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Matt Armstrong has a must-read analytical, IO piece up at CTLab Review:

New Media and Persuasion, Mobilization, and Facilitation

…New Media is more than 24/7 news cycles. It is the ability to create trusted peer relationships, or the appearance of, to create legitimacy of information as well as depth and breadth of acceptance. This can be done as traditional media or other new media outlets pick up on a bit of “news” for redistribution, giving the impression of validity as the sources go up from one to many, often in excess of the three needed to create a “fact.” It is easier to see you’re not alone in the New Media environment, something that was not possible with radios and film (unless you risked gathering as a group).

There are several defining characteristics of the new media environment. The obvious are hyperconnectivity, persistence of information, inexpensive reach, and dislocation with speaker and listener virtually close but geographically distant. New Media also democraticizes information in the sense that hierarchies are bypassed, permitting both direct access to policy and decision makers and the possibility of “15-minutes of fame” (if even only one minute or less) to everyone. Information can be created and consumed by everyone regardless of “eliteness,” CV, and at minimal cost to any party.

All true and well said. Matt however points to a seldom recognized but critical variable here:

To the insurgent and terrorist, New Media’s capacity to amplify and increase the velocity of an issue that is critical. They increasingly rely on the Internet’s ability to share multiple kinds of media quickly and persistently to permit retrieval across time zones around the world from computers or cell phones. The value is the ability to not just persuade an audience to support their action, but to mobilize their support and to facilitate their will to act on behalf of the group (or not to act on behalf of another group, such as the counterinsurgent).

Velocity is very important in many senses. An accelerating message tempo heightens the sense of crisis in the mind of the audience so long as it does not move so quickly as to slide into unfiltered “noise”. Control of velocity also permits the exploitation of “information lag” in slower moving hierarchies or audiences. Finally, this velocity is really “alinear”; the ability of new media tools to “mash-up” entirely unrelated events separated by time, distance and circumstance and synthesize them out of context permits the scoring of tactical propaganda victories.

Read all of Matt’s post here.

Shane Deichman leaves his usual perch at Wizards of Oz for a special guest post at Matt Armstrong’s excellent public diplomacy and IO blog MountainRunner:

Openness & Government: a guest post by Shane Deichman

….In the early 1960s, President Kennedy charged his Science Advisory Committee (chaired by Dr. Jerome Wiesner, Special Assistant to the President on Science and Technology) to charter a panel to review federal information management policies and practices. The “Panel on Science Information” was chaired by Dr. Alvin M. Weinberg, Director of Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). ORNL is the site of the world’s first operational nuclear reactor (the Graphite Reactor, where the “pile” from the University of Chicago was moved during World War II to validate the “breeder reactor” concept) and a key national laboratory.

….NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission were acknowledged by Dr. Weinberg as excelling in this area, interpreting their responsibilities quite broadly, and being proactive in providing full-fledged information services (not just a “document repository”) for enabling access to information. The AEC’s culture of openly sharing information is still evident today in the Department of Energy’s “Office of Scientific and Technical Information” (OSTI) in Oak Ridge – the nation’s central repository of scientific information stored in easily searchable databases (including Science.gov, ScienceAccelerator.gov and WorldWideScience.org). [BTW: OSTI is located on the first street in the nation named after a website, “Science.Gov Way”, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.]

At the other extreme, the Department of Defense was singled out in the Weinberg Report for having an information agency (Armed Services Technical Information Agency [ASTIA], predecessor of today’s Defense Technical Information Center [DTIC]) that only handled internal reports and internal information retrieval requests.

Read the rest here.

Special note: Matt Armstrong writes:

In the spirit of engaging and informing the American public of what the government does and why, Shane Deichman of Wizard of Oz and deep thinker on S&T sent along this post on Openness & Government. He is also the blogger increasingly pictured drinking with fellow bloggers.

So true, so true. 🙂

Kind of a part “theory”, part “futurism” post as my introduction to CTLab readers:

Visualcy and the Human Terrain

As a result of public education, the rise of mass-media and commercial advertising, Western nations and Japan, some earlier but all by mid-20th century, became relatively homogenized in the processing of information as well as having a dominant vital “consensus” on cultural and political values with postwar Japan probably being the most extreme example. The range between elite and mass opinion naturally narrowed as more citizens shared similar outlooks and the same sources of information, as did the avenues for acceptable dissent. A characteristic of modern society examined at length by thinkers as diverse as Ortega y Gasset, Edward Bernays, Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler.

….Interestingly enough, despite complaints by American conservatives regarding the political bias of news outlets like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, these organizations are packaging news in the familiar “Pulitzerian frame” in which mass media have been structuring information for over a century. Effectively, habituating their audience to a Western style (if not content) of thinking and information processing, with all of the advantages and shortcomings in terms of speed and superficiality that we associate with television news broadcasting. This phenomena, along with streaming internet video content like Youtube and – very, very, soon, mass-based Web 2.0 video social networks – will overlay the aforementioned complexity in regard to the range of education and literacy.

