Chapter 3: Influence Indicators – Meso Level

The meso level accounts for the ways in which group and community factors affect influence, including through connecting and altering relationships between micro and macro factors. Meso indicators relate to relationships between individual social identities and group connections, and how in turn these shape attachments to society at large.

This meso level perspective addresses two typical problems confounding the design and evaluation of influence campaigns:

1. influence being overly conceived in terms of economic factors and self-interest, with the extent and nature of influence effects often incorrectly assumed due to a failure to appreciate the way in which attachments to civil society work as a type of intervening variable in meaning making.
2. influence being overly comprehended as an interpretation act at the level of the individual in ways that do not adequately account for changes in identity and worldview from socio-political shifts. This results in approaches that tends to either: (a) generalise influence effects without significant account for the high levels of cultural diversity found in contemporary societies, or (b) comprehend interpretation and social action in universalistic ways that downplays how influence is altered by circumstances.

To address these concerns and provide a framework for better understanding and analysis, this section outlines meso level national security concerns and indicators in relation to developing and evaluating influence. Each category includes a discussion of existing indicators that are currently utilised in comprehending influence and consideration of how other indicators can be utilised.

National solidarity and identity

The sense of shared nationhood is a central mechanism of social cohesion in the contemporary world (Smith, 2008) and national identity is also a prominent factor that sees that some nation-states have a cultural influence over others.

The level of national solidarity can be measured using a variety of proxy data, most prominently attitudinal surveys on national identity, national pride, and national belonging. Such data include the World Attitude Surveys, International Social Survey Programme,the Australian Social Attitudes, the Gallup surveys, and Pew surveys. Occasionally these surveys also address whether the economic and cultural influence of foreign nations is viewed positively or negatively by different publics.

Whereas most studies of influence tends to be viewed in relation to the extent to which nations engage in the production of culture (see popular culture section below), attitude surveys such as that run by Pew frequently ask samples of national populations how favourable is their opinion of certain countries and how they perceive of a particular country’s handling of contemporary issues or periods of crisis, with respondents frequently asked for comparison to be made with their own country, providing an indication of cultural deference.

The research on national solidarity and identity indicates that one’s sense of belonging is often shaped through the interconnected processes of self-identification and ideological influence (Calhoun, 2007; Kaplan, 2018). Both processes are facilitated through various large-scale social organisations: state institutions, educational systems, mass and social media, private corporations, religious organisations, and civil society groups.

The intensity and stability of national solidarity are also moulded by contexts of everyday life including the family, friendship, and peer groups, all of which impact on one’s sense of nationhood and relationship to foreign cultures. Thus, the strength and nature of national attachments depends on organisational, ideological, and group-interactional grounding (Malešević, 2019). In this context national solidarity generally tends to be stable with a relatively high degree of identification with one’s nation.

Sociologists of everyday nationalism have demonstrated that banal forms of national identification, such as presence of national flags and other demonstrations of national spirit at sporting contests, or news categories that separate the national from the international, are crucial in reproducing the nation-centric view of the world (Fox, 2017; Skey, 2011, Billig, 1995). Hence, such representations of the nation have a strong connection to social influence.

Malign social influence can significantly undermine a sense of shared nationhood, such as by the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories that target the subject matter and events that normally reproduce national solidarity. Such malign activities can focus on amplifying ethnic and racial tensions in the country as well as on enhancing social and political polarisation among different groups in the society (see social polarisation and conflict section below). Malign influence can also target social stratification and foster class conflicts and socio-economic polarisation within society.

In the area of national solidarity and identity there is considerable scope for the development of additional indicators specifically related to influence and national security. Although survey-based measures drawn from large international surveys offer indicative measures of general trends in national identification, they are typically based on a limited number and highly prescriptive questions (Latcheva, 2011) that do not capture well the complex dynamics of how the nation, national solidarity and identity are conceived in different countries6.

For example, questions referencing patriotism are affected by different comprehensions of the term. Patriotism in some national contexts and amongst certain groups is frequently associated with extremist forms of nationalism, even fascism; elsewhere or amongst others it is associated with post-colonial liberation and institutional democracy.

Results drawn from standardised international surveys should therefore be utilised with this in mind while efforts can be made to add more targeted questions to such survey instruments or commission more in-depth nation specific survey research and polling data. Survey research specifically focussed on nationalism is particularly significant for testing assumptions about levels of attachment transnational groups and younger generations have to their nations, with data showing this is often stronger than assumed (Fozdar & Spittles, 2010; West & Aarons, 2016).

