516696

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MWC0010.1177/1750635213516696Media, War & ConflictRoselle et al.

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Article

Media, War & Conflict

Strategic narrative: A new

2014, Vol. 7(1) 7084
The Author(s) 2014
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means to understand soft sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1750635213516696
power mwc.sagepub.com

Laura Roselle
Elon University, NC, USA

Alister Miskimmon and Ben OLoughlin

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Abstract
Soft power in its current, widely understood form has become a straitjacket for those trying
to understand power and communication in international affairs. Analyses of soft power
overwhelmingly focus on soft power assets or capabilities and how to wield them, not how
influence does or does not take place. It has become a catch-all term that has lost explanatory
power, just as hard power once did. The authors argue that the concept of strategic narrative
gives us intellectual purchase on the complexities of international politics today, especially in
regard to how influence works in a new media environment. They believe that the study of media
and war would benefit from more attention being paid to strategic narratives.

Keywords
Communication power, influence, narratives, power, soft power, strategic narratives

Introduction: How Nyes idea was hijacked

Joseph Nye put on the table of international affairs in 1990s a crucial question: How do
we understand changing forms of influence in a changing international environment
(Nye Jr, 1990)? During the Cold War, the overwhelming fixation within policy and aca-
demic circles was with nuclear arsenals and mass conventional militaries within a bipo-
lar structure of conventional authority. Nye alerted us to the fact that the new international
environment required the US to turn to new (or rediscover old) ways to influence the

Corresponding author:
Laura Roselle, Campus Box 2333, Elon University, Elon, NC 27249, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Roselle et al. 71

emerging new world order. Nye wanted to highlight new methods of American influence
for the new environment. The Cold War focus on military had resulted in the USA down-
playing non-coercive instruments (Cull, 2008, 2012).1 Nye contended that if there was a
peace dividend, the US needed to think about winning the peace and what comes next.
The question Nye asked was: What tools or capabilities are needed to apply methods for
the purposes of persuasion and continued US influence in the post-Cold War
environment?
Rather than focusing on the effects of such capabilities, soft power analysis has
largely resulted in sophisticated counting of tools or resources. Soft power analyses
suggested governments must develop and maintain soft power capabilities. They paid
less attention to how such capabilities could have influence or impact. Nye Jr (2013)
laments: were mesmerized by concreteness were totaling up resources, not
[explaining] what behavior they generate. The same capabilities-centric mindset soon
took hold even in the midst of the communication revolution ushered in by the emer-
gence of the internet: counting of nuclear arsenals and conventional weapons has been
replaced with counting Twitter or Facebook followers and State Department language
streams. The question of how those resources have effects was lost. Critically, the
question of how relationships are changing, and can be managed, was often disre-
garded because such work is conceptually and methodologically difficult (Miskimmon
etal., 2014; Pamment, 2012).
Strategic narrative is soft power in the 21st century. Strategic narrative sets off from a
similar starting point that Nye faced in 1990 understanding fundamental change in the
international system and asking: What are the best methods to influence international
affairs? Strategic narrative brings us back to core questions in International Relations
(IR), back to asking what means and methods of persuasion and influence are likely to
work under what conditions, and to a focus on those conditions of communication and
interaction, which have changed so fundamentally since Nyes seminal 1990 article.
Indeed, Nye himself now argues that international affairs has become a matter of
whose story wins (Nye Jr, 2013; cf. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1999). He often refers to the
role of narratives in international relations (Nye, 2008b, 2011). However, he does not
explore the nature of narratives or attempt to explain how a narrative becomes persuasive
to target audiences (see Miskimmon etal., 2013; Steele, 2012).2 The analysis of the for-
mation, projection and critically the reception of strategic narratives and the interac-
tions that follow does the work soft power analysis promised but has not delivered.

