Seeking Legitimacy: Considerations for Strategic Communications in the Digital Age
Seeking Legitimacy: Considerations for Strategic Communications in the Digital Age

Author(s): Emily Harding, Harshana Ghoorhoo, Julia Dickson
Subject(s): Media studies, Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Politics and communication, Comparative politics, Health and medicine and law, ICT Information and Communications Technologies, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: National Messaging Strategies; COVID-19; Ukraine; Sweden; Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; Finland; media environment; disinformation;
Summary/Abstract: While the Soviet Union in particular developed well-honed strategies for propaganda during the Cold War, the last ten years have seen an explosion in the speed and reach of a new breed of disinformation. Messages now travel far and wide on social media at the speed of thought, as people look to Twitter and TikTok for news. Governments find themselves attempting to sort out which stories will pass and which stories will stick, as they struggle to bet limited resources against emerging problems. Democracies are particularly vulnerable to disinformation because laws are designed to protect free speech, not to protect the state from speech. Propaganda spreads easily across borders in the digital age. One recently uncovered web portal served multiple potential sympathizers in several languages; it provided pro-Kremlin activists from many countries with templates for letters opposing the destruction of Soviet monuments, including offers to help write and translate the letters into English and French. By one estimate, dozens of well-crafted pieces of pro-Kremlin disinformation appear every week—more than any country can handle alone.

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