Large-scale surveys should include (or at least not disguise or dismiss) the ways in which national solidarities are shaped by regional, local, religious, ethnic and other forms of collective identification. Indicators of national solidarity related to influence campaigns need to ensure non-national form of identification such as those connected to tribes, cities, cyberspace, and the global polity are adequately addressed (Adamson, 2016).

Supplementing quantitative measures with qualitative interviews, participant observation and ethnographic methods can also address over-reliance on narrow, decontextualised, quantitative snapshots of popular views that capture a specific moment in time and inadequately consider social complexities (Malešević, 2013).

Civil society

A vibrant and healthy civil society is widely viewed as beneficial for democratic polities, enriching the lives of citizens, strengthening the rule of law and confidence in core institutions, and rejecting authoritarian and uncivil tendencies that may spread among subgroups. Civil society tends to moderate destructive forms of conflict, while promoting other forms of contestation – for example highlighting injustices, rallying for the rights of the oppressed—and in doing so reaffirming the core values of democratic states.

A critical measure for the vitality of civil society is its degree of organisation and coordination. Much research has focussed on measuring the number of voluntary organisations and the membership of those organisations (Pietrzyk-Reeves & Samonek, 2023). More challenging forms of data collection finds linkages in these data, creating social network analyses that can reveal the density of active civil society participants in any given social environment.

Measuring the number of organisations, their membership and their activity is valuable, but it is not a comprehensive indicator of civil society as it relates to influence. Other elements, such as access to resources, regulatory context, values, and especially effect have all been of concern for scholars in their attempt to advance measurement about civil society (Anheier, 2004).

Assessing each of these factors poses significant challenges. Access to resources, for example, may appear to be a straightforward measure, based upon budgets and personnel. However, less tangible but critical resources – symbolic power, legitimacy, access to policymakers, and so forth – also require consideration. Regulatory contexts can be considered constant when comparing within a single legal jurisdiction but not when international or transnational organisations operate in varied regulatory environments, which complicates analysis. Values can be assessed through analysis of mission statements, codes of ethics and similar internal documentation, but organisational culture can often trump such declaratory documents. Finally, effect, the degree to which an organisation affects its setting can be hardest to measure, since so much of what civil society entities accomplish is only fully realised as it contributes to multi-dimensional processes.

Empirical approaches emphasising metrics of size and frequency can be supplemented with qualitative indicators to measure the symbolic vitality of civil society and the ways its activity resonates with publics. This typically involves examining the discourses/narratives being advanced and interpreted by publics. Measures of effect then should look broadly at what an organisation accomplishes in terms of public debate and opinion, rather than at quarterly reports or other short-term documentation.

Social capital and trust

Social capital frequently overlaps with civil society and the potential it has for encouraging democratic political participation. However, social capital indicators also relate to measurement of broader forms of participation in public activities outside of engaging in institutional politics such as involvement in clubs, non-political associations and even socialising with family. These serve a similar function to civil society activity by protecting the civic space.

Misinformation and disinformation7 can be transmitted through such social interactions, however, they can promote resilience to malign influence efforts through maintaining and reinforcing levels of social trust. For example, institutions such as clubs, schools and universities, facilitate intercultural knowledge, attachments and bonds amongst diverse individuals, making it less likely that malign information resonates with audiences (Andreouli & Howarth, 2019; Wesssendorf, 2014). The focus here is measuring how an openness to cultural diversity and difference can be measured as it relates to local interactions and ordinary occurrences between those from different cultural backgrounds.

Engagement with family differs in that it may not involve experiences with diversity, but the social attachment it affords can be significant in providing a resilience to extremism. For example, family engagement as it is increased through marriage and de facto relationships is consistently identified as one of the main protective factors against violent radicalisation (Harpviken, 2020).

Surveys that measure how people spend their time doing various activities, and how this is distributed across activity categories such as paid work, leisure, family, caring and housework, contain important indicators of such general forms of social capital. This includes data from common questions about whether the respondents attend local meetings, are involved in social clubs or engage in volunteer activities. These surveys, such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (2020/2021) ‘How Australians Use Their Time’, are useful in providing longitudinal descriptions of changes in social structures and involve sufficiently large samples for comprehending how this occurs differently in various social and demographic groups.

It has been estimated that most nations have some type of time-use data available (International Labour Organization and United Nations Development Programme, 2018, p. 7) though the quality and methodologies used are diverse and inconsistent. Such time-use surveys are much more established in countries with higher levels of economic development, democratisation and political stability. For example, it is estimated that only 24 of the 53 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have conducted at least one time-use survey (International Labour Organization and United Nations Development Programme, 2018, p. 7).