The turn to soft power

In the past decade, a major state without a soft power strategy, in practice if not in name,
has become the exception (Hall, 2012; Hall and Smith, 2013; Kurlantzick, 2007; Tharoor,
2012; Tsygankov, 2005). The expansion of international broadcasting, competition to
host global sporting events and proliferation of cultural institutes, partnerships and
exchanges all point to attempts to put soft power into practice. Yet, realisation that it is
impossible to analyse or understand soft power without its interaction with hard power
led Nye to write of their mix as smart power (Nye Jr, 2009b). In the UK in 2013 the
British Council and House of Lords each sought a new understanding of soft power. Nye
72 Media, War & Conflict 7(1)

stood as a witness to the Lords committee, re-stating that the challenge is getting others
to do what you want them to do (Nye Jr, 2013). The urge to understand how to explain
and practice non-coercive engagement in international affairs has never been more acute.
Nyes conceptualization of soft power recognizes the importance of ideas and culture
in international relations and foreign policy. Rather than focusing on hard power as the
ability to coerce or induce another to do something, scholars and politicians often say
that soft power is the ability to influence others through the attraction of culture, values,
and policies which are viewed as soft power resources (Nye Jr, 2006).3 A different way
to think about soft power is the ability to create consensus around shared meaning. If
people believe, for example, that the promotion and protection of human rights is impor-
tant, desirable, and right or proper, it is more difficult to legitimize actions perceived to
be in conflict with that consensus. Creating a shared consensus to force another to do
something can be much more difficult than using hard power, but there is reason to
believe that the results can be more lasting. Soft power resources may set the stage for
shared understandings and this enhances other types of interactions, including opportuni-
ties in enterprise, and coordination of shared human goals such as the alleviation of
human suffering. Nye calls this using soft power to create an amenable milieu (Nye Jr,
2011: 97). It is no surprise, then, that policymakers and commentators point to soft power
as one way to reduce tensions, mitigate conflict and find common ground in international
affairs.4
If one looks more carefully at attraction, however, questions arise about the mech-
anism through which soft power works to produce a desired outcome. Nye says, for
example, that attraction is more than persuasion through rational argument (Nye Jr,
2009a: 6). He suggests that soft power goes beyond that touching on affect or feel-
ings as well. Certainly the recent work on the role of reason and emotion in human
cognition points to the salience of both logic and affect in the way audiences engage
with international affairs. Bially Mattern (2005a, 2005b) argues, however, that this
mechanism is not clearly articulated and that attraction can be, and often is, coercive
a concept she calls representational force. This is the exercise of power by using
language to rhetorically trap others, and she highlights this in the case of the US point-
ing to contradictions in UK statements during the 1956 Suez crisis that undermined
UK leaders sense of identity, ultimately restricting their action. There is evidence that
soft power can, under certain circumstances, be coercive; in the UKs case it was
forced into a course of action in order to remain consistent with its values. However,
there is another possibility as well. The attraction associated with the term soft power
may also relate to the fulfillment of needs. Attractiveness may be based on both or
either rational and affective components of culture, values, and/or policies. For exam-
ple, values such as democracy, freedom, the alleviation of poverty, and human rights
may attract others because they address individual and collective desires and needs.
Others may not be coerced into an attraction to these values, but it is interesting to note
along the lines argued by Bially Mattern that these values once articulated and
claimed as ones own may constrain future behavior and be used in the context of rep-
resentational force. If a state claims to value Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine
because of its commitment to human rights, for example, this dictates certain policy
positions should human rights violations be occurring in another state.
Roselle et al. 73

