Stuttgart, FH, Diplomarb., 2000.

Information is power in the 21st century and strategic narratives through framing are nowadays regarded as part of the modern armoury of war. States constantly compete to create credible narratives in support of their actions on the international policy arena. After the Crimean crisis in 2014 the world was forced to open its eyes to medias new usage in modern warfare. State funded news agencies play an important role in this recent development and one of the most prominent actors is Russia. This thesis seeks to contribute to the discussion of strategic narratives and framing in the news media through a case study of the Russian news site Sputnik News. The thesis focuses on the news agency’s depiction of five empirical events in which the Swedish and Russian armed forces were involved during 2014 and 2015. A qualitative analysis of 25 news articles discussing the five events has detected proof of pro-Russian framing processes. The aim of Sputnik News seems to be a transformation of the general Swedish frame regarding Russia itself and perhaps more specifically Russia’s recent change in foreign policy.

Information is power in the 21st century. The on-going “information revolution” has forced states to adapt to the new world arena and to the following demand of being able to use information strategically. This study aimed to contribute to the lack of research regarding the Swedish case, and thus give a greater understanding of how Sweden tackles information warfare campaigns. The study examined two cases: The host-nation-agreement between Sweden and NATO (2016) and the Swedish military exercise, Aurora 17 (2017). The study applied a qualitative analytical method to: firstly, identify the Swedish strategic narrative by using governmental policy documents; secondly, identify the Russian intrusive narrative by looking at two cases using editorial articles of RT and Sputnik International, and finally analyze the Swedish way of handling the intrusive narrative, using an ideal type analysis method.  The study confirmed that Russia, through state-owned media, intervened and tried to undermine the Swedish strategic narrative in both cases. The study concluded that Sweden’s strategy to counter these actions is moving from a previously passive approach – to a more antagonistic approach towards the sender of the intruding narrative. However, the study also concluded that Sweden is lacking a coherent strategy to handling these kinds of threats.

With the ever-expanding speed of technological development and the dependence of social media outlets in everyday life. Information warfare can be used to strike targets with information operations from leaders down to the average person. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the fact that attacks are being performed on our media corporations to influence are opinion. By influence opinion via deception the outcome of an attack even changes an election. The aim of this paper intends to shed light on the behaviour of hacktivist groups. The Syrian Electronic Army will be the main character in this paper do to the groups plausible deniability connections to the Syrian regime. As this paper will show with the works of a case studies on this group with the theoretical framework of John Warden. Hacker groups with connections to a regime work towards influencing the public via the power of disinformation.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Information Science / unrestricted

This research aims to explore the dissemination of strategic narratives around Lithuania through the set of news articles of the Russian state-funded media agency RT. As an international media platform, RT has been previously identified by scholars as an important structural element of Russian information warfare strategy. To identify the strategic narratives, this research follows the procedures of thematic analysis informed by the strategic narrative framework. The findings of this study indicate that RT, through the strategic narratives of Lithuania, seeks to criticize Western leadership and indirectly promote a positive image of Russia as an alternative to the West. While at the national level, the goals of RT’s strategic narratives on Lithuania include creating an image that Lithuanian governmental institutions are broken; showing the Lithuanian government as incompetent, and associating it with a fascist regime; presenting Lithuania not only as Russophobic but as a failing state as well. Further research could contribute to elaborating the strategical framework of the Russian information warfare effort in the post-Soviet countries.

In the context of increasing technologicalization and the growing interconnectedness of our world through social media, this thesis aims to answer the question, why is disinformation not being sufficiently handled in the United States in the wake of the foreign meddling in the 2016 Presidential Elections, and what can and should be done about the threat? This master thesis therefore aims to delve into the inherent vulnerabilities in the U.S. societal fabric, and thus conduct an in-depth explanatory case study model analysis of what should be done to further combat and counteract disinformation and election meddling within the country. The author argues that disinformation and election meddling are not only a serious security threat, but are also not being properly handled as they are only being addressed technologically, and not through the realm of information, and societal resilience. This thesis therefore argues that strategic communication, which should be redefined and expanded in definition, should be used to combat disinformation campaigns to prevent further election meddling. The author posits that a two-level approach is best, one which aims to negate the negative disinformation campaigns through a single governmental body, while also addressing the root causes through education.

Diploma thesis is focused on the issue of the information warfare in context of debate about modern warfare. Firstly, thesis presented the debate of modern ways of warfare, which consists concepts such as hybrid warfare, non-linear warfare etc. Then presented three main concepts of information warfare in the context of this debate and within the three centres of contemporary power in the world (West, Russia and China). Western concept clearly separating war and peace, Russian complex concept of hybrid-information war and Chinese concept of three warafres. Subsequently, the thesis develops a thesis on the securitization of information warfare in the western environment (EU and NATO states). Securitization is understood as a rhetorical act that presents a phenomenon as a major security threat. In the context of the West, the information warfare has been to some extent securitized. This whole securitization is problematic if we look at the information warfare as a normal state of international relations, which are inherently conflicting and anarchic.

With the new challenges of the digital world associated with disinformation, data breaches, and cybercrimes (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018; Connolly et al., 2016; Shipley & Bowker, 2013) many countries nowadays discuss approaches to Internet regulation. In Ukraine, which faced propaganda tactics employed by Russia as a part of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict (Yurkova, 2018), the need for information security in recent years became a major challenge. In 2017, authorities of Ukraine addressed the challenge by introducing sanctions to the most-used Russian web-platforms, including social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, search engine Yandex, and many other services. This study analyzed the discourse that was formed around the decision. The work incorporates the model of critical discourse analysis by Fairclough (1995a) and framing analysis by Pan & Kosicki (1993). This qualitative study analyzed materials from Ukrainian online media, TV stories, user comments, and political speeches from 16th-17th May 2017 – the dates when the decision on blocking of Russian web-sources was announced to the Ukrainian public. The research answers the questions about the dominant discourses in society regarding the approach of the authorities to Internet regulation, the main arguments and counter-arguments, and media framing. The results show that the discussion was locked in a trap of two dominant discourses of freedom of speech and national security, whereas alternative measures to restrictions were not represented on the public agenda.

The rise of the technological age has had a huge impact on society, from the way we connect with people to the way war is waged.  As a result, countries had to adapt their strategies to include modern technology and subsequently an increase in information management. An increase of information both between forces and to the rest of society through different media outputs. During research it was discovered that there is currently a lack of theoretical explanations on information warfare (IW). A theory is only valid if it has a clear connection to empirical data. Therefore, this study aims to verify Robert Leonhard’s theory for the information age in relation to IW. Two cases were examined: Russia and the USA's utilization of IW during the war against Georgia in 2008 and the Invasion of Iraq in 2003. The analysis will be based on the three dimensions of IW: the cognitive, physical and information arena. The result shows that R. Leonhard’s theory is valid in accordance with the USA’s usage of IW and partially Russia’s use of IW. It is therefore possible to draw the conclusion that the study strengthens the theory. Consequently, this research can be used as a steppingstone to future studies.