{"id":28291,"date":"2017-11-25T11:42:58","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T16:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28291"},"modified":"2017-11-25T11:42:58","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T16:42:58","slug":"the-new-information-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28291","title":{"rendered":"The New Information War"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Cairo,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

THE NEW INFORMATION WAR<\/a><\/h3>\n

How Social Media Is Leveling the Playing Field Between Governments, Militants, and Ordinary People<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

DECADES BEFORE SMARTPHONES,<\/u> the internet, and social media, the philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who worked on media theory, predicted a future world war fought using information. While World War I and World War II were waged using armies and mobilized economies, \u201cWorld War III [will be] a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation,\u201d McLuhan said, a prophecy included in his 1970 book of reflections, \u201cCulture Is Our Business.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLuhan\u2019s prediction may have felt outlandish in his own era, but it seems very close to our present-day reality. Decades ago, the barriers to entry for broadcasting and publishing were so high that only established institutions could meaningfully engage in news dissemination. But over the past 10 to 15 years, ordinary individuals have been radically empowered with the ability to record, publish, and broadcast information to millions around the world, at minimal cost.<\/p>\n

The revolutionary impact of this new information environment \u2014 where any individual or network of individuals can create their own mini-CNN \u2014 is transforming our societies. The loss of gatekeeping authority held by legacy media institutions has opened up opportunities for long-suppressed groups to have their narratives heard: Palestinians, African-American activists, feminists, environmentalists, and dissident groups working in authoritarian societies can all find ways, not always without some trouble, to be heard.<\/p>\n

This new media landscape, though, also created a world susceptible to unprecedented levels of propaganda, conspiracy, and disinformation. The epistemological chaos created by the global explosion of \u201cnews,\u201d some of it of questionable veracity, has already led to serious disruptions in both politics and daily life. But there is another area of life that might be most seriously impacted by the changing information landscape: armed conflict.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE NEW INFORMATION WAR How Social Media Is Leveling the Playing Field Between Governments, Militants, and Ordinary People DECADES BEFORE SMARTPHONES, the internet, and social media, the philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who worked on media theory, predicted a future world war fought using information. While World War I and World War II were waged using armies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[379,17166,13176,655,1169,5567],"class_list":["post-28291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-government","tag-militancy","tag-murtaza-hussain","tag-propaganda","tag-social-media","tag-the-intercept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28292,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28291\/revisions\/28292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}