Information Warfare: The Meme is the Embryo of the Narrative Illusion

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology's (ICIT) Center for Cyber Influence Operations Studies (CCIOS) today announced the publication of  "Information Warfare: The Meme is the Embryo of the Narrative Illusion," the highly anticipated book on digital influence operations, fake news, and propaganda authored by James Scott, Co-Founder and Senior Fellow of ICIT and CCIOS.

As demonstrated during the 2016 Presidential election and other major events of the past year including the Black Lives Matter and take a knee movements and conflicts between antifa and the alt-right, control over the distribution of information (whether real of fake) has shifted from traditional media to social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. This shift has given threat actors like Russia, China and special interest groups the power to weaponize accounts, memes, and hashtags and revolutionize propaganda and information warfare.

"The meme is the embryo of the narrative. Therefore, controlling the meme renders control of the ideas; control the ideas and you control the belief system; control the belief system and you control the narrative; control the narrative and you control the population without firing a single bullet," said Mr. Scott.

This publication, destined to change the influence operations landscape on a global scale, offers the first of its kind assessment of the attack vectors (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Google etc.) and tools (Socionics, cognitive bias, spiral dynamics, psychographic targeting, etc.)  used by threat actors to target populations. The book covers topics including how cognitive biases assist in engineered memetic responses, psychological profiling concepts used in memetic design, the use of logical fallacies to shape troll and bot responses, guerrilla tools, techniques and procedures, and threat actors like Russia, China, and dragnet surveillance propagandists.

ICIT and CCIOS will host an exclusive briefing on this publication featuring an in-person interview with Mr. Scott at the March 14, 2018 ICIT Cyber Intelligence Briefing in Washington D.C.

About James Scott:  James Scott is a Senior Fellow and co-founder of ICIT, Senior fellow at CCIOS and the author of more than 40 books with 9 best sellers on the topics of hacking cyborgs, energy sector cybersecurity, nation state cyber espionage and more. He advises to more than 35 congressional offices and committees as well as the American intelligence community, NATO and Five Eyes on cyber warfare and digital influence operations. Mr. Scott's work gains regular coverage in domestic and international publications and his work was referenced by media, academia and industry more than 3000 times in 2017 alone.

About CCIOS:  The Center for Cyber Influence Operations Center (CCIOS) is an advisory that studies the weaponized digital applications used by foreign nation-states for influence operations.  CCIOS research is hyper-focused on all facets of information warfare, the weaponization of psychographic and demographic information, influence campaigns, and propaganda studies exclusive to digital weaponization.

About ICIT:  The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), a 501c3 non-profit organization, is America's Cybersecurity Think Tank providing objective advisory to the legislative community, federal agencies and critical infrastructure leaders on critical infrastructure security, cyber warfare, and digital influence operations. Through original cutting-edge research, publications and educational events, ICIT and its members are improving the resiliency of our nation's critical infrastructure sectors and defending National Security.

SOURCE ICIT

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