Bachelor
2024/2025
Information Wars in Modern Politics
Type:
Elective course (International Relations)
Area of studies:
International Relations
Delivered by:
School of International Affairs
When:
4 year, 1, 2 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of one campus
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
30
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This course will provide students with an opportunity to consider various aspects of modern information warfare.
During the course, students will get acquainted with the theories of cultural hegemony and propaganda, the discursive construction of reality and narrative warfare, persuasion and framing, network schizophrenia and the integral reality of global society.
They will learn how to use the theoretical legacy of such outstanding thinkers as Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Norman Fairclough, Noam Chomsky, Jean Baudrillard, and others for planning and carrying out information campaigns.
Students will also get an opportunity to evaluate the chances of stabilizing meanings within the digital environment of social networks and establishing a reflexive control over them; they will be introduced to the latest theoretical and methodological developments on the impact of AI on the human ability to control networked digital spaces.
Course participants will acquire critical-thinking skills that are indispensable for understanding contemporary warfare: powers controlling various segments of the global information infrastructure, the possibility of challenging hegemonic discourses, and the ways through which various strategic and tactical communication goals can be achieved.
Drawing on their own case studies, students will have a chance to prepare individual presentations, work in groups, and test the acquired knowledge through written and oral examinations. All these assignments will be helpful in terms of consolidating knowledge and developing practical skills of analyzing various aspects of information warfare.
Learning Objectives
- • To facilitate theoretical understanding of various aspects of contemporary information warfare;
- • To develop methodological skills necessary for analyzing political texts using various types of discourse, narrative, and framing analysis;
- • To advance knowledge on the role of AI in information warfare and understanding how to enhance state/international information security;
- • To learn how to carry information campaigns for achieving strategic and tactical objectives.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- To analyze discourses and narratives
- Perform framing analysis of media texts
- Assess the effectiveness of propagandistic messages
- Determine factors enhancing/weakening the efficiency of propagandistic campaigns
- Discuss informatively the possibilities and limitations of establishing control over the networked information space
- Evaluate professionally the role that AI plays in conducting information warfare in digital networks
- Develop and carry out information campaigns
Course Contents
- MODULE 1 Theme 1. Introduction to Information Warfare: Basic Concepts
- Theme 2. Discourse-Analytical Methods of Analyzing Information: Articulating and Rearticulating Messages
- Theme 3. The Discursive Constructions of the Self and the Enemy: Populistic & Antagonistic Discourses
- Theme 4. Narrative Warfare, Framing and Propaganda: Factors Influencing Public Perception
- MODULE 2 Theme 5. The Political Economy of Media: Global Communication Infrastructure
- Theme 6. Information Warfare in Global networks: the Power of Artificial Intelligence
- Theme 7. Technology of Information Campaigns: Strategy and Tactics
Assessment Elements
- Weekly reaction papersEach week before the seminar, students will be asked to submit via email short reaction papers (up to one page) on class material, which will prepare them for informed seminar discussions. Students will be asked to provide brief answers to specific questions related to class lectures and home readings. Here are some examples: 1. Using the example of mainstream media coverage of a specific political event from the context of your area specialization, analyze which frames were used to fix the hegemonic representation. What remained “outside” this dominant frame? 2. Using examples from the area of your specialization, discuss the meanings that are perceived by the citizens of specific states and/or members of specific communities within these states as “normal.”How can you change this public perception? Questions for weekly assignments will be in line with questions offered for seminar discussions (see above). Overall, during the course, students will submit 6 reaction papers, each counting as 5% of the course grade.
- Individual PresentationDuring the course, each student will have to make a 15-minute individual presentation based on her/his weekly reaction paper to be discussed at a seminar meeting. The presenters will have to present their case studies and basic points made in their home assignments (reaction papers), answer the questions by seminar participants, and engage in a respectful academic debate if presented arguments are challenged.
- Seminar ParticipationStudents are expected to attend all seminars and actively participate in them: discuss home readings, comment on students’ presentations, formulate questions, and engage in theoretically informed and academically respectful discussions.
- Group PresentationBy the end of the course, students will have to work in teams. Drawing on all the knowledge acquired through this course, each of the groups will have to develop a plan of a specific information campaign on the topical issue of international relations. Although this is a group project, each group member will receive a personal grade based on (1) individual performance - IP and (2) group performance (GP) - the overall quality of the presentation. The final personal grade for the group presentation will be calculated as a medium of IP and GP grades. For example, if GP is 9 and IP is 7, then the final individual grade for group performance is 8. The criteria of evaluation are similar to those presented in Table 2.
- Final ExamThe final exam will consist of two parts: (1) take-home exam and (2) in-class defense. Period: 2nd module 2024/2025, Session period, at home and offline. Grade: 2nd module 2024/2025
Interim Assessment
- 2024/2025 2nd module0.3 * Final Exam + 0.2 * Group Presentation + 0.1 * Individual Presentation + 0.2 * Seminar Participation + 0.2 * Weekly reaction papers
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Analyzing narrative : discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives, Fina De, A., 2012
- Communication and power in the global era : orders and borders, , 2013
- Discourse analysis as theory and method, Jorgensen, M., 2014
- Propaganda and persuasion, Jowett, G. S., 2015
- Social media and the post-truth world order : the global dynamics of disinformation, Cosentino, G., 2020
- Social media, politics and the state : protests, revolutions, riots, crime and policing in the age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, , 2015
- The basics of information security : understanding the fundamentals of InfoSec in theory and practice, Andress, J., 2014
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Boyd-Barrett, O. (2016). Western Mainstream Media and the Ukraine Crisis : A Study in Conflict Propaganda. Milton: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1365333
- Exploring public relations : global strategic communication, Tench, R., 2017
- Images of nations and international public relations, Kunczik, M., 2014
- Mediated politics : communication in the future of democracy, , 2001
- Mosco, V. (2009). The Political Economy of Communication: Vol. 2nd ed. SAGE Publications Ltd.
- Political communication : a critical introduction, Savigny, H., 2017
- Propaganda and information warfare in the twenty-first century : altered images and deception operations, Macdonald, S., 2009
- The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research, edited by Andreas Schwarz, et al., John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hselibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4509799.