How Do Authoritarian States React When Targeted by the Use of Information as a Foreign Policy Tool? Case Studies of Russia and North Korea by Scott Fisher A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-Newark Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Global Affairs written under the direction of Dr. Norman Samuels and approved by ___________ ________________________________ ___________ ________________________________ ___________ ________________________________ ___________ ________________________________ Newark, New Jersey October, 2018 Copyright © 2018 Scott Fisher ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION How Do Authoritarian States React When Targeted by the Use of Information as a Foreign Policy Tool? Case Studies of Russia and North Korea By Scott Fisher Dissertation Director: Dr. Norman Samuels Using sentiment analysis of government media and case studies of North Korea and Russia as proxies for authoritarian states attempting to control their domestic information environment, this research demonstrates that information tools capable of threatening that control produce a consistently negative reaction at least equal to the more common diplomatic, economic, and military tools of statecraft. ii Acknowledgement For Marisa – meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. iii ________________________Table of Contents_______________________ CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1 Research Question . 3 Definitions . 4 Proposed Methodology . 9 Conclusion . 12 CHAPTER TWO Literature Review 14 This Research . 19 IR Approaches . 24 Communications and Media Studies . 36 History and Background . 44 DIME . 50 Russia . 53 North Korea . 55 Digital Humanities . 57 Conclusion . 58 CHAPTER THREE iv Research Methodology 60 Media Sources . 61 Key Events . 62 Event Analysis and Digital Humanities . 64 GDELT . 72 Additional Tools for Data Collection and Analysis . 75 Conclusion . 79 CHAPTER FOUR Russia 82 Data Collection . 84 Section 1: TASS and MOFA . 86 Overview . 88 Negative Sentiment . 89 Positive Sentiment . 99 TASS and MOFA Conclusion . 113 Section 2: GDELT . 114 Military . 117 Economic . 123 Diplomacy . 130 Information . 134 GDELT Conclusion . 147 v Overall Conclusion . 149 CHAPTER FIVE North Korea 153 Research Method . 159 Sources . 162 Data Collection . 163 Section 1: KCNA, Rodong Sinmun, Uriminzokkiri . 165 Rodong Sinmun Military . 166 Economic . 168 Diplomatic . 169 Information . 170 Uriminzokkiri . 172 Military . 174 Economic . 176 Diplomacy . 177 Information . 178 KCNA . 180 Military . 183 Economic . 189 Diplomatic . 190 Information . 198 vi Conclusion . 202 Twitter Data . 203 Actions . 205 Conclusion . 213 CHAPTER SIX Conclusion 216 Technical Notes . 217 Policy Recommendations . 220 Bibliography 224 vii List of Tables Table 1 – Event list and sentiment analysis for Russia . 108 viii List of Illustrations Figure 1: Russian government sentiment toward the U.S. government, June 2012 to Sep. 2016 . 70 Figure 2: TASS reporting on Freedom House . 91 Figure 3: TASS reporting on Freedom House, 2013-2016 . 92 Figure 4: TASS reporting on U.S. economic sanctions in December 2015 . 94 Figure 5: Timeline of TASS reporting on U.S. economic sanctions in Dec. 2015 . 95 Figure 6: Russian government views of the U.S. government from 2007-16 . 97 Figure 7: Russian government sentiment toward the U.S. government, 1 January 2009 to 30 September 2016 . 98 Figure 8: TASS reporting on NATO's Trident Exercises . 101 Figure 9: MOFA's largely positive response to the U.S. decision to base anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe . 102 Figure 10: MOFA’s reaction to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) joining NATO in 2004 . 103 Figure 11: Timeline showing MOFA sentiment toward NATO expansion into the three Baltic states in 2004 . 104 Figure 12: MOFA's sentiment toward NATO exercises, 2010-2016 . 105 Figure 13: Note the sudden, sharp decrease in MOFA commentary on NATO exercises beginning in the spring of 2014 . 106 Figure 14: MOFA's sentiment toward NATO naval vessels entering the Black Sea during the conflict with Georgia in August 2008 . 107 Figure 15: Overall MOFA Tweet Sentiment . 109 Figure 26: Russian MOFA sentiment 06-2017 to 01-2018 – ‘sanction’ . 110 Figure 17: Russian MOFA sentiment 06-2017 to 01-2018 – ‘NATO’ . 111 ix Figure 18: Russian MOFA sentiment 06-2017 to 01-2018 – ‘zapad’ . 111 Figure 19: Russian government sentiment toward the U.S. government . 115 Figure 20: U.S. government military threats and actions toward the Russian government, broadly categorized . 117 Figure 21: U.S. government military threats toward the Russian.