic, highly cynical, weaponized narratives that were effective in the Ukrainian invasion, and are now destabilizing the Baltic states and the U.S. election process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @01:47AM (3 children)
Something tells me our "narrative" has been "weaponized" before. Hurt us a lot it did.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:27AM (1 child)
In the official manuals of Information Warfare, this is called "Perception Management". "Weaponized Narrative" is too honest, to close to the truth, to be effective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:25AM
All been done before, at least as old as radio. For one well known example, consider the story of Tokyo Rose --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Rose [wikipedia.org]
More than a dozen female Japanese broadcasters were dubbed “Tokyo Rose,” but the name is most strongly associated with Iva Toguri, an American citizen born to Japanese immigrants. Toguri broadcast during the 15-20 minute D.J. segment of the 75-minute program The Zero Hour on Radio Tokyo (NHK). The program consisted of propaganda-tinged skits and slanted news reports as well as of popular American music. Using the handle “Orphan Ann,” the smoky-voiced Toguri soon became a legend of the Pacific Theater. By late 1943, thousands of GIs regularly tuned in to “The Zero Hour,” a radio show where she played pop music in between slanted battle reports and put-downs aimed at U.S. troops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:20AM
Its nothing new. Look how the wibewals have influenced society over the past few decades. As have the konservativez - like the the insane pseudo-paranoia of the 1950's US mindset. But since the wibewated 60's its gone to LSD mushrooms and free sex, drugs and anything goes (im)morals. ISIS also use weaponzied narrative. The USA/UK also still do today. But they say: "Oh no, we don't have a problem. Look there - parts of Europe and some Asian countries - there is a problem." (only because they've fallen out of favour with the USA/UK propagandists - who are the real problem, globally.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:01AM
The article outlines a very good case for what many people see to be happening. But then, at the end, it basically seems to be saying "well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" I'm not sure if that's the attitude we should take with an issue like this. It could simply further destabilize civilization. I don't see why there aren't initiatives like this specifically aimed at combating the effectiveness of these techniques on the individual. That is the only long-term solution that doesn't result in the collapse of society and the end of what the article calls the "age of Enlightenment of the individual"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:01AM (8 children)
Only problem is, the quality of weaponized narrative has lowered proportionally to that of Hollywood movie quality. The advantages lie to people who know what they are, and respond to criticism with "so what?"
9/11 was the first recent example of bad propaganda, followed by the B-movie camera tricks of the Daniel Pearl execution, and both were somewhat believable if you ignore building 7 and the footage of the "plane" hitting a face of the pentagon. The "death" of Bin Laden was another major failure in believability. Uh, yeah, fabricate a cardboard ass-end of a Commanche, spray-paint it black, then show it at the purported compound where we "captured" Bin Laden so we can make it look like a real fight. Oh, by the way, Pakistan is one of our allies so we shouldn't castigate them for hosting the worst enemy of America. Oh, and speaking of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was killed for saying that Bin Laden was killed a long time before it was made official in America.
As somebody who voted for Obama's first term, was an avid reader of Salon and The Economist and an avid listener of NPR, and is not anymore, I must say that they're not even trying anymore. And all of those blatant paid CIA shills and others sabotaging Trump and the American political process should be rounded up and tried for sedition, and the organizers of paid protests tried and indicted under RICO statutes.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:40AM (6 children)
Ummm... I sorta see what you did here, but then again, the narrative style is of quite a low quality.
I don't feel taken into a crescendo which will emotionally see the "trial for sedition" and "...under RICO statuses" as righteous and justified.
(besides, Benazir Bhutto wasn't killed for disclosing the much earlier demise of bin Laden - Pakistanis could not care less. She was killed because her family needed a martyr to feed into the popular ethos and win the next election, in the same time eliminating the awkward situation of muslims being led by a woman, again. Remember Murtaza? Assassination for political purposes runs as tradition in the family.
