Public Diplomacy Council of America

Experts on how to deal with disinformation, by Bill Wanlund

By Bill Wanlund

My last article looked at a couple of essays that dealt with the threat that disinformation – in particular the Russian and Chinese styles - poses to global democracy. This time I would like to consider two recent experts’ advice about how democracies can respond.

Carnegie: Tactics that Work

On Jan. 31 the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published “Countering Disinformation Effectively – An Evidence-Based Policy Guide.” In it, authors Jon Bateman, a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Technology and International Affairs program, and Dean Jackson, who specializes in democracy, media, and technology at Public Circle Research & Consulting of Lakewood, OH, looked at the pros and cons of commonly-used methods of disinfo combat. Some examples:

Support local journalism. There’s “strong evidence” that, as reliable local news outlets die off, so do civic engagement, knowledge and trust, which in turn allows disinformation to prosper. Building up local news media could “plausibly” help, the authors say – but they also point out that quality journalism isn’t cheap and can take years to bear lasting fruit.
Fact-Checking. This is a great idea, say Bateman and Jackson, as long as your audience isn’t “heavily invested in the partisan elements of the claims.” Also, there’s no guarantee that convincing a skeptic will change their attitude or behavior. Finally, “false claims can be created more cheaply and disseminated more quickly than corrective information.” The researchers are hoping that “technological innovations [can] help shift this balance.”
Counter-messaging Strategies. The Carnegie report’s researchers found that “truthful communications campaigns designed to engage people on a narrative and psychological level are more effective than facts alone ... Promising techniques include communicating respect and empathy, appealing to pro-social values, and giving the audience a sense of agency.” (See my article “Hearts and Minds” of Jan. 7, the account of Israel’s Hasbara (PD) experience with the Gaza war.)

In all, Bateman and Jackson examine ten often-used techniques for foiling disinformation campaigns. Their 130-page report is an impressive display of research, and it might have been frustrating, if obvious, to conclude: “There is no silver bullet or ‘best’ policy option” for dealing with an adversary’s disinformation campaign -- too many factors are in play. Accordingly, they recommend that democracies adopt a portfolio approach - “a diversified mixture of counter-disinformation efforts [which] include tactical actions that appear well-researched or effective (like fact-checking and labeling social media content). But it would also involve costlier, longer-term bets on promising structural reforms (like supporting local journalism and media literacy).”

A link to the Carnegie Report “Countering Disinformation Effectively: An Evidence-Based Policy Guide” can be found here.

NED: Go on Offense

To begin the second half, let’s take a look at a Feb. 8 contribution from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). While Carnegie’s report played defense, NED goes on offense to present ways to win “the Battle of Ideas” in a study by Dr. Joseph Siegele, head of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ research and strategic communications program.

Siegele begins by describing authoritarian narratives - “themes that have popular appeal while attributing a wide range of visceral grievances to the shortcomings of democracy,” namely:

threats to national sovereignty and self-determination;
attributing the Global South’s grievances to Western exploitation;
and pointing out how democracies fail to deliver on their promises; all of these narratives culminate in the “Need for a New World Order.”

Siegele enumerates how autocrats “disseminate these preferred narratives.” No surprise; social media with its bots and trolls tops the list, along with state broadcasters like Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua – entities whose “veneer of credibility” as official news services “expands their reach” as disinformation conduits. He adds that authoritarian media organizations forge partnerships with local media and other state broadcasters to propagate their narratives and to introduce the “norms of state control over the public information sphere.” He illustrates his points with examples of Russian and Chinese influence-building in Africa.

The author says democracies tend to assume that the superiority of their governance system is self-evident, “leaving authoritarian powers to fill the resulting vacuum. … To retake the initiative, democracies need to articulate a positive vision of democratic principles and international relations.” He advises democracies to speak up:

support countries transitioning to democracy;
“make the public case” for democracy;
push back on authoritarians’ false claims;
“sustain citizen engagement and civic education” as the building blocks of a “constructive democratic culture;”
and toughen up the information infrastructure to inoculate it against manipulation.

The NED study, “Winning the Battle of Ideas: Exposing Global Authoritarian Narratives and Revitalizing Democratic Principles,” can be read here. NED launched the report with a webinar. After Siegele’s summary came commentary by former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Amb. Jendayi Fraser (who put in a nice plug for PD, even though she accidentally misspoke when she declared there were “5000” PD officers at State); Soviet-born British journalist Peter Pomerantsev, now of the SNF Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University; and Ivan Sigal, Executive Director of the Global Voices citizen journalism community.

Siegele got timely, coincidental backup in the form of an article by Baroness Ashton, former High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and former Vice President of the European Commission. In the February-March edition of Chatham House’s The World Today, she independently echoes his arguments, urging the developed democracies to take the Global South seriously. Her article is here.

Bill Wanlund is a PDCA Board Member, retired Foreign Service Officer, and freelance writer in the Washington, DC, area. His column, Worth Noting, appears in the PDCA Weekly Update and the PDCA Blog; it seeks to address topics of interest to PDCA members.