Read the whole thing here.

My friend Bruce Kesler, who keeps a sharper eye on the fine details of American politics than I do, is dead square right in a recent post at Democracy Project that I reproduce here in full:

Hidden Foreign Contributions Affect US Elections

US election law forbids non-Americans to contribute directly to federal candidates, and qualified donations above $200 are available to public scrutiny. There is a huge loophole – or, more correctly, shroud – over contributions by foreigners to US non-profits, who heavily shape public discussion affecting our elections – and other policies. (There’s, also, some indication that the $200 cut-off for full disclosure of contributions to our campaigns may be another loophole being exploited by some foreigners.)

IRS Form 990 generally requires that non-profits list contributors and their addresses who give $5000 or more. However, non-profits are not required to publicly divulge who they are (with the exception of private foundations and 527’s).

Non-profits include 501(c)(4)’s, which are estimated to spend in 2008 well more than the $424-million that 527’s spent to influence the 2004 elections.

Another area of concern is donations made by foreigners to our universities. Although New York State requires that such contributions be revealed, there is no enforcement and filings are often not made.

In Britain, it is estimated, more funding comes from the MidEast for Islamic Studies departments than from the government.

Ministers labelled Islamic studies a “strategic subject” and said the “effective and accurate teaching” of it in universities could help community cohesion and counter extremism.

Similar concerns have been raised in the US about the influence of MidEast contributors on our universities’ curriculums, and the faculty who influence public discussion. See here and here, for examples.

Former presidents Carter and Clinton have received tens of millions in donations, and more, from foreign sources for their foundations, yet the public knows very little about from whom or how much. Meanwhile, Carter and Clinton take frequent public stands on public policy and candidates for office.

A draft has been released of a revised IRS Form 990. It increases exposure on governance issues, but retains the shroud over contributors to non-profits. At the very least, foreign contributors should be revealed publicly, at least for amounts over the $200 of election laws.

You can send your comments to the IRS during the comment period. It’s as simple as an email to Form990Revision@irs.gov

Bravo to Bruce for highlighting this important but generally unrecognized problem. 

One of the ironies of Beltway incumbent preferred campaign finance regulation like the odious McCain-Feingold law is that it manages to combine restrictions of the political activities and free speech rights of American citizens while granting opacity to wealthy foreigners who seek to influence political discourse here through generous donations to foundations, educational organizations, think tanks, universities, presidential libraries and other institutions that shape our intellectual life. It is completely understandable, given the potential impact of American policies on the rest of the world that other states and their sundry notables would seek to make their voice heard here. To a certain extent, when it’s above board public diplomacy and cultural exchanges, it’s even a good thing. What’s unacceptable is that foreign interests can often buy such influence – which is what they are really doing – under the radar or even behind the shield of legal secrecy. If some of our finest universities were people then they would have already had to register as foreign agents a long, long, loooooooong, time ago.

The same might be said of some former presidents. Or of presidential candidates.

The answer here is not to go on a fruitless legal jihad to ban foreign money, which at times does get turned toward humanitarian or genuinely educational purposes but to require radical transparency of our think tanks, universities, charities and other institutions enjoying tax deductible status but are dedicated to indirectly influencing the political process or policy formation. If an American institution or scholar wants to shill for the Wahabbi Lobby by working for a tank on the take from a senior Saudi prince, or accept grants from PLA-affiliated Chinese corporations, Japanese billionaires, mobbed-up  Russian “businessmen” or other foreign sources, fine, but a highly visible disclaimer to that fact ought to be mandatory. If Carnegie or AEI or Harvard departments are advising presidential candidates on Mideast policy then contributions emanating from that region are relevant to the discussion.

If accepting the check in public is cause for dismay then there’s a word for what’s really going on:

Graft.

Lexington Green sent me this PARAMETERS review essay by Colonel Arthur C. Winn – on the five volume series on Strategic Intelligence [Five Volumes] (Intelligence and the Quest for Security) , edited by Dr. Loch K. Johnson and issued by Praeger Security International.

The five volumes present empirical inquiries, historical views, theoretical frameworks, memoirs, case studies, interviews, legal analyses, comparative essays, and ethical assessments. The authors come fromvarying backgrounds, including academia, intelligence agencies, think tanks, Congress, the State Department, the National Security Council, the legal field, and from seven countries. Each author has different personal experiences andwrites fromhis or her own perspective. The books provide an excellent reference for students of the military, political affairs, foreign policy, or strategic planning. The supporting notes at the end of each chapter are especially helpful and should not be overlooked by the reader.

Lex kidded me about putting this on my Christmas List but it looks to be a “must read” or at least a “must have reference” set for scholars of intelligence, IR, diplomatic or military history. Very DIME oriented format. I’m impressed as this is exactly what I was looking for years ago when I shifted outside of diplomatic and economic history to delve into intelligence and strategic studies.

Maybe a corporate card or institutional account order is a good idea with this one ($ 360 – Ouch!).