Fear Factor Caused by Outside Propaganda Pressure and its Influence on the Policy of the Small Countries

M. Urushadze
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Abstract

According to political theorists, propaganda can have the most powerful influence through activating the fear factor. Therefore, it is very important to identify the influence on the political decision-making process made by propaganda directly, or indirectly, through activation of the fear factor. Due to the nature of the fears (they might be rational or irrational) caused by propaganda, they can lead to social turmoil. Thus, we link outside propaganda influence to the security of the state, including small states that do not have the resources to pursue their own interests and therefore become a policy object for large actors. We investigate outside propaganda pressure in small countries and its impact on the policy – internal affairs, or international relations. In this regard, we studied open and covert propaganda of major actors and the frequent appeals of their narratives to the fear factor as a tool of achieving short-term goals at the expense of the same time harming long-term goals. We investigated narratives of target countries’ political spectrum (as internal as well as external actors) which amplify the fear factor (intentionally or unintentionally). We studied the nature of these narratives and the forms of societies’ responses to them. The article is based on the results of an in-depth case study in Georgia and a comparison of the results of other post-communist (post-Soviet and central European) case studies. In the case of Georgia, we identified harmful and useful narratives for the long-term strategic development of the country. This enabled us to identify pressure that might negatively impact the national security of the country. Nowadays, at the background of the development of contemporary communication technologies and highly effective focus of communication channels that can be made on the audience, when we face the transformation of information warfare methods, political communication is necessarily multifaceted and the relevant campaigns do contain elements of psychological warfare. That is, communication texts of political entities mostly contain messages that comprise a component of information warfare and affect the mental health of society.
外部宣传压力造成的恐惧因素及其对小国政策的影响
政治理论家认为,通过激活恐惧因素,宣传可以产生最强大的影响。因此,识别宣传直接或间接地通过激活恐惧因素对政治决策过程产生的影响是非常重要的。由于宣传引起的恐惧的性质(可能是理性的,也可能是非理性的),它们可能导致社会动荡。因此,我们将外部宣传影响与国家安全联系起来,包括那些没有资源追求自己利益的小国,因此成为大国行为体的政策对象。我们调查小国的外部宣传压力及其对政策-内政或国际关系的影响。在这方面,我们研究了主要行动者的公开和隐蔽宣传,以及他们的叙述对恐惧因素的频繁呼吁,以此作为实现短期目标的工具,同时损害长期目标。我们调查了目标国家的政治光谱(以及内部和外部行动者)的叙述,这些叙述有意或无意地放大了恐惧因素。我们研究了这些叙事的本质以及社会对它们的反应形式。本文基于对格鲁吉亚的深入案例研究的结果,以及对其他后共产主义(后苏联和中欧)案例研究结果的比较。在格鲁吉亚的情况下,我们确定了对该国长期战略发展有害和有益的叙述。这使我们能够识别可能对国家安全产生负面影响的压力。在当代传播技术发展的今天,在传播渠道对受众进行高效聚焦的背景下,当我们面临信息战方式的转变时,政治传播必然是多方面的,相关的战役也确实包含着心理战的要素。也就是说,政治实体的传播文本大多包含构成信息战组成部分并影响社会心理健康的信息。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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