Trump Takes A Page From The Kremlin’s Media Playbook

[DonViejo]

Tyler Cherry

October 13, 2016 6:00 am

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s public flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout the 2016 campaign has been met with extensive public interest, skepticism, and criticism. Whether definitive ties exist between Trump and the Kremlin remains to be seen, but the degree to which Trump has seemingly co-opted the Kremlin’s propaganda playbook, and the extent to which conservative media has helped Trump execute a Russian-style media strategy built upon the spread of disinformation, is unnerving and portends trouble for the state of objective truth in American democracy.

Red flags have been raised about Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia and Putin: Trump has effusively praised Putin; publicly invited the Russian government to hack Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails; deliberately lied that Russia was not involved in hacking attempts aimed at interfering with the U.S. election; recited Russian state-sponsored misinformation; and allegedly has Russian investments in his businesses.

Further, Trump has managed to exploit the fragmented state of American media to seemingly execute the Russian model of “information warfare,” as outlined by NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence’s Keir Giles. The parallels between the Kremlin’s strategy for planting and spreading disinformation — with the ultimate goal of “undermining the notion of objective truth” — and Trump’s use of conservative media to spread lies and delegitimize traditional news sources are striking and play out in these ways:

Disinformation Initially Placed On “Sock Puppet Websites”

Russian disinformation strategy, which rests on “‘undermin[ing] the very fundamentals of information and credibility that informed debate are supposed to rest upon,’” begins by “placing disinformation” on “sock puppet websites which appear to provide or aggregate news” and “can achieve substantial reach and penetration,” according to Giles.

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http://www.nationalmemo.com/trump-uses-kremlins-media-playbook/

[Jim__]

1. Trump can do it because of the cooperation of the media - and not just the conservative media.

We know the Russians have doctored e-mails. Yet the media rarely raises that point when they discuss the e-mails. Most of the allegations about Clinton's sex life were aired 20 years ago - and are completely irrelevant anyway since Bill Clinton is not on the ballot.

Trump's disinformation campaign can only succeed if the media cooperates.