Cosmopolitanism as practice

Social capital is relevant to influence as interconnectedness and interactions with others often facilitates social cohesion. Early sociological literature of societal integration often was not strongly grounded in empirical analysis and tended to be solely concerned with major commemorative, celebratory or disruptive events as they were experienced by the mass (Lukes, 1975). In contrast, recent research traditions have paid greater empirical attention to everyday life, minorities and the cognitive dimensions of interactions in a variety of contexts. For example, contemporary Australian studies have sought to move beyond established philosophical and ideological discussions about cosmopolitanism and nationalism to be concerned with how ordinary citizens from different cultural backgrounds interact and cohabitate (e.g. Noble, 2013). This focus on practice, a term sociologists use to refer to social structure and agency being observable through everyday experience, has illustrated the danger of only comprehending levels of social cohesion in society in relation to what people believe (e.g. surveys) as this can differ from the commitment people have to folk civic virtues as derived from ethics of conviviality and civility.

Even well-established formal time-use surveys are often limited by the perceived need for a standard and consistent set of questionnaire items and the frequency around which they are undertaken. Economic considerations can see survey questions privilege paid work over leisure activities.

To address the limitations of time-use surveys, Putnam (2001) has pointed to the utility of the broad and frequent research undertaken by marketing firms, arguing even questions such as how often respondents go on a picnic or entertain friends at home can provide useful social capital indicators.

Social capital is also utilised by individuals for their own benefit, for example social media influencers being paid for endorsing commercial products to their networks of online followers.

Further social capital research is needed in how online engagement can be used to build social capital and social trust as it relates to security issues. While online activity is now commonly seen as a mechanism through which malign influence operates and a space in which deradicalisation program can work through individual cognitive strategies, the online world is also a space where resilience through social capital can potentially be built.

Social polarisation and conflict

Social polarisation, referring to a radical partisanship in society, is observable in high levels of intolerance, hostility, animosity, and hate speech, as to become a threat to the civil virtues and rights that underpin democracy.

Most measures of polarisation in politics and related news media consumption have focussed on the United States where it has worsened for decades and is in a particularly dire place. While this has not been uniformly experienced elsewhere, there has been widespread growth of populist politics over the last decade.

Abramowitz and Saunders (2008) and Webster and Abramowitz (2017) have been central to examining indicators related to political polarisation in the United States, and how this can be seen through examining ‘the most interested, informed, and active citizens’ who ‘are much more polarized in their political views’ (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2008, p. 554) relative to the rest of the population.

The measures used by Abramowitz and Saunders (2008) are varied and comprehensive: they compiled data on voting behaviour, participation in campaign activities, political expression (wearing partisan buttons, putting partisan bumper stickers on cars, placing yard signs and so forth), and attitudes toward specific political figures. Their core indicator of polarisation was the decline in the middle values – beliefs that were previously held by the majority in society and an acceptance that certain domains are not appropriate for political partisan conflict. Instead, many of the indicators they analysed show a politicisation of a greater number of social issues, with concerns now being expressed more intensely and more divergently. Indicators of this sort are somewhat case specific and need to be tailored to different cultural and political contexts.

The extent of political polarisation is contested. Care needs to be taken in identifying indicators of political polarisation and influence. Fiorina and Levendusky (2006), for example, have argued that the coding and aggregating procedures used to analyse political polarisation in the United States frequently exaggerate attitudinal divides and ignore data measures that suggest little change over recent decades.

However, in terms of specific forms of influence, several factors, pre-dating the 2000s, appear important:

1. the decline of trust in media (reflected in national polling on confidence in institutions);
2. the declining faith in professional journalism as a field (reflected in polling on professionalism and trust);
3. the rise of misinformation and disinformation from foreign actors in nondemocratic states (described in reports from think tanks, research organisations, and intelligence agencies); and
4. the concomitant rise of radicalisation among vulnerable populations targeted through social media.

Noting these trends, fringe political groups as well as mainstream politicians in many nation-states have increasingly sought to mobilise support from these radicalised populations.

It is notable that political polarisation is occurring against a backdrop of rising economic inequality. Real and perceived disadvantages arise from globalisation and neoliberal deregulation of national economies. While relationships between inequality and social cohesion have traditionally been considered in relation to the working class and under class, recent concerns about political polarisation lie (also) with the middle class, which is smaller than in previous decades and relatively less affluent (Kochhar, 2024).

The trajectory of this group has advanced discourses about the end of the national dream, namely that hard work and educational achievement leads to financial security and a comfortable lifestyle. The associated discontent has been an important factor explaining increasing sympathy for populist political messages and promises (Gest, Reny & Mayer, 2017).

