Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

A certain amount of bleed-over

A report in the Washington Post (via ABC Online News) appears to confirm that the Pentagon is waging an information war that targets the 'US Home Audience' as 'one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign'. The campaign which exaggerates the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for propaganda has 'included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist'. Rawstory (in what amounts to its own leak of a media story) reports that the Post reveals 'a New York Times journalist published an article based on a "selective leak" which may have been part of "a psychological operations campaign"'.

Reuters adds that a U.S. military briefing document from 2004 stated 'Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response'. Not that it's surprising for the military to use the U.S. media to 'affect views of the war' - but semi-official revelation of propaganda operations is rare.

The Post reports:

'With satellite television, e-mail and the Internet, it is impossible to prevent some carryover from propaganda campaigns overseas into the U.S. media, said Treadwell, who is now director of a new project at the U.S. Special Operations Command that focuses on "trans-regional" media issues. Such carryover is "not blowback, it's bleed-over" he said. "There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment"'.

'Bleed-over' has the resonance of a military term perhaps ill-chosen (or not) to describe notionally unforseen propaganda effects of a campaign strategy for fighting a 'war on terror'.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 4:26 pm ::