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A reminder that we have two exciting events in February and March.
1. February 22, 2017: Dave Whiteland (MySociety), "EveryPolitician.org: How and why we are Gathering Data on Every Politician in the World." Details here.
2. March 8, 2017: Shelley Boulianne (MacEwan University), "Twenty Years, Thirty-five Countries: Digital Media Effects on Participation." Details here.
All welcome!
Ben O'Loughlin and Alister Miskimmon have been invited to present their strategic narrative research at a debate on Russian Disinformation at the George Washington University, Washington DC, on February 28, 2017. To register click here. For further information, see below.
Time: 4pm, Feb. 28
Place: The Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Commons, 1957 E St NW, Room 602
Thank you to Thomas Miller and the Elliott School for International Affairs for hosting the event.
Join the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication & The Atlantic Council in welcoming Ben O'Loughlin, Alistair Miskimmon, Christopher Walker and Alina Polyakova for talks and a panel discussion on Russian Disinformation. Professors O'Loughlin and Miskimmon will discuss 'Strategic Narratives and the Ukraine Crisis', Christopher Walker will address the issue of 'Dealing with New Competition' and Alina Polyakova explains 'The Kremlin's Trojan Horses' before joining IPDGC's Public Diplomacy Fellow Thomas Miller in a panel discussion.
Professor Ben O’Loughlin, Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Professor Alister Miskimmon, Reader in European Politics and International Relations and Co-Director of the Centre for European Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Christopher Walker, Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Alina Polyakova, Deputy Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center and Senior Fellow for the Future Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
Abstracts:
Thinking Past the Weaponization Debate: Strategic Narratives and the Ukraine Crisis (O’Loughlin & Miskimmon)
Western military leaders appear to be falling prey to a ‘propaganda panic’ that they are losing an information battle, while journalism, democracy and the liberal world order fall into crisis. Instead of seeking to explain how audiences in Ukraine and elsewhere are being persuaded or not by Russia, it is more helpful to understand how the communications of all actors emerge from longstanding identities, memories and expectations that are themselves rooted in longstanding narratives.
Dealing with the New Competition (Walker)
“Disinformation” is one part of a wide-ranging, but unitary, effort by authoritarian regimes to influence audiences. It is particularly worrying that Russia and other authoritarian trendsetters, along with modernizing their domestic censorship toolkit, have adapted their techniques for international application.
The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses (Polyakova)
Through its network of political alliances Russia seeks to infiltrate politics, influence policy, and inculcate an alternative, pro-Russian view of the international order. In Europe, the goal is to weaken NATO and the EU. The Kremlin’s destabilization tactics have focused on: (1) building political alliances with ideologically friendly political group and individuals, and (2) establishing pro-Russian organizations in civil society, which help to legitimate and diffuse the regime’s point of view in a way that is difficult to expose.
EveryPolitician.org: how and why we are gathering data on every politician in the world
Dave Whiteland, MySociety
In order to hold their representatives to account, citizens need to know who they are what they do. In much of the world this information is hard to get. The EveryPolitician project (http://everypolitician.org/), run by UK-based civic tech pioneers MySociety, is gathering data on every politician in the world and makes it freely available in a consistent, useful format. What are the challenges of such a project? How is it even possible? How can data change the world? Who uses it? MySociety's Dave Whiteland tells the story of civic tech, open data, the technology of webscrapers and data pull requests. Featuring a tiny team of humans, 72,654 politicians (and counting), and one very busy little bot.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22
TIME: 16:00-18:00
PLACE: WINDSOR-0-02
All Welcome!
Are alt-right news sites helping Russia destroy the West?
On 1 February 2017 Ben O'Loughlin will give a talk at the University of Manchester entitled, Russia, Trump and the Post-truth Moment: A New Model of Influence in IR? The talk is part of the seminar series run by the Critical Global Politics group. Ben will evaluate claims that Russian disinformation has influenced events in world politics over the past twelve months and consider how Russia's efforts fit into the history of propaganda and public diplomacy. The post-truth, alternative-fact news environment seems to coincide with an unravelling of the liberal global order. Communication and international relations seemingly entwine in new and dangerous ways. Whether you live in Tallinn or Frankfurt, Sheffield or Memphis, can you be an informed citizen if you cannot trust the news that brings you the world? Democracy itself is rendered dysfunctional, according to the logic driving much commentary and policy debate.
Now is a good time to take stock of the evidence. If it cannot be demonstrated that Russian disinformation has had any kind of effect - "persuading foreigners is difficult", as diplomat Robert Cooper said - then there may be a more systematic set of problems undermining politics today.
When: 15:30 - 17:30
Where: Arthur Lewis Building, G.18, University of Manchester.
Further details here.
Thank you to Martin Coward for organising this seminar.
A book launch in Cairo (Copyright Goethe-Institut Kairo)
The Cultural Value Project: Cultural Relations in Societies in Transition
This project aims to draw a comprehensive picture of different approaches and forms of cultural activities abroad, identifying shaping factors and conditions which allow for a lasting and sustainable impact in the host societies. Conducted in cooperation with the Open University and Hertie School of Governance, the research project maps cultural relations in Ukraine and Egypt and generates insights for policy planning at the Goethe-Institut and British Council. It is one of the first academic studies to conduct a comparative analysis of cultural diplomacy.
The project builds on prior work by Ben O'Loughlin and Marie Gillespie exploring what audiences, diplomats, journalists and other stakeholders find valuable in intercultural communication. This understanding has been developed through the Tweeting the Olympics project with the BBC and the ongoing #ShakespeareLives project with the British Council.
