NEW PROPAGANDA TECH FOR SPECIAL OPS

You’d think that, in 2005, there’d be a bet­ter way to push pro­pa­ganda. But last year, the U.S. mil­i­tary dropped 9.3 mil­lion leaflets into Afghanistan, and another 3.8 mil­lion into Iraq, accord­ing to Special Operations Technology mag­a­zine, try­ing to con­vince the locals to play nice with G.I.s.
U.S. Special Operations Command is explor­ing alter­na­tives to the fly­ers. In a recent call for research, SOCOM expressed an inter­est in “air drop­pable, scat­ter­able elec­tronic media” to spread the good word about American inten­tions. “Internet-​​capable devices, enter­tain­ment and game devices, greet­ing cards, and phone and text mes­sag­ing tech­nolo­gies” are just a few of the sug­gested options for these so-​​called “psy­cho­log­i­cal oper­a­tions,” the mag­a­zine notes.
Already, the Pentagon has pur­chased 100,000 solar-​​powered radios, so folks on the ground can lis­ten in to offi­cial American dis­patches. (It’s a time-​​tested tech­nique.) To that, SOCOM is con­sid­er­ing adding “dis­pos­able or tem­po­rary cell phone[s],” Special Operations Technology notes.

Another, more cost-​​effective solu­tion might be to use tried and true tech­nolo­gies and appli­ca­tions but adapt them for mil­i­tary use. Did you ever send or receive a talk­ing greet­ing card? Hallmark tried, but dis­con­tin­ued such a line. SOTECH talked to one of the com­pa­nys chip providers about how that same tech­nol­ogy might enhance mil­i­tary leaflet pro­grams. Sure enough, they had first-​​hand knowl­edge, but a com­pany exec­u­tive was unable to pro­vide details.
The com­pany, Americhip, spe­cial­izes in pro­duc­ing sound insertsshort recorded adver­tise­mentsem­bed­ded on chips that can be used in any num­ber of printed, pack­age, or trin­ket appli­ca­tions such as a key chain or other small gad­get. These talk­ing cards, pack­ages, toys or other nov­el­ties offer a num­ber of com­mu­ni­ca­tions advan­tages, includ­ing over­com­ing lit­er­acy issues. Plus, theres the look what I have fac­tor that, accord­ing to Americhips Web site, may help gen­er­ate more atten­tion and keep the piece in cir­cu­la­tion longer than a sta­tic piece of paper.

January 17th, 2005 | Info War | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.