(Dis)Info Wars/Geopol Dig Age

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

This course will explore the challenges of a global, hyperconnected age of information. Humans are more connected digitally and have more overall access to information than at any time in history. Both trends are unlikely to be reversible and were supposed to be an overwhelming force for individual empowerment and open societies. So what could possibly go wrong? The course will begin with a definitional framework to understand often conflated, overlapping, and distinct challenges such as foreign influence and foreign interference operations, mis- and disinformation, and “inauthentic” behavior online. Further, students will explore technologies that make up the infrastructure and platforms of today’s information environment and the burgeoning field of tech policy attempting to establish global standards to govern the information environment matching the speed with which it changes. Finally, this course is about a global competition for information and how it shapes geopolitics today, tomorrow, and for a generation to come, with emphasis on influence operations and deep dives on state threat actors, strategies, tactics, and goals.