However, not all social conflict is destructive and not all passionate people or angry groups are radicalised. Here, measures of civil society must be balanced against indicators of social polarisation to protect pro-democratic forms of social conflict, contesting injustices, rallying for human rights, and so forth.

Many measures of polarisation reveal declining levels of indifference and increasing levels of concern at both extremes of a given spectrum. Scholars tackling this issue in earnest tend to look for a wide range of measures and then seek to integrate their findings. Key measures of partisan identification can be misleading since these can reflect socially desirable reporting. Measures of behaviour – as active as participating in campaigns or as passive as putting a bumper sticker on a car – should be compared with attitude data. Furthermore, as polarisation does not necessarily undermine the system, it needs to be seen in the broader context of social trust, such as tracing media use and sense of fairness and validity in various sources of knowledge (including anonymous information from the Internet).

Anti-government sentiment

Perceptions of injustice in governance systems relate to issues of legitimacy (Allan et al., 2015) and how the state is conceived by the citizenry. Legitimacy is relevant to influence in that it shapes levels of deference to institutional expertise, such as in relation to health and social issues, and conformity to laws (Button 2020; McLean & Wolfe, 2016). A failing of legitimacy can result in problematic forms of patriotic sentiment, promoting militia activity and political violence.

Contemporary research regarding anti-government social movements have focused on indicators that identify high-risk groups and individuals and the nature of their language use. This research has largely been conducted in the Anglosphere (Smallpage et al., 2020) but there is increasing research on how such sentiment plays itself out in post-colonial contexts in the Indo-Pacific, although this typically relates to religious-orientated terrorism (Wan Mohd Nor & El-Muhammady, 2021).

Recent, common indicators of anti-government sentiment include monitoring expressions and their reactions on social media platforms (Nguyen & Gokhale, 2022). Such monitoring often uses computational or manual collation and analysis of online content without interacting with social media account holders (Darius & Urquhart, 2021; Marcellino, 2021). Related indicators include surveying the public on defined factors associated with anti-government sentiment (Kim et al., 2018). Other indicators include rates of disrupted violent plots reported by law enforcement to collection bodies, where these plots are associated with anti-government extremism (Bjørgo, 2023).

Indicators of anti-government sentiment also include assessing interactions within high-risk groups, as well as how disparate radicalised groups may interact together. These assessments include tracking media content and online communications monitoring of known or emerging groups, with law enforcement and researchers assessing communication strategies and platforms used within and between these groups (Avramov, Gatov & Yablokov, 2020; Leal, 2020).

Such indicators include assessing when and why disparate extremist groups with differing concerns coalesce and come together around newfound shared meanings (Meyer & Whittier, 1994; Zhou & Yang, 2021). This conjoining or collaborating is often done to bolster support and the social effect of group efforts of disruption (Meyer & Whittier, 1994; Zhou & Yang, 2021).

Further indicators identify shared bonds between high-risk groups. These efforts have largely shown that groups find shared belonging, value and meaning through expressing perceptions of injustice or grievances of some kind, sharing conspiratorial, extremist and/or anti-government beliefs (Scrivens, 2024).

For example, recent research has established that perceptions of hardship, inequity and inequality, such as discrimination and social injustice, combine with other social problems, such as poverty (Fisher & Dugan, 2019; Franc & Pavlović, 2018; Poli & Arun, 2019) or social exclusion (Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, 2021), to increase the likelihood of some people participating in extreme resistance behaviours including political violence (Allan et al., 2015; Mirahmadi, 2016; RTI International, 2018; Veldhuis & Staun, 2009). The recent systematic review by Akram and Nasar (2023) clearly indicates how assessments mostly analyse social media to identify what is discussed to establish a level of risk and any needed intervention.

Finally, indicators also address forms and pathways of resource exchange between groups and their supporters (Freeman & Ruehsen, 2013; Keatinge & Danner, 2021). Enabling social movements to campaign and form organisations has been a well-used strategy to politically destabilise the citizenry and, therefore, the state (Cull et al., 2017; Herman, 1996; Kragh & Åsberg, 2017; Kux, 1985; Matthews et al., 2021; Pearson, 2019; Walton, 2019). Financial exchanges are relatively easily tracked but resource exchange continuously evolves with technological advancements, and monetary and non-monetary exchanges are often facilitated along a pathway of concurrent exchanges, frequently involving both related and disparate high-risk groups (Keatinge & Danner, 2021).

