The following blog post was written by Information Professionals Association members Dr. Paul Lieber and Colonel (Ret.) Matthew Couglin (USMC). We welcome blog submissions from IPA members. Click here to Join IPA. Contrary to popular belief, artificial intelligence (AI) and sister machine learning (ML) are not cure-all capabilities to peer-competitor information dominance and/or disinformation and...Read More

Matt Armstrong, author of the mountainrunner.us blog, shares his view that the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs should be abolished.  Noting that the position, established in 1999 by direction of Congress to centralize leadership for the execution and coordination of government information and engagement programs abroad and at home,...Read More

The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor recently posted a commentary by Kseniya Kirillova on how Russia is escalating its propaganda, particularly in the information domain, as tensions increase due to the military buildup against Ukraine. The increase in influence messaging has traditionally been viewed as a disturbing potential indicator of escalation and seems to follow similar patterns...Read More

Several organizations and researchers are working on ways to identify fake geographic and satellite imagery as the ability to easily manipulate images threatens both national and economic security. The proliferation of deepfakes throughout civil society also has the potential to create safety hazards and inhibit humanitarian efforts, such as response to natural disasters if organizations...Read More

The Washington Post (and other news outlets) published an article on January 6 spotlighting the announcement from Sweden that it is establishing a new Psychological Defense Agency to improve its capabilities to “identify and counter foreign malign information influence, disinformation, and other dissemination of misleading information directed at Sweden.” The agency, to be established under...Read More

The Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service released a two-part series last month on “AI and the Future of Disinformation Campaigns,” examining how advances in AI could be exploited to enhance operations that automate disinformation. CSET is a research organization focused on studying the security impacts of...Read More

The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is proud to showcase thought leadership contributions by its members. IPA member Joseph Bates completed his Master’s degree in 2020 from National University. His thesis is entitled: Principles of Influence and Internal/External Factors as Predictors of Online Sales Prior to and During COVID-19: A Mixed-Methods Study (link). Joseph served for...Read More

In a recent Op-Ed in DefenseOne, communications researchers Larissa Doroshenko of Northeastern University and Josephine Lukito of the University of Texas at Austin propose the western hemisphere must understand the “5D” toolkit to detect and counter psychological operations online. The 5D’s are distort, distract, dismiss, deny, and dismay. In “Trollfare: How to Recognize and Fight Off...Read More

IPA Board Members recently compiled a list of research ideas for information professionals to consider. We will update this with new ideas periodically. These topics represent pressing areas of interest related to operations in the information environment. Doctoral, Master’s, and undergraduate college students who are interested in contributing to the body of knowledge can use...Read More

A recently released CNA study examines how, in this disorienting information environment, normal information-processing and social psychological mechanisms can be exploited by disinformation campaigns. The report, The Psychology of (Dis)Information: A Primer on Key Psychological Mechanisms , identifies four key psychological mechanisms that make people vulnerable to persuasion. The four key psychological principles are: initial information...Read More