A "Now Media" Model for Information Control

The key to information control is to leverage the ability to bypass filters when moving information, and dominate the information space with a specific message by building mass and momentum. By dominating the information space on any given topic, by controlling content nodes in a network to insure a singular idea gets the broadest possible endorsement, conformity can be created even among those who disagree. The result can be information control, and the question I ask my readers is whether this is a military capability?

Like George W. Bush before him, Mr. Obama is trying to bypass the mainstream news media and take messages straight to the public...

The White House also faces legal limitations in terms of what it can do. Perhaps most notably, it cannot use a 13-million-person e-mail list that Mr. Obama’s team developed because it was compiled for political purposes. That is an important reason Mr. Obama has decided to build a new organization within the Democratic Party, which does not have similar restrictions...

Still, sensitive to ruffling feathers even among fellow Democrats wary of Mr. Obama’s huge political support, Mr. Obama’s aides emphasized that the effort was not created to lobby directly or pressure members of Congress to support Mr. Obama’s programs.

“This is not a political campaign,” Mr. Plouffe said. “This is not a ‘call or e-mail your member of Congress’ organization.”

Instead, Mr. Plouffe said the aim was to work through influential people in various communities as a way of building public opinion.

With potentially 13 million marketing managers, the intent described is to use "now media" outlets to create information dominance on any specific issue, thus establish information control over a subject by running information operations to shape public opinion towards specific ideas.

This is essentially the application of "now media" strategic marketing with political ideas instead of products. According to the article, it doesn't sound like they have fully developed the process, but I think Obama has some rather brilliant folks working for him in the new media space, they will figure out how to make this effective.

There are ramifications for content contributors like the media under this model. Anyone not integrated into the communication network flow is also excluded by it, thus loses relevance. This will have serious impact to professional journalism, and anyone choosing independence in the media industry will struggle from being disconnected from the content flow unless they have their own network. Disconnectedness defines danger, and being disconnected from the content flow of an organized information network flow that large will be dangerous to people in the information business. They can say whatever they want, because they will simply not be heard. This is at least how I have seen it work.

This is why anyone interested in free speech is stupid as hell to even consider any form of fairness doctrine, because the more mediums disconnected from the online information networks that can be eliminated, the less resistance there is to the information control model using "now media". It would appear some in journalism recognize the danger.

“Historically the media has been able to draw out a lot of information and characterize it for people,” he said. “And there’s a growing appetite from people to do it themselves.”

The approach is causing some concern among news media advocates, who express discomfort with what effectively could become an informational network reaching 13 million people, or more, with an unchallenged, governmental point of view.

“They’re beginning to create their own journalism, their own description of events of the day, but it’s not an independent voice making that description,” said Bill Kovach, the chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. “It’s troublesome until we know how it’s going to be used and the degree to which it can be used on behalf of the people, and not on behalf of only one point of view.”

If done effectively these type of information operations will be seamless, and no one will quite understand how cats are being herded.

You see, they are wrong when they suggest in the article this has never happened before, it has just never happened to this scale, and even then this has only been effective (that I am aware of) against virtual world communities. Without giving too much proprietary information away, this technique has been applied against gamers to herd cats and get them to do what the gamemasters want them to do, but there is careful effort done to disconnect who is delivering the messages and the message source. The influence obtained through information dominance, which is the carefully crafted distribution of information from large content contributor nodes in an information network to build mass (agreement in numbers) around a single idea, would herd a majority of the 'cats' thus allow gamemasters to exercise an agenda for the game seamlessly without the player feeling manipulated.

I think when you have 13 million nodes in an information network able to create momentum with that kind of mass towards a single idea to shape a political view, that has the potential to be part of a military capability. The New York Times is describing a method of conducting an information operation by government against its own people to shape political views, and it becomes more effective if one can use leverage like the fairness doctrine to disconnect other mediums from the content flow.

Oh, you don't see it that way? The media will, when anyone (public or private sector) can bypass the media that normally acts as an information filter and then dominate the message with mass (which is what 13 million nodes represents), you have the toolkit for an information control network. While that may sound devious, in reality it is simply an evolution of the same techniques that have been utilized in other mediums as they emerged, from radio to TV to even how newspapers drove public opinion in politics during the early times in this country. There are only two things new here, the medium and the political desire to remove other mediums from the content flow with initiatives like the fairness doctrine.

Many people in the military believe new media is important, they just don't understand how or why. Ask yourself, is 13 million nodes in a human network all pushing the same political idea to influence public opinion a military capability? When used to drown out political ideas and push a single idea, the answer could be yes. History teaches us that any political weapon in the information space will be used against political opponents, so to suggest otherwise as the article does is to ignore history.

Information networks have power. Any content producing organization that has a message as part of doing business should ask themselves a question. Is your information connectivity a node, or part of a network?

Do you think this a military capability? In our society, as long as newspapers, periodicals, radio, television, and other mediums are disconnected from the network and are not regulated regarding content, the answer is no. In countries where regulation of content exists on those mediums, and they can be manipulated to control information to conform to the information of a network, the answer is yes.... in my opinion.