Hostile Social Manipulation Present Realities and Emerging Trends

Abstract

The role of information warfare in global strategic competition has become much more apparent in recent years. Todays practitioners of what this report terms hostile social manipulation employ targeted social media campaigns, sophisticated forgeries, cyberbullying and harassment of individuals, distribution of rumors and conspiracy theories, and other tools and approaches to cause damage to the target state. This emerging practice reflects an updated and modified version of many long-established forms of influence, including propaganda, active measures, disinformation, and political warfare, a group of techniques sometimes referred to with the overarching term measures short of war. The subject has become a leading topic of debate in the West in the wake of reports of Russian election interference, not only in the United States but throughout Europe.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1081269

Entities

People

  • Abigail Casey
  • Alyssa Demus
  • James Sladden
  • Luke J. Matthews
  • Michael J. Mazarr
  • Nathan Beauchamp-mustafaga
  • Scott W. Harold

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Cyber
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Electronic Mail
  • Employment
  • International Law
  • International Organizations
  • International Relations
  • Military Science
  • Minority Groups
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Network Science
  • Online Communications
  • Political Systems
  • Public Policy
  • Recreation
  • Social Media
  • Sociopolitics
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.
  • Theoretical Analysis.