The distinction and relationship between hard power and soft power raises important
conceptual considerations. Drawing a distinction between hard and soft power has
always been difficult. Hard power resources include military and economic resources.
Soft power resources, as currently understood, include culture, values, and policies.
However, there is a different utilization of hard and soft power resources. Hard power
resources are most often kept in reserve, and are used at specific moments, or within
certain theatres and timeframes, with specific strategic and tactical objectives in mind.
Initial soft power analysis lacked a fully developed sense of agency, or strategy, with soft
power in particular being more about attraction than deliberate foreign policy intent. A
state need not deploy hard power resources, but may threaten the use of these resources,
and still exert power. In contrast, many soft power resources are not kept in reserve, but
must be shared. It makes no sense, for example, to fund a cultural program that is not
implemented, or to produce a BBC documentary that is not aired. Soft power assets are
always on display. That said, there may be times when communication about soft power
assets and narratives may be used strategically. Soft power assets can be promoted and
publicized to target audiences for instrumental purposes as in representational force or
strategic narratives just as hard power resources can be used instrumentally to influ-
ence a target actors behavior. Consequently, in his later writings, Nye addresses the
skills of the agent in converting the resources into behavioral outcomes (Nye Jr, 2011:
22). Power conversion strategies turn out to be the critical variable that does not receive
enough attention, he adds (p. 10), and hence he wrote an entire book about the leader-
ship and strategic skills needed to achieve this conversion (Nye Jr, 2008b).
In addition, hard power resources are held, at least in the case of military resources, as
a state monopoly. Soft power resources are found both inside and outside of the public
sector. Any plan for utilization of soft power resources must recognize that among a
countrys most important soft power assets are the values associated with, say, an open,
complex, and diverse society. Soft power may be a property of a countrys universities,
businesses, religious organizations, sports teams and its citizens. These all become
potential elements of soft power strategies but these must be cajoled into working
towards national objectives, at least in non-authoritarian states.
Especially interesting are soft power considerations in the use of military force. We
have argued that hard power and soft power are conceptually distinct in a number of
ways. Today, however, there is an important trend associated with the use of soft power
by traditional bastions of hard power. This can be seen in the case of Afghanistan, for
example, where military forces have taken on a large role in stabilization and develop-
ment (Williams, 2011). This means that the military employs soft power resources as
well as hard power resources. This goes well beyond Nyes idea that A well-run military
can be a source of soft power (Nye Jr, 2006).
Diplomacy is discussed as another soft power tool, both in its traditional government-
to-government form, and in the public diplomacy form associated with government-to-
publics interactions. Much has been written on soft power and public diplomacy (Hayden,
2012; Melissen, 2007; Nye Jr, 2008a; Seib, 2009). One important point is that soft power
resources can be channeled through public diplomacy (Seib, 2013). For example, Seib,
in discussing the security of the Baltic states, argues that:
74 Media, War & Conflict 7(1)

Soft power could better establish the political and cultural identities of these states in ways
that would help them build international constituencies. If other countries publics feel that they
know the Baltic nations, they might pay more attention to them and be inclined to support
them in disputes with Russia.

Public diplomacy can, under certain circumstances, serve to amplify soft power resources,
strengthening the attraction of a country.
A weakness in the study of soft power is IRs inability thus far to effectively trace or
measure its impact. Some scholars have attempted to identify when soft power matters,
but they still largely focus on which capabilities to use and how to use them, and not on
tracing the effects that soft power may have (Kroenig etal., 2010). Finnemore (2009:
5960) argues that: Creating desired social outcomes, even with great material power, is
not simple, as the U.S. is discovering. Nye argues that we need to identify not just the
effect of a countrys soft power attractiveness on public opinion overseas, but identify
behavioral changes that result from this. However, this is a task for journalists and his-
torians not international relations scholars, he argues (Nye Jr, 2011: 86). Carrying out
such analysis in the present would be expensive and cumbersome (Nye Jr, 2013).

Strategic narratives as power resources

It is evident that soft power is central to an understanding of international relations today.
While many accept this general statement, it is still difficult to (1) identify soft power
resources, (2) identify the processes through which soft power operates, and (3) under-
stand under what conditions soft power resources can be used to support foreign policy.
We argue that the concept of strategic narrative helps solve many of the fundamental
questions associated with our understanding and analysis of soft power.
And while narratives have always shaped the way humans understand the world
around them, we argue that the concept of strategic narrative is particularly relevant in
international relations today. Rational theories are for well-ordered worlds and for lead-
ers set within that world. Today, however, we have a chaotic world, with leaders who are
ill-prepared for its complexities. Narratives are even more important for ordering the
chaos.5
Certainly narratives are important to the structure of the communication process and
many scientists suggest that this is, in part, hardwired into humans (Salmon, 2010). First,
a compelling narrative can be a power resource, as people may be drawn to certain
actors, events, and explanations that describe the history of a country, or the specifics of
a policy, for example. Second, narrative communication as a process is one way through
which power resources can be understood to work more broadly (see, for example, Maus,
1991). Soft power resources culture, values, or policies, for example may be attrac-
tive because they fit within a preexisting or developing personal narrative. Strategic nar-
rative, then, directly addresses the formation, projection and diffusion, and reception of
ideas in the international system. Finally, when we see how different states try to use
narratives strategically to sway target audiences, we begin to see how contestation
works, especially in a more complex media ecology. It is vital that those seeking to use
narrative strategically pay as much attention to the reception and interpretation of
Roselle et al. 75

narratives as to their formation and projection since it is here that meaning is made and
any attractiveness, engagement and scope for persuasion are located and experienced
(Skuse etal., 2011). Nye himself says as much: What the target thinks is particularly
important, and the targets matter as much as the agents (Nye Jr, 2011: 84). As we have
seen, however, soft power analysis offers no framework to capture these processes.
Our work on strategic narratives involves identifying and understanding communica-
tion in international relations. We recognize that communication involves both verbal
and other forms of communication. This is important because a focus on strategic narra-
tive then bridges the gap between hard and soft power concepts. The use of military
force, for example, can be understood to be part of the narrative projection of a state.
We draw from Burkes (1969) discussion of narratives to set out the following com-
ponent parts of narratives. Associated with each component we give examples that are
related to international relations:

Character or actors. Actors are those who have agency and are depicted as
important to the narrative. States, non-state actors, great powers, normal pow-
ers, rogue states, terrorists, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and
MNCs (multinational corporations) are all actors associated with the interna-
tional system today. Within a domestic context political parties, interest groups,
economic classes, and individuals among others are often included in the
narrative about the domestic politics and the state. These designations tell us
something about who is considered important, certainly. In addition, however,
actors within narratives are associated with characteristics, interests, and behav-
iors. There is scholarly work, for example, that shows that great power identity
has shaped, and at times trapped, certain states into particular behaviors that
normal powers do not exhibit (Oates, 2006; Roselle, 2011). That is, great pow-
ers are actors within a narrative about the international system.
Setting/environment/space. What constitutes the stage? Where is action taking
place? In terms of international relations and foreign policy, setting refers to how
the international system is depicted and how it works. Is the world understood as
one of growing interdependence and globalization with prospects for cooperation
in pursuit of common goals, or is it depicted as a world of friends and enemies,
those who believe as you do or those who do not? As with actors, the setting or
environment is packed full with assumptions, assertions, and underlying princi-
ples and rationales. These shape the range of the possible in terms of identifying
issues that need resolution, and goals that might be achieved. Who creates or re-
shapes this space or milieu? (Wolfers, 1962).
Conflict or action. Who does what to who or what, and what reactions and interac-
tions follow from that? This highlights the importance of temporality as narra-
tives are quite often structured to address past, present, and future. This may also
point to the identification of perceived dangers, and by whom and how this danger
should be confronted. For example, we have seen that as the world is character-
ized as one in which terrorists challenge the security of all, more states identify
more groups as terrorist, and the implied response involves the use of the mili-
tary and significant surveillance.
76 Media, War & Conflict 7(1)

Resolution or suggested resolution. Narratives are appealing to human beings in

part due to the presentation of action to resolve a conflict or disruption to the sta-
tus quo. The suggested resolution in a narrative in many ways bounds the possible
both in thought and action. For example, a narrative about the international
system that stresses the importance of international cooperation to confront those
who break norms about chemical weapons, highlights acceptable behavior in the
international system. In this case, it makes it more difficult to use military force
unilaterally.

Narratives with the structure outlined above explain the world and set constraints on
the imaginable and actionable, and shape perceived interests. States with particular
characteristics or identities are actors within the international system as we understand
it today. Narratives can be a power resource setting out what characterizes any state in
the world, or how the world works.
It may be worthwhile to highlight or understand narratives at three different levels
(Miskimmon etal., 2013) and to give some examples. These levels and narratives at
them are inextricably linked. First are International System Narratives that describe how
the world is structured, who the players are, and how it works. Examples would include
narratives such as the Cold War, the War on Terror, and the rise of China. The War on
Terror narrative, for example, sets out states as protecting individuals from non-state
actors known as terrorists in a battle for security. A War on Terror narrative may constrain
policymaking if, for example, a political actor is defined as a terrorist by others in the
world.
At a second level are National Narratives that set out what the story of the state or
nation is, what values and goals it has (Holsti, 1970; Thies, 2012a, 2012b; Walker, 1987).
Examples of national narratives include the US as peace-loving and historically commit-
ted to freedom and democracy (in the US), and the US as world bully (in other parts of
the world). Berenskoetter (2013: 3) identifies a biographical narrative of the state that
delineates an experienced space (giving meaning to the past) intertwined with an envi-
sioned space (giving meaning to the future) and delineated through horizons of experi-
ence and of possibility, respectively.
Finally, there are Issue Narratives that set out why a policy is needed and (norma-
tively) desirable, and how it will be successfully implemented or accomplished. Issue
Narratives set governmental actions in a context, with an explanation of who the impor-
tant actors are, what the conflict or issue is, and how a particular course of action will
resolve the underlying issue. This is related to Alexander Georges work on policy legiti-
macy in which he argues that policies must be explained to political elites and the public,
at home and abroad, and that this explanation should communicate that the policy is right
or good, and can be achieved (George, 1989).
Narratives at each level may be power resources, and like culture or values, these nar-
ratives are found within the public sector and outside as well. Add to this that this demo-
cratic structure that champions freedom and voice is itself a narrative that has significant
soft power. There simply is no way to strictly control every narrative at every level, and
frankly it is counterproductive. Yet, as noted above, Bially Mattern argues that narratives
can be used strategically as representational force.
Roselle et al. 77

We are not arguing that all narratives in the international system are strategically
deployed by political actors. Yet, we do argue that strategic narratives employed at one
level may affect narratives at other levels, and thus constrain future policy choices and
behavior. The beginning of the Cold War narrative is an excellent illustrative example,
as political scientists and historians have clearly shown that strategic narratives about
the support for specific US policies monetary support for Greece and Turkey in 1947
(leading to the Truman Doctrine) and the drafting of NSC 69 in 1950, for example
contributed to the development of the international level Cold War narrative that struc-
tured the world as a bi-polar and highly confrontational world (Gaddis, 1974;
Miskimmon etal., 2013).
The point of analyzing the role of narrative at these three levels is that this provides a
more precise grasp of how communication, persuasion and influence operate in interna-
tional affairs. One can trace how political actors strategically shape and are shaped by
narratives. This allows for more compelling explanations of power and influence than
can be provided by soft power analysis.

A new communication ecology and communication

strategies
We have noted that the post-Cold War international system opens space for significant
contestation over narratives. In addition, a new communication ecology opens this space
as well. Elected officials and policymakers in international affairs believe foreign rela-
tions that are not coercive and are not simply government-to-government have a new and
pressing relevance in a vastly changed, and rapidly changing, world. Connectivity cre-
ates new distributions of power. Investment in media channels and online platforms by
the BRICS, Turkey, Iran and others has created a more pluralist world marketplace of
perspectives and reporting. Diplomats ask: Should we try to gain a presence in all these
media spaces appearing on Al-Jazeera, tweeting to citizens? Should a country invest
more in its regional or global media players, if it has any? Can old media stalwarts like
the BBC, CNN or Deutsche Welle retain or even extend their historical status, reach and
influence? As more and more people become connected through social media and engage
in what Castells (2007, 2009) calls mass self-communication should states entrust citi-
zen diplomats to project soft power on the countrys behalf through their routine engage-
ments on social media?
At issue is power and control as contestation over narratives has increased. We argue
that this also highlights the importance of the concept of strategic narrative as foreign
policy and diplomacy face a new vulnerability from increased transparency. As more of
the global population become familiar with more media, so they become more literate
about how communication works. Consequently, it is not simply that more government
action is visible, recorded, archived and available for scrutiny, today or in the future.
Importantly, how governments manage their transparency is also scrutinised; too con-
trolling gives an authoritarian appearance, too open and it becomes hard to make deci-
sions. Striking the right balance, and being seen to strike the right balance in the eyes of
multiple audiences, is a major challenge. Elites sense they have lost relative power over
information and time, and audiences as political actors, including individuals, non-state
78 Media, War & Conflict 7(1)

actors, NGOs, terrorist cells, and international organizations, have access to communi-
cation technologies that will reach a vast audience (Brown, 2005; Chadwick, 2013;
Price, 2002).
As we have written elsewhere:

Today the global battle of ideas creates both the perception and actuality of a more competitive
and contested marketplace for governments who must learn how to compete with or harness a
plethora of voices. States no longer have the option to conduct relations with the world in grand
diplomatic set pieces, controlling who is in and who is not in the room. Monroe Price argues
that although leaders can choose not to engage in shaping hearts and minds of citizens, the
incentives to do so and the contestation of ideas that shape the world require activism on the
part of states. As Richard Holbrooke once commented to Michael Ignatieff in an interview,
Diplomacy is not like chess Its more like jazz a constant improvisation on a theme. The
ability to devise and implement a coherent strategic narrative rests on the vagaries of events and
the views of others, (Miskimmon etal., 2013: 69).

Of course there are challenges associated with the strategic use of narrative.
Transparency and increased media literacy may generate as much cynicism as engage-
ment, especially if preexisting narratives are not understood. This is related to contesta-
tion and credibility. In fact, there is some evidence that new media including social
media communication can lead to a more critical or cynical audience (Pearce and
Kendzior, 2012).6 Look at the memes that were generated after the Russian President
Vladimir Putins op-ed on Syria in the New York Times in September 2013, for example.7
Second, actions, policies, and real world events matter. Narratives cannot be made up out
of nothing, and power can be challenged by action, policy, and events. Events that people
experience or know happened can counter the most sophisticated strategic narrative.
Finally, above all, what we know is that to reap advantages associated with strategic nar-
ratives, a state must accept a lack of control over aspects of this process.

Methods for studying strategic narratives

This brings us to a brief overview of methods that can help scholars and policymakers
identify narratives (and their component parts) at various levels, and understand their
formation, projection (including contestation), and reception. First, the communication
space and content are mutually constituted, and we acknowledge the difficulty of study-
ing this space. It may be helpful to think about the study of strategic narratives as dips
into a fluid environment. Elsewhere we argue that analytical choices depend on what
strategic narrative processes the researcher wishes to explain along a spectrum of persua-
sion (Miskimmon etal., 2013: 1416). Here we simplify in order to highlight some
examples of methods that may inform formation, projection, and reception.
If one chooses to focus on political actors formation of strategic narratives, careful
process tracing, textual analysis, and interviews may allow one to understand the domes-
tic political pressures evident when studying policy narratives, or how national or inter-
national narratives constrain how political actors conceive the realm of the possible.
Studies that choose to focus first at projection involve tracing the flow of narratives
through the media ecology. Network analyses, content studies, textual analyses, and big
Roselle et al. 79

data analyses drawing out narrative components in all forms of media are helpful in
understanding contestation and processes associated with projection of narratives.
Finally, to study reception involves a whole methodological toolkit built on years of
political communication literature. Interesting methodologies that are particularly well
suited for understanding how people make sense of narratives include Q-methodology
and focus groups. Soft power analysis seeks to identify whether audiences find ones
country attractive, appealing, welcoming or worth emulating. The analysis of the narra-
tives through which policy or public audiences make sense of the world gives a more
penetrating analysis. We have argued that a narrative will present a set of characters or
actors, a space or environment, a conflict or action, and resolution. We can identify
whether audiences come to understand international affairs in those terms or in what
ways they differ.
The challenge and the promise of studying strategic narratives lies in the concep-
tual underpinning that invites the use of multiple methodologies to inform our under-
standing of influence in the world today.

