Strategic Communications and International Politics

Strategic communications occupy a particularly significant place in world politics today. This course provides the background for understanding the expanded role of communications in contemporary international security and provides a theoretical framework for analyzing/explaining the role of strategic communications in contemporary diplomacy and statecraft. This course will further situate contemporary uses of strategic communications in the evolving character of threats today, especially the hybridization of threats and conflicts. Issues covered include: functions and approaches of strategic communications; the social impact of the evolution of information technologies; public affairs and public diplomacy; military psychological operations and information operations; history of disinformation, and evolution in Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI); networks and hierarchies; governmental institutions and the apparatus of strategic communications; and strategic communications in the Indo-Pacific.
It is a preparatory course for Capstone Course: Strategic Communications: From Concepts to Applications; and the GraSPP-King’s College London double-degree programme.