Strategic Communications and COVID-19: Exploring and Exploiting a Global Crisis
Strategic Communications and COVID-19: Exploring and Exploiting a Global Crisis
Contributor(s): Leonie Hayden (Editor)
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Political behavior, Politics and communication, Politics and society, Health and medicine and law, ICT Information and Communications Technologies, Sociology of Politics, Geopolitics
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications; Sputnik V Vaccine; Post-Pandemic Society; violent extremism; anti-vaccination; anti-mask protests;
Summary/Abstract: Choose your metaphor. It was the perfect storm. It was an accident waiting to happen. Humanity on the move–the prosperous seeking leisure, the deprived migrating en masse, the desperate fleeing from war. Global supply chains so complex as to have enmeshed national economies into an international web. While the rise of Great Power politics was daily pulling the world apart. Then along came Covid.
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-9934-619-36-6
- Page Count: 110
- Publication Year: 2023
- Language: English
How Has Covid-19 Impacted China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications?
How Has Covid-19 Impacted China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications?
(How Has Covid-19 Impacted China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications?)
- Author(s):Aurelio Insisa
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Political behavior, Health and medicine and law, Geopolitics, Peace and Conflict Studies
- Page Range:14-25
- No. of Pages:12
- Keywords:COVID-19; China; Geopolitics; Taiwan;
- Summary/Abstract:Crossing the shatterbelts of Eurasia and the commercial sea-lanes of the Indo-Pacific, the Belt and Road Initiative has put the distinctively geopolitical outlook of China’s strategy into the spotlight. Beijing articulates this strategy through the deployment of multidimensional diplomacy, Leninist ‘propaganda work’ and ‘united front work’, economic statecraft, and deterrence signalling. By framing the deployment of this vast array of tools as a strand of ‘geopolitical strategic communications’, this chapter examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Beijing’s attempt to shape the perceptions and choices of foreign countries’ decision-makers and public opinions. The chapter explores how the pandemic has both expanded and created avenues for influence, with a focus on the Global South. At the same time, it examines how Beijing’s concern for regime security and diverging national strategies in containing the pandemic have emboldened China’s geopolitical strategic communications vis-à-vis other regional and global powers.
Covid-19’s Impact on the US Ability to Project National Power
Covid-19’s Impact on the US Ability to Project National Power
(Covid-19’s Impact on the US Ability to Project National Power)
- Author(s):James P. Farwell
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Civil Society, Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Health and medicine and law, Sociology of Politics
- Page Range:26-39
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:COVID-19; USA; dividing society; security issues; political polarisation;
- Summary/Abstract:Despite unity – so far – within the United States and Congress in supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion, and relative unity within Congress to Chinese economic imperialism, on balance Covid-19 has impaired the ability of the United States to project national power.
How Strategic Communications Backfired: The Case of the Russian Sputnik V Vaccine
How Strategic Communications Backfired: The Case of the Russian Sputnik V Vaccine
(How Strategic Communications Backfired: The Case of the Russian Sputnik V Vaccine)
- Author(s):Vera Michlin-Shapir
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Politics and communication, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:40-49
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:COVID-19 pandemic; Sputnik V vaccine; Russia; nformation warfare tool; Propaganda of the Deed;
- Summary/Abstract:This chapter demonstrates how Russia’s government used its domestic-made Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, as an information warfare tool. In August 2020, Russia surprised the world when it became the first country to authorise a Covid-19 vaccine for public use. Russia’s government exploited the early authorisation to draw attention to its vaccine and provoke Western criticism of it. Russian tactics echoed insurgents’ use of Propaganda of the Deed (POTD), namely by using the weight of Western criticism against Western states once Sputnik V was peer-reviewed and proven as safe and effective. But since then, Russia’s use of Sputnik V as an information warfare tool has backfired. Analysis of polls and focus groups suggest that international controversy around Sputnik V has contributed to widespread Russian public distrust in the vaccine. Today, despite being the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, Russia’s vaccination rates remain relatively low, while its Covid-related death rate is among the highest in the world.
