Foreign influence operations in the cyber age
<p>After Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, influence operations gained great prominence in the public consciousness. Yet, International Security Studies lags behind. Our theories of public opinion formation are primarily from a pre-cyber age, and we lack answers to fundamental q...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2021
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| _version_ | 1826315597339688960 |
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| author | Goldstein, J |
| author2 | Dill, J |
| author_facet | Dill, J Goldstein, J |
| author_sort | Goldstein, J |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>After Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, influence operations gained great prominence in the public consciousness. Yet, International Security Studies lags behind. Our theories of public opinion formation are primarily from a pre-cyber age, and we lack answers to fundamental questions about influence operations as a tool of statecraft. How can we conceptualize influence operations? Is pretending to be a member of another state to influence foreign citizens a viable strategy? Does plausible deniability afford states the benefits theorized by existing covert action literature? I interrogate these questions to provide a better understanding of the psychological mechanisms and potential effects of foreign influence operations, contributing to the academic study of secrecy and to illuminating the threat democratic societies now face.</p>
<p>I begin with a concept-building paper, which proposes and defends a definition of influence operations and explains their prevalence today. This prepares the ground for an emerging research field and motivates the investigation of the benefits of secrecy. In the second paper, leveraging cross-national experiments, I challenge the conventional top-down model of cue-taking in International Relations. I show that elite cues do not have a significantly stronger impact than public cues on citizens’ attitudes towards a cyber-attack. This suggests that influence operations that attempt to influence mass attitudes by falsifying peer cues may allow foreign actors to benefit from secrecy for operational success. The third paper builds from the observation that politicians increasingly outsource disinformation work to private firms, but the assumption that they benefit from plausible deniability is untested. Results from an original experiment show that when governments are not implicated in an operation that originates in their country, they can avoid blowback and yet are no less effective at stirring paranoia or appearing omnipotent. I add the novel insight that the country of origin matters much more to Americans than the specifics of attribution.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:39:41Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:0c7513fa-b71c-4c15-9bd3-3c49858972c3 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:29:08Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:0c7513fa-b71c-4c15-9bd3-3c49858972c32024-12-01T11:52:25ZForeign influence operations in the cyber ageThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:0c7513fa-b71c-4c15-9bd3-3c49858972c3International SecurityPublic OpinionInternational RelationsTechnology and SecurityEnglishHyrax Deposit2021Goldstein, JDill, J<p>After Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election, influence operations gained great prominence in the public consciousness. Yet, International Security Studies lags behind. Our theories of public opinion formation are primarily from a pre-cyber age, and we lack answers to fundamental questions about influence operations as a tool of statecraft. How can we conceptualize influence operations? Is pretending to be a member of another state to influence foreign citizens a viable strategy? Does plausible deniability afford states the benefits theorized by existing covert action literature? I interrogate these questions to provide a better understanding of the psychological mechanisms and potential effects of foreign influence operations, contributing to the academic study of secrecy and to illuminating the threat democratic societies now face.</p> <p>I begin with a concept-building paper, which proposes and defends a definition of influence operations and explains their prevalence today. This prepares the ground for an emerging research field and motivates the investigation of the benefits of secrecy. In the second paper, leveraging cross-national experiments, I challenge the conventional top-down model of cue-taking in International Relations. I show that elite cues do not have a significantly stronger impact than public cues on citizens’ attitudes towards a cyber-attack. This suggests that influence operations that attempt to influence mass attitudes by falsifying peer cues may allow foreign actors to benefit from secrecy for operational success. The third paper builds from the observation that politicians increasingly outsource disinformation work to private firms, but the assumption that they benefit from plausible deniability is untested. Results from an original experiment show that when governments are not implicated in an operation that originates in their country, they can avoid blowback and yet are no less effective at stirring paranoia or appearing omnipotent. I add the novel insight that the country of origin matters much more to Americans than the specifics of attribution.</p> |
| spellingShingle | International Security Public Opinion International Relations Technology and Security Goldstein, J Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title | Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title_full | Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title_fullStr | Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title_full_unstemmed | Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title_short | Foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| title_sort | foreign influence operations in the cyber age |
| topic | International Security Public Opinion International Relations Technology and Security |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT goldsteinj foreigninfluenceoperationsinthecyberage |