- large grin -)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:30AM (5 children)
(besides, Benazir Bhutto wasn't killed for disclosing the much earlier demise of bin Laden - Pakistanis could not care less. She was killed because her family needed a martyr to feed into the popular ethos and win the next election, in the same time eliminating the awkward situation of muslims being led by a woman, again. Remember Murtaza? Assassination for political purposes runs as tradition in the family.
You do realize that Benazir Bhutto [wikipedia.org] had already been the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988-1990, and then again from 1993-1997, right?
I tell you, those dirty muzzies hate having women leading them. Look at how many Presidents a real (read: Christian) country like the US has had.
Savages! Each and every one of those ragheads! Amirite?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:48AM
(grin - again)
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday March 05 2017, @09:29PM (3 children)
Yeah, then look what the Islamic revolution did to those countries' women...
Furthermore, many European (Majority Christian...at least previously) Countries have had female leaders without issue.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 05 2017, @11:00PM (2 children)
Yeah, then look what the Islamic revolution did to those countries' women...
Why are so many people ignorant of even recent history?
Pakistan was created as an Islamic Republic [wikipedia.org]. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @11:13PM (1 child)
Their revolution was splitting from India?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 05 2017, @11:45PM
Their revolution was splitting from India?
There was no revolution. The British government ordered the partition of India in 1947. [wikipedia.org]
Again, Why are are some folks so ignorant of recent history?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:03AM
As somebody who voted for Obama's first term, was an avid reader of Salon and The Economist and an avid listener of NPR, and is not anymore, I must say that they're not even trying anymore.
You know, you can say stuff like this, but there is no way it could be true, unless your real name is David Horowitz.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:09AM (2 children)
Finally, a use for SJWs now that Obama's gone. We can put them all in a protected silo, deep underground, and let them work on weaponized narratives.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:13AM (1 child)
I may have found a problem with your plan. President Trump might not want to spend $54 billion on transgender washrooms for the underground silos.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:18AM
Yeah, you have to go to Trump Tower if you want a transgender washroom.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:34AM (1 child)
Piss in the wrong alley at 18, get demonized for life. Got it.
Better yet, the "felons" list. Do something bad at 18, 30 years later you still can't get a decent job.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 05 2017, @02:45AM
Yeap, that's a cruel and unusual punishment.
Better execute the bastard on the spot, less social cost down the road.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday March 05 2017, @03:29AM (7 children)
More people are getting caught in the crossfire of the propaganda wars, therefore it is time for establishment shills to start feigning concern about this "new" tactic while pretending they aren't the ones who've been using it all along.
The US is far and away the world leader in perpetuating a narrative that bears no likeness to reality. This is proven by considering just a few obvious facts. For instance, the fact that the US pisses away more money on militarism than anyone, has more foreign bases than anyone (and continues to build more), is the number one arms exporter, and has destroyed multiple countries already this century (and a good number of wedding parties!) while simultaneously lecturing others about "aggression" and "security threats." Or maybe the fact that the US has a huge prison population, mass surveillance, secret courts, indefinite detention, doctored evidence (aka parallel construction), and "constitution-free zones" at the same time they are crowing about "freedom."
If that's too complicated for you, I can simplify it even further.
Q: Is the status quo sustainable? yes/no
If no, then what exactly are the motivations of those who continue to sing the praises of the establishment?
(Score: 2) by lx on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:42AM (1 child)
The Voice of America [wikipedia.org] has a proud tradition of spewing US propaganda going back 75 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @06:34AM
> The Voice of America has a proud tradition of spewing US propaganda going back 75 years.
It certainly wasn't friendly to the local regimes, but as propaganda goes it was pretty damn mild.
The primary intent was to be a trustworthy source of information to people who didn't have any other options under the belief that the truth favored american goals. Too much pro-US propaganda would make it ineffective in its mission. Although recent events in the homeland have raised doubts about how much a population really prefers truth over propaganda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:41AM
Pie in the sky; or any other metaphor alluding to the hope that one day we will "make it", attain the dream life, or at least have a little more social / economic stability and growth. There have been periods of prosperity and growth and maybe that can be revived.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:16AM
The US is far and away the world leader in perpetuating a narrative that bears no likeness to reality.
