Hacking the Mind: Internet Memes as Tools of Propaganda

Internet memes are one of the latest evolutions of “leaflet” propaganda and an effective tool in the arsenal of digital persuasion. In the past such items were dropped from planes, now they find their way into social media across multiple platforms and their territory lacks spacial boundaries. Internet memes can be used to target specific groups to help build and solidify tribal bonds. Due to the ease of creation, and their ability to constantly reaffirm axiomatic tribal ideas, they have become an adroit tool allowing for mass influence across international borders. This poster seeks to display some of the common links between internet memes and leaflet propaganda. This poster particularly focuses on the tools used to “hack” the attention of anyone connected to internet using dense modality, cognitive biases, and traditional PSYOP tactics that are rooted in earlier leaflet propaganda techniques. It is a brief snapshot of some of the more potent facets of a project published in 2021 (Internet Memes: Leaflet Propaganda of the Digital Age). The original text can be found here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.547065/fullhttps://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gradposters2022_artsletters/1002/thumbnail.jp

The Digital Gaze: Anthropomorphic Reflections of Future Posthuman Reality

The human world continues to be ever more entangled with the nebulous realms of the digital. The digital lives of humans are constantly viewed, analyzed, and organized by the use of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as tools of governments, institutions, and corporations. Digital-machines are able to harvest massive swaths of data from users the world over including discursive elements and biometrics; accumulating the essences of what it means to dwell in a digital world. Although such digital-machines, and the algorithms on which they operate, are becoming more and more complex, they are still viewed as a tool with what Martin Heidegger deemed a readiness-to-hand type of Being. By reconsidering the subject-object paradigm, the potential for digital-machines to be subjects in and of themselves open the doors for questions relating to the existence of non-human digital-machine-Beings. One such question is that of what the digital-machine actually sees. This act of the digital-machine seeing is deemed the Machine Gaze. Therefore thinking through what the digital-machine may see and contemplating how contemporary framing of it within the bounds of readiness-to-hand ; offers new and exciting perspectives on future human and digital-machine interaction. Furthermore, this effort considers the role of anthropocentrism in the way in which the Machine Gaze has encountered data as a primary factor in how digital-machines will view and act in the world of Being. This is important because such Posthumanist thinking (or a lack thereof) may affect how the digital-machine dwells in the world, iterates itself, and reframes Being for itself and for humans

Internet Memes: Leaflet Propaganda of the Digital Age

Internet memes are one of the latest evolutions of “leaflet” propaganda and an effective tool in the arsenal of digital persuasion. In the past such items were dropped from planes, now they find their way into social media across multiple platforms and their territory is global. Internet memes can be used to target specific groups to help build and solidify tribal bonds. Due to the ease of creation, and their ability to constantly reaffirm axiomatic tribal ideas, they have become an adroit tool allowing for mass influence across international borders. This text explores the link between internet memes and their ability to “hack” the attention of anyone connected to internet using dense modality and cognitive biases. Furthermore, the text discusses Internet meme\u27s ability sew discord by consistently reaffirming preexisting tribal bonds and their relation to traditional PSYOP tactics initially used for analog leaflet propaganda