this is a lecture given to the NATO defense college in Rome on March 8th 2016 about how changes in journalism are impacting on issues such as the understanding of conflict and the formation of public opinion. It looks at the role of social media, the changes to mainstream media as it becomes more networked and the ways that might be changing flows of public opinion, especially around security and terror issues.

1. Strategic Communication and the
Influence of the Media on Public
Opinion
NATO Defense College
March 2016
Prof Charlie Beckett
Director, Polis, LSE
E: c.h.beckett@lse.ac.uk
Twitter: @charliebeckett
Blog: www.blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis

3. What are the three things you
needed to know this morning and
where would go to find out?

4. What’s the latest on #Brexit?

5. Is my flight home delayed?

6. What’s the team for Old Trafford?

7. My news
• On demand, instantly, all the time
• Interactive, sharable, participatory
• Multiple, personalised sources: blend of
native digital & mainstream media
• Mobile & social

8. Digital dependency

10. Structural change:
Mixed media – but all networked
• Traditional
‘legacy’media
• Social news media
• Social networks

11. News isn’t ‘the news’ anymore
• News faster & shorter & bigger
• Information & entertainment blended
• Battle for attention, not just traffic
• People share for information,
entertainment/gift, identity
• Emotion as significant as facts or analysis

12. Homophily

13. Algorithmic social engineering
“The better we get at modelling user
preferences, the more accurately we construct
recommendation engines that fully capture
user attention. In a way, we are building
personalized propaganda engines that feed
users content which makes them feel good
and throws away the uncomfortable bits.”
Gilad Lotan, Data Scientist, 2015

14. How did we get from this…

15. …to this?

16. #EuroMaidan: Power to the people?

17. Social Media Tells The Story

18. Social Media Tells The Story

19. Social Media Tells The Story

20. Social Media Tells The Story

21. Global networked news war

22. The Truthseeker: Genocide of Eastern
Ukraine

23. RT propaganda
“The Programme made numerous highly serious
allegations about the Ukrainian Government and
military forces including allegations of atrocities and
attempts to commit genocide. The allegations were
accompanied by emotive footage of warfare and its
after effects and numerous comparisons of the
Ukrainian Government and its military forces to
Hitler and Nazi Germany. All of this was broadcast
with little or no counterbalance or objectivity”
Ofcom ruling Sept 2015

24. Propaganda machines
“to provide people with more answers to more
questions, to examine world events from
different point or points of view and to
encourage people to keep questioning more…a
broadcasting format in which the broadcaster
challenges the views of the mainstream media
and provides alternative perspectives”.
RT response to Ofcom 2015

25. Oops
“it had intended to broadcast immediately after the
Programme a slate setting out the position of the
Ukrainian Government as follows:
“The Ukrainian government denies all accusations
regarding crimes against civilians. Kiev says affected
residents in the country’s east are just a side effect of the
anti- terrorist operation”.
human error unfortunately led to this statement being
omitted. TV Novosti expressed regret for this omission.”

26. Rampant relativism

27. • Wolfgang Schauble: ‘alarmed and shamed’
that 60% of Germans say that they would not
support action if Russia attacked another
NATO member

30. Social media for terror

31. Does counter propaganda work with
violent identity extremists?
• trust and credibility again is crucial – won’t be trusted
if seen to be partisan
• Vulnerable people often trust informal media more
than mainstream media
• Witnessing “someone like me” share a platform with
“others unlike me” can have encourage positive
attitudes around tolerance and understanding of other.
• Most successful projects do not seek to reshape the
status quo, but rather aim to facilitate conversation,
encourage awareness, or dispel misinformation.
• [Kate Ferguson UEA, March 2016]

32. The Good News

33. What should public organisations (and
journalists) do?
• Transparency is the online currency of trust
• Interactivity is key to engagement
• Be on all the platforms, all the time
• Be where people are talking and talk in their
language
• Be strategic about who you want to influence
(niche, mass, switchers, nodes)
• Be strategic about why you want to influence
(behaviour change, opinion forming, media
space)

34. Good media now a strategic goal
• Promote free Internet
• Promote civic media
• Support credible news organisations

35. Be humble: people are right to be
sceptical
• Experts are usually wrong
• Authorities keep getting it wrong
• All part of a wider crisis of trust, authenticity
and attention

36. Strategic Communication and the
Influence of the Media on Public
Opinion
NATO Defense College
March 2016
Prof Charlie Beckett
Director, Polis, LSE
E: c.h.beckett@lse.ac.uk
Twitter: @charliebeckett
Blog: www.blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis