The battle for hearts and minds

Dan Bennett's recent post on the frontline blog is well worth a read.Dan is a PhD student researching the impact of blogging and new media on the BBC's coverage of war and terrorism.

He look at how How Insurgents Shape the Media Landscape following his attendence at the insurgency research group

There were some interesting comments reported,including the Beeb's Gavin Estler who said that

the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ should be a central strategic consideration in combatting insurgents and noted that Osama Bin Laden believed 90% of the struggle with the West would be waged in the media.

He makes one very good point about the new media landscape though

One of the major new difficulties here is the vast canvas of the media landscape. No longer can audiences be divided into ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ as they have done in the past. Anything that is published can be potentially viewed by either the domestic or the international audience or in fact a multitude of different audiences with a variety of compositions.
And yet, the old view still prevails in a number of communications campaigns. This comes unstuck when your international audience views your domestic output.