Conclusions: Implications for media, war and conflict

Understanding power and influence in international affairs could not be more relevant to
the field of media, war and conflict. The texture and character of relationships between
states, and between states and non-state actors, can play a role in the creation of tensions
and hostilities or in their mitigation; in the formation or deterioration of alliances and
institutions; in the legitimation of military intervention or insurgency and resistance. If
the texture and character of international engagement are changing because they are
occurring within a changing media landscape then we can see a direct, fundamental rela-
tionship between international relations and global communication on the one hand and
war, conflict and their mediation on the other. This is not to say that every study of media,
war and conflict must address this broader context. However, we urge scholars in the
field to at least be prepared to situate the specificities of any case or instance within this
changing landscape, given how it shapes leaders expectations about how they should be
communicating and what they believe constitutes effective communication.
More specific applications of strategic narrative for this field can be identified. First,
the study of strategic narrative is central to understanding how all aspects of a conflict
are defined, constructed and understood. The combatants and their grievances, claims
and aspirations are all subject to characterization, the attribution of motives, and atten-
tion to any reputation earned. Different episodes are narrativized, put into causeeffect
sequences, and given meaning with regard to an overall narrative given to the conflict.
Both characterization and narrativization are subject to dispute and contestation, and
used for the legitimation of claims and actions.
Second, the interplay of narrative types can help explain how actors are characterizing
and narrativizing the immediate protagonists and the situation. An issue narrative of a
specific conflict can be connected to a national narrative that characterizes a certain
nation involved as traditionally intransigent or cooperative. Alternatively, it could be
connected to a system narrative concerning broad power struggles and rivalry between
great powers, regions or alliances. In this way, expectations of likely behavior and
80 Media, War & Conflict 7(1)

outcomes can be generated, expectations that may feed into decision-making and the
expression of support for certain courses of action.
Third, war and conflict will be affected by the more extensive and intensive connec-
tivity that is a feature of the new media ecology; more extensive as more people around
the world are able to upload, communicate, dissent across distances and in virtual spaces;
more intensive because connections become more instantaneous, with a greater number
of potential participants and audiences, producing an acceleration of the conduct of war
and deliberations around it.
Fourth, digitization disrupts the sequential structure of narratives of conflict. We wit-
ness not just temporal acceleration, but temporal fragility: the apparently settled meaning
of past events can be disrupted by the emergence of new data or images that force a
reconsideration of what happened. Those waging wars in the present are aware of the
potential of footage for their actions to be captured and used in ways they cannot foresee
or that cannot be controlled. While most news of war and conflict holds to relatively
familiar narrative formats relying on official sources, propelled by longstanding news
values (if it bleeds, it leads), and the incorporation of amateur-cum-citizen journalism
footage into professional coverage it is the new narrative fragility that creates vulner-
ability for militaries.
Fifth and finally, political and military leaders charged with creating and projecting
strategic narratives to legitimize war, conflict or peacebuilding must become more
reflexive about the first four points. They must find ways to research and know others
narratives. They must find narratives that appeal to multiple audiences with differing
interests and learn what it is that makes those narratives convincing. They must be able
to find coherence between their system, national and issue narrative and publicly expose
the inconsistencies across their opponents narrative levels. They must have scenarios in
place for when digital disruptions undermine their preferred narrative so as to restore
narrative order. They must be able to maintain consistency between their public narrative
and events as they unfold on screens around the world. Events that people experience or
know happened can counter the most sophisticated strategic narrative. This challenge is
even more pressing as new powers are emerging to challenge The United States primacy.
With greater diffusion of power and authority in the system, more consensual solutions to
problems in the international arena will need to be found and studied. Being able to influ-
ence international responses to crises through effective strategic narratives will be increas-
ingly challenging, but necessary as unilateral action becomes more constrained.
Readers may have noticed an important parallel by now. In 1990, Joseph Nye saw the
end of the Cold War order, saw the changing nature of media, and developed a concept
that would explain how states could engage and influence each other in non-coercive
ways soft power. Around the same time, in the field of media, war and conflict, the fall
of the Berlin Wall, the 19911992 Gulf War, and series of Western military and humani-
tarian interventions triggered a series of studies of the CNN effect, asking what differ-
ence global television coverage made to decision-making and public support for these
interventions. We close by asserting that something similar is happening today. A change
in the IR landscape has triggered a change in the focus and explanation of media and war.
The emergence of new global powers like China and India and the continuation of
major changes to media ecologies demand the development of a concept to explain
Roselle et al. 81