The obvious rebuttal being the current and former Communist countries who have often taken narrative to incredible levels of delusion.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @04:08PM (2 children)
Yeah, see also the bullshit in the summary about the Russians destabilizing the US election process. From what I see the FBI has more blame for messing with the US elections than the Russians.
Even if the Russians were involved in the Wikileaks leaks, which of those leaks are not true? If such truths can destabilize your election process then that says a lot more about your elections and your candidates. And I'd say well done to the Russians. In the USA it seems you get more truth from the comedians and the Russians than from the "journalists" and the Press ( OK I exaggerate but... ;) ).
The fucking truth is the Democrats fielded a candidate who was so crap that she could lose to a person like Trump. All that grumbling about electoral college, sexism, racism etc, but the fact is a _black_ guy won TWICE with a rather similar voting system and had plenty of mud slung on him (go look it up).
As for weaponized narrative: anyone remember in December 2016 the western media going "Aleppo has fallen" and spreading tales of massacres- impending and ongoing? That's weaponized narrative for you. The fact is Aleppo was retaken by the Syrian Government. It's only fallen from the perspective of those who support the rebels (and liberated according to the Syrian and Russian Govs ;) ). The US and its allies were trying to destabilize or even overthrow the Syrian Government (much like they did in Libya) and were supporting Islamic extremists to do so (the US were financing the opposition since 2006). Look at Libya after the US successfully got rid of Gaddafi. Is it really a better place today? How many years or decades till it will be better than when Gaddafi ruled it? So if you were a Syrian stuck in Syria would you want the same for your country? Assad may be a terrible person but most of you would prefer being ruled by him than being ruled by the Islamic extremists. Many Syrians welcomed or even supported the extremists rebels at first but most eventually concluded the extremists were worse.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)
Even if the Russians were involved in the Wikileaks leaks, which of those leaks are not true? If such truths can destabilize your election process then that says a lot more about your elections and your candidates.
That is the part of the Narrative you aren't supposed to notice. That even if every allegation is true, it only means the Russians committed an act of Journalism. Seriously, if the NYT broke a story about a leak of the RNC's email system the only thing that would have happened to them is another Pulitzer to sit in disgrace in the cabinet along with Duranty's.
Which brings us to the main article. It is BS. America (F*ck Yeah!) is not behind in the 'new battlespace' of Narratives. We invented Propaganda, we literally wrote the book on it. Edward Bernays, Propaganda 1928. It taught Gobbels everything he needed to know. Google can give you a PDF if you want to read it for yourself. And if you are Dark Enlightened you know that The Cathedral is an American institution and currently controls the Narrative in most of the world. Neocons want to bomb pretty much every place the Cathedral's Narrative doesn't dominate thought.
What is new is the Internet is breaking down the centralized communications channels needed to drive the Cathedral's talking points. Which means we are probably about to enter "interesting times" and realize why the Chinese consider that a curse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:59AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:13AM
Today we have this story. On Thursday we had "weaponized AI propaganda".
I hope these defenseone idiots don't carry real weapons.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:26AM (2 children)
Maybe I am just drunk, but nothing in the summary makes sense.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Sunday March 05 2017, @09:05AM (1 child)
Maybe you are drunk, but that is no excuse!
By offering cheap passage through a complex world, weaponized narrative furnishes emotional certainty at the cost of rational understanding.
See? Drunk or not, you just have to believe! But I am starting to suspect something.
The emotionally satisfying decision to accept a weaponized narrative — to believe, to have faith — inoculates cultures, institutions, and individuals against counterarguments and inconvenient facts.
Ah, nightyHawk! We have found your problem! Although it might actually be your redeeming vice. You see, for this all to make sense, you have smoke the ol' Wacky Tobakky, like what Ol' Jeff Sessions said that them there KKK boys do!! Then it would all make sense.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 06 2017, @08:38PM
Thank you for your assistance and your reminder to check this article again. I have returned sober and, amazingly, the summary makes even less sense.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:08AM
Somebody hasn't been following the presidential elections too closely...