The University of Michigan Press have published a new volume, Forging the World, that offers a new set of case studies to illustrate the role narratives play in world politics. The editors, including NewPolCom's Ben O'Loughlin, have brought together leading scholars of political economy, international law, conflict and terrorism, and issues such as China's rise and the Arab Spring. The editors also devote chapters to methods for studying strategic narratives and the ethics of such research, given that governments are also keen to understand how narratives can mobilise public opinion around the world.
To forge - a political necessity or an act of immorality?
Forging the World develops the strategic narrative research agenda that started with the authors' 2013 volume Strategic Narratives, winner of the 2016 best book award for international communication at the International Studies Association annual convention. The book is available here.
On 8 March 2017 Ben O'Loughlin will begin a Media and Communication Fellowship at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch in New Zealand. Ben will be based in the School of Languages, Social and Political Sciences.
Ben is currently part of the C3EU project based at Canterbury investigating media and information flows in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, funded by a Jean Monnet Network Grant.
Thanks to Babak Bahador for sponsoring Ben's visit.
Shelley Boulianne, "Twenty Years, Thirty-five Countries: Digital Media Effects on Participation"
Popular and academic discourses characterize the effects of digital media as revolutionary, but the true effects are blurred by a multiplicity of studies with conflicting results. This meta-analysis project examines almost 300 studies conducted on the relationship between digital media use and participation in civic and political life across the globe. Unlike other meta-analysis in this field (Boulianne, 2009, 2015; Skoric et al., 2016 a,b), the focus of this analysis is at the study-level. The focus on study-level analysis, combined with a large sample of studies, allows for an examination of how the effects of digital media change across time and how the effects differ across the globe. As digital media use increases, are the effects growing? Do the effects increase gradually or is there a period marking a dramatic or revolutionary change in effects? Finally, to what extent can we discuss the global effects of digital media? Can the pattern of effects be explained by political system, the degree of press freedom, or geographic region? This research seeks to bring structure to the multitude of studies in this field of research and provide clarity in this area of research. Clarifying findings will help devise culturally-appropriate strategies to optimize the use of digital media in civic and political life. This research can inform civic organizations, governments and political campaigns' investments in digital media.
Shelley Boulianne is Associate Professor of Sociology at MacEwan University. She studies the impact of the internet on democratic practices, citizens’ engagement in deliberative events, and generational shifts in community attachment and social capital and its impact on patterns of civic and political engagement.
Date: March 8, 2017
Time: 2pm-3pm
Location: Windsor 0-02
Leaders on all sides of the Iran dispute were truly transmedial as they tried to build support for the deal
Ben O'Loughlin and Alister Miskimmon will present a paper The Visual Diplomacy of the Iran Deal on 20 January 2017 at The Oxford Digital Diplomacy Working Group's Workshop in Images and Narratives. The topic they address is: how could the EU and IAEA lead long-time enemies Iran and the US to a deal in 2015 on Iran's nuclear programme? In their paper they show how the leading players - Kerry, Zarif, Khamenei, and Mogherini - used social media to visualise momentum and the inevitability of a deal. They show how these visuals kept a focus on scientific and economic cooperation and away from religious or geopolitical conflict. Finally, they trace how journalists were cut out of the loop so that domestic tensions could be sidestepped. This allowed a deal, but did the failure to fully explain the deal to publics in the US, Europe and Iran mean support for cooperation could be unravelled in years to come?
The full programme is below.
9:30 AM Welcome Remarks & Workshop Rationale - Mr. Ilan Manor and Dr. Rhys Crilley
9:45 AM Narratives and Images in Digital Diplomacy
. Images of #givingtoindia: Iconographies of transnational modernity in India’s Digital
Diaspora Diplomacy. Jennifer Dickinson (University of Winchester)
. Telling NATO’s story of Afghanistan: TakingSeriously the alliance’s digital diplomacy. Katherine Wright (University of Winchester)
. We Need a Hero! Just crusaders and vengeful villains in the post-heroic age. Julian Schmid (University of Warwick)
. The iconic FCO- On the Use of Iconic Imagery in British Digital Diplomacy. Ilan Manor (University of Oxford)
. Seeing Syria: The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces on Facebook. Dr. Rhys Crilley (University of Warwick)
11:30 AM Coffee Break
11: 45 AM Narratives and Images- From Trump to Iran
. From Trump to Daesh: The end of taken for grantedness and the digital production of narratives. Jan Wilkens (University of Hamburg)
. The Visual Diplomacy of the Iran Deal. Ben O’Loughlin (Royal Holloway) Alister Miskimmon (Royal Holloway)
. The Practitioners View. Alicia Kearns (Global Influence, FCO)
. Summary and Conclusions. Corneliu Bjola (University of Oxford)
Thanks to Ilan Manor, Rhys Crilley and Corneliu Bjola for organising the workshop.
This week’s PIR Research Seminar will feature Akil N. Awan from Royal Holloway’s History Department and Newpolcom.
Akil N. Awan is Senior Lecturer in Modern History, Political Violence and Terrorism at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Senior Fellow with the Center for Global Policy. His research interests are focused around the history of terrorism, radicalization, social movements, protest, and new media. He has served in an advisory capacity to the United Nations, UNDP, UK Home Office, the Foreign Office, the US State Dept., the US Defense Dept., the US Military, Council of Europe, NATO and the OSCE amongst others. His books include Radicalisation and Media: Terrorism and Connectivity in the New Media Ecology (with Andrew Hoskins & Ben O’Loughlin: 2011, Routledge), and Jihadism Transformed: al‐Qaeda and Islamic State’s Global Battle of Ideas (2016, Hurst/OUP). He is on Twitter: @Akil_N_Awan
The seminar takes place on Tuesday 17 January in room FW101 and runs from 5.15 to 6.30. All welcome!