Hi Rob,
I've been tracking this type of shift for about 20 years now and lecturing on it for about 12, mainly in terms of online reputation and manipulation of online "image/identity".
In short, yes - way ahead. From my observations, I would place the military as something on the order of 10-12 years behind the popular culture in terms of IO technology and about 20 years behind in the cultural technologies that support it.
Why? I suspect it is because the military is, essentially, and Industrial Age organization that has not yet come to grips with the fact that the civilian population, and many of our opponents, are living and acting in the Information Age. Sorry, that's all academic shorthand for the massive shifts in cultural "lived-reality" perceptions of how to survive in the world, but I can't get too detailed without moving into full lecture mode .
Cause and effect are tricky since we are not, IMO, dealing with linear causality. What we are dealing with is a feedback loop of actions based on perceptions of where people wish things to go in the future and their cultural understandings of how to get there. When we are dealing with IO ops, the environment for these "cultural understandings" is based on
As I said, "causality" is tricky here!
- the technology of communications;
- the familiarity or "ease" with using specific technologies;
- past experience with success and failure in using these technologies; and
- the overall institutional culture / environments' reaction to these technologies.
Absolutely - any action, including inaction, that is taken by an individual or organization serves as a component in image / identity construction. This is really the core of all IO. For particular reservations, and where they might come from, lok at the list above.
There are many examples of potentials to radically change society - SWC is actually a very good example . Other ones include the open source movement that could annihilate proprietary software companies, Unity08.com and Dean's use of the blogsphere in '04, Wikipedia which changes who controls the production / distribution of "authoritative knowledge", html which can radically shift how knowledge is presented, etc., etc.
On who actually understands all of this, I would hazard that the best understanding is in the West. How many, in terms of numbers, would be tricky, but most Western cultures have the basics for understanding this built in quite deeply.
There has been a lot of work on this . Then again, the use of pseudonyms has a long tradition in Western culture and, strangely enough, is tied intimately into both our religious and magical traditions. Surprise !!! Consider, by way of example, the use of pseudonyms in religious texts (e.g. the Book of Revelation, the Gnostic Gospels, some of "John's" letters, etc.). A more modern example is the assumption of "use names" by many milbloggers (and others) that allow them to be "anonymous" and, at he same time, signal a particular "stance".
Oh, I would definitely agree with that.
If you're interested, I did a conference paper on this in 1999 focused, in that instance on job search strategies and HR systems.
Marc
Bookmarks