Introduction

Access to the tools of mass communication is now widespread. Broadcasting a message to an arbitrary audience is within everyone's reach. It can be done quickly and anonymously. The modern newsroom is multipolar and largely unaccountable. As backdrop, digital literacy and algorithms governing the “who sees what” are still in an embryonic stage. As a result, online forums are plagued with opportunistic and perverse ideologies. Thus far, regulatory bodies and hegemonic social media platforms have failed to deliver adequate safeguards.

This report lays out a practical and complete blueprint to study narratives online. The methodology is elementary to be operationalizable in most contexts. It should be regarded as a skeleton to build upon.

Our dissection begins with the tools and processes required to examine online discourse and profile narratives. Subsequently, we cover how to use the findings to support the countering programme. Finally, we deconceptualize the playbook by providing a detailed account of how we implemented it in Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Ouattara’s third term Ivory Coast.

Our hope is that this exposé brings to light the vulnerabilities of these platforms, strengthens intervention efforts and catalyzes policy making.

Countering

Countering narratives can feel like a sisyphean task (Brandolini's law). Narratives do not have a face, they live in the zeitgeist and trying to censor often leads to the Streisand effect. Only a holistic approach, requiring the benevolent involvement and collaboration of all stakeholders (i.e. government, media, civil society, activists, population), can lead to a healthy information space.

Interventions

[ Preventive Care ]

1. Baseline resilience to target narratives is strengthened through promotion of better digital practices (critical thinking, sources verification, ...)



[ Easing of symptoms ]

2. Addressing the narratives through your own media campaigns. Broadcast content that contains clear calls to actions – viewers should feel compelled to customize, embody and spread the message.
3. Engaging with credible influencers to share the content
4. Social media platforms use a combination of artificial intelligence, human reviews, reports from users and trusted partners to detect and remove fake/inauthentic accounts and hateful narratives. Initiating the process and getting the "trusted" partner status is a worthwhile pursuit, as your findings will be acted on faster.

Company selling bot followers

[ Curative care ]

5. Punctually and transparently communicate any suspect narratives to all stakeholders
6. Incentive alignment so that every stakeholder equally feels the cost of a toxic information ecosystem and the benefit of productive information ecosystem



[ Palliative care ]

7. Resources should be deployed to mend affected communities
8. Thought leaders should be held accountable, paired with surgical and temporary banning of accounts

Mass communication

As described above, central to fighting narratives is the production of counter media campaigns. Getting a message in front of the masses can be done through many channels.

Traditional Media

Newspapers

Magazines

Billboards

Radio

Broadcast TV

Direct paper mail

Digital Media

Online advertising

Search engines

Social media

Video streaming services

Websites

Choosing the adequate channel, or combination of channels, depends on a variety of factors – cost, demographic, reach, targetability, credibility, measurability, complexity, and impact.

Best Practice Principles

Four media-agnostic principles should guide the content creation and publishing process of an exemplar campaign.

Credibility

Source, Vehicle, Production

Shareability

Network feels compelled to share the content

Targeted

Geography, Narrative, Vernacular, Platform

Repetition

Re-post to reach all potential users

Packaging

People click on the packaging not the content. A title, description, and image is your bait. Make it enticing.

Example of a thumbnail

Boosting

Many platforms provide “amplification-as-a-service” to increase the reach of your content. However, it should be used judiciously. The basic rules are outlined below. Step #4 should only occur if high reach is already achieved organically. If it is, set the boosting parameters to target the audience that resonated with the content.

Step #1

Creation of exemplar multimedia content

Step #2

Publish on pages you administer

Step #3

Share through influencers, public and private groups

Step #4

Boost content

Measuring Engagement

Measuring listenership, viewership or readership is media specific. On digital media, the interactions of a user with a piece of content can be recorded through a range of descriptive signals.

Views

Captures the IP address and browser information each time a visitor loads the page

Scrolling

Captures the scroll distance and speed of each visitor

Outbound clicks

Captures an outbound click event each time a visitor clicks a link that leads them away from the page

Video engagement

Captures video play, progress, and complete events as visitors view embedded videos

File Downloads

Captures a file download event each time a file link is clicked

Site search

Captures the query parameter each time a visitor performs a search on your site

Social media platforms, where you will distribute your content, provide an additional level of insight into the sentiment of visitors.

Facebook's Interaction Dashboard

Furthermore, the flow of visitors should be compartmentalized by dispersing URLs with different query parameters. This strategy allows for counterfactual conjecturing.