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Harald Gormsson's avatar

Great introduction and summary. One of the things that has always concerned me is how you counter psychological warfare aimed at your forces or population in an effective and efficient manner. Once upon a time this could be done thru official news releases and campaigns, published or broadcast by government agencies and/or news organizations. The problem is that many of these sources have damaged their credibility to such an extent, by actually lying to and blindly repeating what is clearly propaganda from other sources as “news”, that they are not very effective anymore.

I posit that the average citizen is very skeptical these days and more than a few people do not believe mainstream media or official sources at all any longer. Restoring credibility takes a lot of time and effort. The first steps are to get the facts, stop spinning things to suit an ideological agenda, stop lying and act like actual, old school journalists.

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Matthew Palmer's avatar

Its a very difficult problem, with no easy solutions. Certainly the business model adopted by many media organisations - emphasising sensationalism for clicks - does not help.

I think strong education in civic values and critical thinking is a good start, especially for children. Its not sufficient, but is necessary.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Matt, I know PSYOPS are not your specialty, but I would like a serious analysis of Trump's messaging from a PSYOPS perspective. Divide and confuse the United States? Divide and confuse the world?

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Matthew Palmer's avatar

They are a speciality of mine, actually!

Its a good idea - I'll have a think about how to approach it.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Confuse and divide. Trump doesn't care who he weakens, friend or foe, because he rules by power alone and the more power he has the happier he is.

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JimKe's avatar

Matew you are idiot. And that's why you and other british thinking that Russia wage psychological operations.

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JimKe's avatar

Matew you are idiot. And that's why you and other british thinking that Russia wage psychological operations.

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