Syllabus
SCHEDULE (subject to change) Week 1 Strategy of image in information warfare. Keywords: Course of Action, Hybrid Warfare, Information warfare, Strategic Communication, Strategic alignment, Theory of Reception. Week 2 The role of image in strategic interests and its application in Strategic communication. Keywords: Accountability, Consistency, Image, Imagery, Information warfare, Spirit, StratCom, Strategic victory. Week 3 Deployment of image on the information battlefield. Keywords: Cybernetic domain, Information domain, Information warfare, Permissive Environment, Social engineering, Social media, Subversion and Destabilization, Trolling. Week 4 Techniques of Imagery in information domain Keywords: Foreign influence effort, Information warfare, Physical dimension, Information dimension, Cognitive dimension, Fake news, Disinformation, Misinformation, Malinformation. Week
5. Influence of Image in Cognitive dimension Keywords: Cognitive dimension, Cognitive capabilities, Social engineering, Social Bubble, Reflexive Control, Backfire effect. Week
6. Deepfake Phenomenon Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Deepfake, Generative adversarial network, Image compression, Image denoising, Impersonation, Information warfare, Super-resolution. Week
7. Image as evidence Keywords: Crimes against humanity, Evidence, Geo-location, Image, Imagery, Metadata, Satellite imagery, War crimes. Week
8. Role of image in Cross-Domain Synergy Keywords: Cross-Domain Synergy, Information warfare, Image, ISTAR, Targeting, Orthophotography, Aerial imagery. Week
9. Image in the strategic design of love and hate. Keywords: Arts, Cult of personality, Human values, Iconology, Image, Propaganda, Spectacle. Week
10. Visual opportunities of Participatory Culture. Keywords: Participatory Culture, Networking, Community involvement, Chatbot. Week
11. How can an image help the truth defeat a lie? Part I. - Students final presentation, discussion of the presented ideas. Week
12. How can an image help the truth defeat a lie? Part II. - Students final presentation, discussion of the presented ideas.
Annotation
In the stormy pace of communication through social media applications, the role of the image is rapidly increasing. Visualization is in the 21st century presented as the fastest instrument of information transmission to the widest audience, regardless of language and cultural differences. As a member of the EU and NATO, the Czech Republic is currently one of the frequent targets of information operations executed by foreign powers. The purpose of those information operations is to exert influence on public opinion and resulting policy decisions with the intent to ultimately affect behavior of society and political discourse of the country in ways that help achieve objectives defined. At the turn of the millennium Information space was defined as a Fifth Dimension of Warfare. Strategic communication has become one of the most important means of countering disruptive foreign information operations and the role of imagery in this field is rapidly evolving. The course will focus especially on the visual side of means in Information space.
Considering that this is currently a very dynamic field, this syllabus gives a fairly accurate portrayal of the material. With regard to the acceleration of development, additional material may be assigned or altered at any time as the semester progresses, in accordance of the needs and interests of the class.
Each two-hour class of the course will be divided into two parts. The first part, the lecture, will introduce selected theme of the week in accordance with course goals in order to deliver keywords, basic concepts and assorted theory. The second part will be discussion-based, with a mandatory screening at-teached. The class will content the screening of the week’s selected image (set of photographs or videos), which will be discussed and compared, based on experience of images that we have seen before. Selected lessons will include space for the presentation of the participants' own analyzes required to complete the course.
Paper Policy: Completing the final presentation is required. Failure to submit the final presentation according to the deadline will result in a letter grade F for the entire course.