power and influence that is fit for purpose strategic narrative. Change is already giving
rise to patterns of media, war and conflict that have triggered new research questions and
approaches that seek to grasp the sheer, diffused connectivity and overlap between audi-
ences and producers, new forms and relations of power and influence, the changing
nature of attention, authority and news, and the myriad ways that actors are adapting
media devices for purposes of war-waging and peace-making and for making sense of
each.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

Notes
1. Downplayed in terms of budget, though persuasion through communication was still part of
US strategy.
2. We take a broad view of persuasion here, assuming there is a spectrum of persuasion
based on Brent Steeles approaches to discourse: rationalist, communicative, reflexive, and
poststructural.
3. Nye sets out culture, values, and policies as important resources of soft power (http://www.
foreignpolicy.com/articles/2006/02/22/think_again_soft_power). Of course, these are not
distinct as all are mutually constructed. We argue that the concept of strategic narrative is a
means to update the study of power and influence which Nye sparked in 1990. Conceptually,
narratives focus attention on communicative processes currently associated with soft power,
but which have not been fully developed.
4. The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has launched several recent soft power,
media-focused, network-led campaigns to mitigate conflict. Its diplomatic efforts in
Mogadishu led to the 2012 and 2013 International Somalia Conferences in London that
aimed to increase international political and financial support for the Federal Government
of Somalia in its new post-conflict phase. In May 2012, its Prevention of Sexual Violence in
Conflict campaign enrolled a range of NGOs and Angelina Jolie to seek to reduce levels of
rape and sexual violence in conflict, leading to the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual
Violence in Conflict endorsed on 24 September 2013 in New York by 119 countries. See
the FCOs Storify page: http://storify.com/foreignoffice/this-week-at-the-foreign-office-16/
elements/f8fd39d6b6ca0f5d87c1f75e
5. Thanks to Timothy McKeown for this point. We also thank the IR working group of graduate
students and faculty at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill for their insightful com-
ments on a draft of this paper.
6. There is some research that does not find increased cynicism: e.g. Hanson etal. (2010).
7. Responses can be found at http://www.vocativ.com/09-2013/on-the-world-stage-putin-may-
be-stiff-but-hes-a-laugh-riot-on-the-internet/ (see also Putin, 2013).

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Author biographies
Laura Roselle is Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies at Elon University and Visiting
Professor of Public Policy at Duke University. Her research interests include strategic narratives,
political communication and war, policy legitimacy, media credibility.
Alister Miskimmon is Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal
Holloway, University of London. His research interests include strategic narratives, security stud-
ies, European integration, and German foreign policy. Address: Department of Politics and
International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK.
[email: [email protected]]
Ben OLoughlin is Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the New Political
Communication Unit at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests include
strategic narratives, media ecologies, visual politics, the new mass, and semantic polling. Address:
as Alister Miskimmon. [email: [email protected]]