A Hard Rain on a Bad Roof
A Hard Rain on a Bad Roof
(A Hard Rain on a Bad Roof)
- Author(s):Paul Bell
- Language:English
- Subject(s):National Economy, Economic policy, Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Electoral systems, Health and medicine and law, Geopolitics
- Page Range:50-62
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:Georgia; COVID-19; economic and political trends; elections;
- Summary/Abstract:This past July, as the Georgian summer approached its height, and Tbilisi sweltered, it was clear the country had learned to live with Covid-19. Things had pretty much gone back to normal despite a five-fold rise in infections between one week and the next; numbers had risen from 100 to 500 infections per week, and almost doubled in the capital. (Why the spike? This is pure speculation but there had been two large protest rallies and a pop festival in Tbilisi in the ten days before.) Nonetheless, the health secretary, Zurab Azarashvili, pronounced the epidemiological situation in Georgia ‘calm’ and ‘fully manageable’—and indeed that seemed an altogether fair assessment given that in that preceding fortnight, deaths had been down to between one and three.
Post-Pandemic Society and the Violent Extremism and Conspiracy Belief Nexus
Post-Pandemic Society and the Violent Extremism and Conspiracy Belief Nexus
(Post-Pandemic Society and the Violent Extremism and Conspiracy Belief Nexus)
- Author(s):Martin Innes
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Politics and society, Sociology of Politics
- Page Range:63-73
- No. of Pages:11
- Keywords:pandemic; extremism; Covid-19; violent protests; anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protests; anti-mask protests;
- Summary/Abstract:The history of pandemics teaches us they have deep ‘downstream’ consequences with a capacity and capability to induce profound new patterns of social organisation and order. Initial indicators of what some effects of the coronavirus global health pandemic might be include changing how and where we work, and our increased dependency on information communication technologies. For the moment, however, our vantage point renders it hard to forecast what these impacts might be exactly. One emergent trend that warrants urgent and close attention involves a shift in the ideologies and conduct of violent extremism. Specifically, there appears to be an increasingly troubling blurring and blending of ideas and groups possessing far-right proclivities among adherents of conspiracy theories.
What has the expansion of digital technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa revealed about some of the key challenges the continent faces?
What has the expansion of digital technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa revealed about some of the key challenges the continent faces?
(What has the expansion of digital technologies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa revealed about some of the key challenges the continent faces?)
- Author(s):Karen Allen
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Security and defense, Health and medicine and law, Social Informatics, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
- Page Range:74-87
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:digital technologies; COVID-19; Africa; digital transformation;
- Summary/Abstract:The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic across Africa, like in many other parts of the world has been varied but as a continent it has served to propel what was already an observable trend–a steady increase in internet usage–owing to greater access to mobile phone and smartphone technology, tablets, laptops and affordable data. Africa has witnessed a sixfold increase in the number of people using the internet between 2010 and 2022, with currently about 565 million online users. Those in the formal employment sector, who were forced to work from home due to social distancing regulations, as well as an increased number of people online generally, contributed to more social interactions and other services being conducted online.
The unexpected effects of Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccination and alternate reality rhetoric in Brazil
The unexpected effects of Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccination and alternate reality rhetoric in Brazil
(The unexpected effects of Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccination and alternate reality rhetoric in Brazil)
- Author(s):Vinicius Mariano De Carvalho
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Political behavior, Politics and communication, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:88-97
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:Jair Bolsonaro; Brazil; COVID-19; anti-vaccination politics;
- Summary/Abstract:On 24 October 2021, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, said in a live broadcast that ‘official reports from the UK government suggest that fully vaccinated people [...] are developing acquired immunodeficiency syndrome much faster than anticipated’. Immediately thereafter, several of his followers posted this declaration on social media despite it being a scientific and empirical absurdity. This was only the most recent of his statements during the pandemic that denied the reality and risks of the virus or promoted mis- and disinformation about Covid-19. This contributed to the creation of an alternative reality concerning the impact of the virus in Brazil. The president and many government actors discredited any scientific data or empirical evidence regarding its spread in the country. Given this context it is perhaps not surprising that Brazil became the country with the second highest Covid-19 death rate worldwide.