Evaluating the Effectiveness of Public Communication Campaigns and Their Implications for Strategic Competition with Russia

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCulloch, Caitlin

Contributor:

Watts, Stephen

Language:

English

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, Calif. RAND Corporation 2021

Summary:

Russian efforts to influence the populations of the United States and its allies and partners — including such aggressive means as disinformation campaigns and social media "troll farms" — are a central element of the strategic competition taking place between the United States and Russia. Both countries use public communication campaigns, sometimes referred to as "information warfare," to try to gain advantage over the other. But how effective are these efforts? The authors of this report systematically reviewed rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of communications campaigns to develop insights into what types of public communications campaigns and messages are most effective and in what contexts. The authors detail their findings and provide recommendations for how the United States can maximize the effectiveness of its public communications in competition with Russia.