Book/Printed Material The emerging risk of virtual societal warfare : social manipulation in a changing information environment

Title

• The emerging risk of virtual societal warfare : social manipulation in a changing information environment

Summary

• The evolution of advanced information environments is rapidly creating a new category of possible cyberaggression that involves efforts to manipulate or disrupt the information foundations of the effective functioning of economic and social systems. RAND researchers are calling this growing threat virtual societal warfare in an analysis of its characteristics and implications for the future. To understand the risk of virtual societal warfare, the authors surveyed evidence in a range of categories to sketch out some initial contours of how these techniques might evolve in the future. They grounded the assessment in (1) detailed research on trends in the changing character of the information environment in the United States and other advanced democracies; (2) the insights of social science research on attitudes and beliefs; and (3) developments in relevant emerging technologies that bear on the practices of hostile social manipulation and its more elaborate and dangerous cousin, virtual societal warfare. The authors then provide three scenarios for how social manipulation could affect advanced societies over the next decade. The analysis suggests an initial set of characteristics that can help define the emerging challenge of virtual societal warfare, including that national security will increasingly rely on a resilient information environment and a strong social topography, and that conflict will increasingly be waged between and among networks. Although more research is urgently required, the authors conclude by pointing to several initial avenues of response to enhance democratic resilience in the face of this growing risk, including by building forms of inoculation and resilience against the worst forms of information-based social manipulation and by better understanding the workings and vulnerabilities of emerging technologies.

Names

• Mazarr, Michael J., 1965- author
• International Security and Defense Policy Center
• Rand Corporation
• United States. Department of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense

Created / Published

• Santa Monica, Calif. : RAND, [2019]

Contents

• A New Form of Conflict -- The Evolving Infosphere -- Insights from Social Science -- Emerging Technologies -- Future 1: The Death of Reality (2025 Scenario) -- Future 2: Silos of Belief (2024 Scenario) -- Future 3: The Rise of the Algorithms (2026 Scenario) -- The Emerging Risk of Virtual Societal Warfare.

Headings

• -  Information warfare
• -  Artificial intelligence
• -  Big data
• -  Computer crimes
• -  Internet--Social aspects
• -  Social media--Political aspects
• -  Technological innovations--Political aspects
• -  Democracy
• -  Propaganda
• -  Persuasion (Psychology)

Notes

• -  "RAND National Defense Research Institute."
• -  "Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense."
• -  "This research was ... conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute"--Preface (page iii).
• -  Also available on the Internet as a PDF file.
• -  Includes bibliographical references (pages 171-193).
• -  Description based on print version record; resource not viewed.

Medium

• 1 online resource (xxi, 193 pages)

Call Number/Physical Location

• U163

Digital Id

• https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcebookspublic.2024739154

Library of Congress Control Number

• 2024739154

Rights Advisory

• This is non-restricted, fully open content that may be accessed on and off of the Library of Congress campus, with no restrictions, by an unlimited number of users

Access Advisory

• Unrestricted online access

Online Format

• image
• pdf

LCCN Permalink

• https://lccn.loc.gov/2024739154

Additional Metadata Formats

• MARCXML Record
• MODS Record
• Dublin Core Record