The Role of the Internet in Intelligence Gathering and Spreading Propaganda

The analysis of American intelligence as an academic discipline exhibits an excellent level of integration regarding subject matter and methods from military history and strategic studies. The knowledge and information revolution steered a different online culture of sharing and oversharing. While the study of intelligence has primarily been associated with historical methods thus far, opportunities for innovation are also afforded by advances in theoretical and conceptual thinking about intelligence. Such revolutions can help intelligence history while concurrently enlightening the disputes on intelligence in the twentyfirst century. The takings from the information age consist of low cost for access to data and significant dependence on the Internet. Intelligence agencies profit from the Internet equally through open sources and concealed data gathering from networked computers (Haines, 2004). In addition, Information gathering through Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, blogs, and several social media sites, to name a few, facilitated intelligence gathering all over the world. While some researchers may argue that social media may be an intelligence-gathering tool, several reports revealed that it could also be used for propaganda and misinformation or is intelligence in support of secret operations. This project will investigate how the Internet and the use of Social Media in particular, along with the military strategy of a country, can affect the design of its market intelligence processes.