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday March 05 2017, @08:12AM
(Score: 2) by Bobs on Sunday March 05 2017, @12:12PM (1 child)
Weaponized narrative = propaganda.
Authoritarians specialize in this.
Soviets/Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, etc.
But legally, traditionally US military Industrial Complex not supposed to use Propaganda in US.
Yet profit margins on writing 'weaponiized narrative' are huge and easy compared to making actual, working physical weapon systems.
So now USA can pay $ millions to defense contractors and get the best, stealthiest weaponized narrative ever.
But this is propaganda. We know how to fight it, have done so before and are doing it now.
Beat propaganda with a hard-core, ongoing, multi-year, multi-decade, commitment to the truth, the scientific method and educating the populace.
It is hard but it works. Not always, not immediately, but over time basing your civilization on truth defeats the ones built on lies.
Reality beats lying, delusions over time.
And reality has a liberal bias.
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 07 2017, @06:20PM
"Beat propaganda with a hard-core, ongoing, multi-year, multi-decade, commitment to the truth, the scientific method and educating the populace."
It's telling how many of the initiatives that have been advanced for decades by the clique currently in power in the US are engineered to do the exact opposite of this.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Sunday March 05 2017, @01:58PM
and the U.S. is in the unaccustomed position of being seriously behind its adversaries.
The US is in the forefront of "weaponized narrative" in the form of a privatized propaganda machine going back since at least WW2 via government approved and funded comics and films.
There's plenty of examples [valuewalk.com] googling "Hollywood government" for direct funding as well as the municipal, state and federal approval committees for closing a street or providing the production with assault rifles, tanks, helicopters and even navy destroyers that are obviously the hallmark of most action films.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday March 05 2017, @05:49PM
By "post-factualism" do you mean things like: "Sweden is doing fine, there are no negative effects from uncontrolled mass migration. The government and the brain-washed society is not suppressing any empirical discussion with labels of racism."
(Score: 1) by cpghost on Monday March 06 2017, @01:51AM
Oh, so propaganda is called weaponized narrative nowadays? Call me old-school, but I've seen it all, history repeating itself ad nauseam. And the bigger, the more dishonest, and the more disconnected the lie is from the reality, the easier it is being swallowed, hook, line and sinker by (way too) many. However, it is also being left aside by a slowly growing portion of the population as being irrelevant and/or "boring"... and that is grounds for optimism.
So Russians, the West, the Chinese, the sunni Muslims, the chiite Muslims, and Israelis, and who knows who else are all peddling their "narrative" on us, mostly openly through their own channels, but also often insidiously through bought for foreign channels under "false flags"... but all in all, all this gets old very fast. Most people just don't care who are the "good guys" vs. the "bad guys" in Ukraine, Syria, Mexico, Northern Ireland, or in South-East Asia, or anywhere else for that matter. It's endlessly boring. All those groups are competing for the attention and sympathy of the regular Joes, are playing it super-emotional, and so on, but like every formerly sharp sword, using it too much has finally made it dull. It just doesn't work anymore, and we, the target group of all those narrators, just don't want to watch this pathetic show anymore. We've got more pressing practical problems to take care of.
Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @03:29AM
...and the U.S. is in the unaccustomed position of being seriously behind its adversaries.
false, the thing is US is no longer in possesion of narrative hegemony so obviously they need to boost this kind of lies as preps for the shiny ministry of truth
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/29/obamas-christmas-gift-to-trump-a-ministry-of-truth/ [counterpunch.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @05:25AM
what are we talking about ? narrative? right we have not though about this being the driving force of social existence since ... of gobbles wait we knew that narrative was propaganda, since at least the 50's when American fascist invented it again
you know your neighbor has a lushish brain, you want to eat it.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday March 06 2017, @04:25PM
c.f. Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying"