Disinfo in the Middle East

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate

Disinformation, Deception, and Information Disorder in the Middle East The information environment is now a core domain of strategic risk. State and state-aligned actors, PR firms, digital mercenaries, platform companies, and generative AI tools operate together as what this course calls the deception order, an industry that manufactures pseudo-reality in the service of political and commercial power. This intensive equips executives to recognize, investigate, and understand disinformation, computational propaganda, and influence operations as they affect organisations, markets, elections, and geopolitics. The week moves from foundational concepts (misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and the post-truth condition) through the techniques of computational propaganda (bots, trolls, sockpuppets, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, and generative-AI personas), the actors behind influence campaigns (from governments to private corporations), exploring global case studies with a focus on the Gulf region. From Operation Arab AIEye and the Gulf Crisis, to the 2024 'Haitians eating pets' breakout, the varied nature of information operations are explored.