University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
INFORMATION INTERVENTION AND THE NEED FOR A SOCIAL CYBERSECURITY PERSPECTIVE: THE POWER STRUGGLE BETWEEN DIGITAL DIPLOMACY AND COMPUTATIONAL PROPAGANDA By PHILLIP C. ARCENEAUX A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2019 © 2019 Phillip C. Arceneaux This dissertation is dedicated to my two grandfathers, Harry Arceneaux and Richard “Dick” Hanrahan, both of whom never had a college degree and sadly were never able to see me become Dr. Arceneaux. You were both loved so incredibly much and are missed every single day. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. David Ostroff, Dr. Spiro Kiousis, Dr. Jasmine McNealy, Dr. Laura Sjoberg, and Dr. Aida Hozic. As someone who is always interested in stressing interdisciplinary links and relationships in research, this dissertation is truly unique in its perspective, approach, and execution; this was only possible because of the incredible open-mindedness of each one of my committee members and the trust they had in me to go off and do some kind of justice to this research. They truly let me take this dissertation where I wanted to go rather than keeping me in the bumper lanes of what constitutes a “normal” dissertation in mass communication, and for that I am ever grateful. I would also like to thank all of my teachers and mentors in the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communication who helped and inspired me throughout my Ph.D. program. This list includes Dr. Debbie Treise, Dr. Norm Lewis, Dr. Wayne Wanta, Dr. Frank Waddell, Dr. Kelly Chernin, Dr. Moon Lee, Dr. Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, Dr. Myiah Hutchens, Dr. John Wright, Dr. Cynthia Morton Padovano, Dr. Michael Leslie, Dr. Sriram (Sri) Kalyanaraman, Dr. Yu-Hao Lee, Dr. Ron Rodgers, Dr. Carla Fisher, Dr. Marcia DiStaso, Mindy McAdams, and Pat Ford. I could also not forget my amazing statistics professor, Dr. Michael Marsiske of the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. Next, an incredible acknowledgement and thanks to the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplomacy (CPD). At every point in my Ph.D. program, the CPD worked tirelessly to support graduate students around the globe, just like myself, who are interested public diplomacy. In May of 2017, the CPD paired with the Digital Diplomacy Research Group to host myself and other graduate students for a one-day conference at the University of Oxford. In May of 2018, the CPD paired with the International Communication Association’s Public Diplomacy Interest Group to host of pre-conference for doctoral students in 4 the field. And in September of 2018, the CPD awarded me their 2018-2019 Doctoral Dissertation Grant to help fund this dissertation and offset the costs of an extensive array of in-depth expert interviews and supplementary interview transcriptions. Words cannot express the gratitude and appreciation for the potential the CPD saw in me and the willingness to help me pursue my research. I would also like to especially mention Dr. R. S. Zaharna of American University. While the CPD paired with the International Communication Association’s Public Diplomacy Interest Group to host of pre-conference for doctoral students in Czechia, it was Dr. Zaharna who personally funded a grant that covered the cost of the post-conference for all of the student presenters. I had never met Dr. Zaharna before travelling to Prague, and upon meeting her I instantly fell in love with her amazing personality and her passion to see students grow and excel. Having received my fair share of criticism from academe about being too much of an intellectual rather than a scholar, Dr. Zaharna offered no criticism, simply unconditional support to follow where my heart takes me. Regardless of where life and a career may take me, I will never forget such an amazing and loving person. Beyond the CPD and Dr. Zaharna, I would like to acknowledge and thank all of the scholars who helped me through my studies and research agenda, Dr. Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor of the University of Oxford, Dr. James Pamment of Lund University, Steven Pike of Syracuse University, Dr. Jay Wang and Dr. Nicholas Cull of the University of Southern California, Dr. Alina Dolea of Bournemouth University, Dr. Pawel Surowiec of the University of Sheffield, Dr. Emily Metzger of Indiana University, Dr. Shawn Powers and Dr. Amelia Arsenault of Georgia State University, and Dr. Eytan Gilboa of Bar-Ilan University. I would also like to make a special acknowledgement of thanks to Dr. Guy Golan of the Center for Media and 5 Public Opinion. Without a primary public diplomacy scholar at the University of Florida, Guy took me under his wing while at the University of South Florida in Tampa and really pushed my development in the realm of public diplomacy research. He helped situate me in the literature, network me among public diplomacy scholars, and develop a significant publication record during my Ph.D. program. Lastly, I have to also acknowledge just a handful of the many others who helped me to completely my Ph.D. I would like to thank my parents, Bryan and Debbie Arceneaux, for their endless love and support, my grandparents Harry Arceneaux and his wife of 72 years, Verna Mae, for loving and supporting me especially when my studies took me far away from them, to B.C, Cassie, and Neil Thibeaux (no relation to Tim Tebow for any curious UF Gators), and the faculty and staffs at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School, St. Thomas More Catholic High School, Louisiana State University, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................11 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................15 Mass Communication and Politics .........................................................................................15 Politics and the Law ................................................................................................................18 Information Intervention .........................................................................................................22 Digital Diplomacy as Information Politics ......................................................................24 Computational Propaganda as Information Operations ..................................................25 Purpose ...................................................................................................................................28 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................31 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................33 Strategic Communication .......................................................................................................33 Political Public Relations ................................................................................................34 Strategic Narrative ...........................................................................................................35 The Power of Public Opinion .................................................................................................37 Power ...............................................................................................................................37 Public Opinion .................................................................................................................38 Soft and Sharp Power ......................................................................................................45 Theoretical Framework ...........................................................................................................48 Research Questions .................................................................................................................50 Demarcating Propaganda and Public Diplomacy ............................................................52 International Law and Digital Broadcasting ....................................................................56 Computational Propaganda and Cybersecurity ...............................................................60 3 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................64 Socio-Legal Research .............................................................................................................64 Research Design .....................................................................................................................67 Expert Interviews in Grounded Theory ...........................................................................68 Textual Analysis in Grounded Theory ............................................................................75 Weaknesses of the Methodology ............................................................................................78 4 RESULTS ...............................................................................................................................82