Less published research addresses how law enforcement assesses in-person interactions and expressions between groups, a well-established means to gauge communities of interest and what is going on within and between groups (Akbar, 2013). Contemporary efforts seem to infrequently assess related offline interactions compared to online monitoring, outside of saying the two are related. Offline monitoring remains significant due to its relevance to the well-known realities of online communications interrelated with and moving to offline violence (Leap & Becker, 2023). Offline monitoring may occur through direct engagement with moderate group members (Marcellino, 2021) or traditional clandestine activities.

Small group dynamics and political violence

Sociological research outlines how small group dynamics is at the core of human motivation for violence (Malešević, 2022; Collins, 2022, 2008; Kalyvas, 2006; Sageman, 2004; Smith, L. G., Blackwood, L., & Thomas, E. F., 2020, Thomas, E. F., McGarty, C., & Louis, W., 2014). Recent studies on the motivations to join terrorist networks, revolutionary cells and paramilitary organisations demonstrate how interpersonal dynamics of small groups play a decisive role in the process (Hassan, 2011; Collins, 2022, 2008; Kalyvas, 2006; Sageman, 2004). Close kinship and friendship networks operate as key hubs for recruitment for violence and are central in facilitating violent radicalisation.

Small group dynamics might be responsible for many forms of benign social influence. For example, a strong sense of meso level group attachments such as clan, tribe, kinship and deep comradeship bonds can weaken or destabilise social cohesion at the national level.

Small groups can develop strong internal social ties that might diminish national solidarity. Such actions can range from protest groups and other non-violent forms of political resistance that challenge the existing social and political order to isolationist policies exemplified by the anti-state communities and anarchist or environmentalist communes that challenge the existing model of nation-state. However most such actions remain non-violent and are usually not a threat.

However, violent social organisations including terrorist networks, far right movements, radical left-wing groups, gangs, and criminal cartels do utilise small group dynamics for malign social influence. Traditionally, these groups have recruited their members through the family and friendship networks (Atran, 2011; Gambetta & Hertog, 2016; Sageman, 2004). Meso level groups are also crucial for hiding members from police and military: the strength of kinship and friendship bonds is crucial in the existence of support networks.

Small group dynamics have also been instrumental in provoking race and ethnic riots that can significantly undermine the security and cohesion of the social order. Pathways from radical rhetoric to violence are often mediated through neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces, and common leisure activities where friends and family members can directly influence each other.

Small group dynamics can partially be traced through the analysis of individual and collective behaviours online (Scrivens at al. 2020), where some radical groups are very active. Interactions can be used to explore the dynamics of deep comradeships, friendships, and close family networks. Once the pattern of these relationships is identified they can be followed, and their activities can be analysed online and offline using forms of social network analysis.

Generational divisions

Generational differences in relation to influence attempts, whether malign or benign (Ahlfeldt, Maennig, & Mueller, 2022) have been analysed in Western nations but less so in non-Western nations where younger people are a greater percentage of the total national population and may have a larger political significance. Studies of young people in relation to generational differences have generally drawn on survey research, focusing on conceptions of democracy and political discontent (Ballard-Rosa, Carnegie, & Schonfeld, 2023; Nugent, 2019).

A range of indicators have emerged around the way in which influence attempts may result in the radicalisation of youth, most in the context of the US led ‘war on terror’. This research generally finds that economically and socially marginalised or vulnerable individuals are more susceptible to radicalization and violent extremism (Franc & Pavlović, 2018; Poli & Arun, 2019; Stokes, 2014). From this perspective, approaches to countering violent extremism are closely related to structural strategies proposed for combatting crime and recidivism rates, including issues of family dysfunction, institutionalisation, and employment and training (Subedi, 2017).

There has been increased attention to young populations in the mid-school years, a group previously assumed to be largely exempt from radicalisation influences. Indicators of susceptible youth have been drawn from subjective risk assessments by adults working with young people (van de Weert & Eijkman, 2020). For example, the UK’s PREVENT programme aims to identify pre-crime/extremist behaviours and profiles in schools (Acik, Deakin, & Hindle, 2018; Mattsson & Säljö, 2018).

Indicators here mostly seek to assess or survey youth behaviour along a pathway of escalation of predefined factors. These factors include family dysfunction, and association with others often by assessing beliefs (Kruglanski et al., 2014; McCauley & Moskalenko, 2008; Veldhuis & Staun, 2009), alongside assessing a range of cognitive behaviours (Baruch et al., 2018; Gill, Horgan, & Deckert, 2014; Gøtzsche-Astrup, van den Bos, & Hogg, 2020; Mirahmadi, 2016; Selim, 2016).

Notably, such measures have largely been established through assessment of adult populations, which may not be applicable to children and young people.

Overall, it is often assumed that young people will be more politically progressive than older generations, yet this is not uniformly the case. There is also no singular or accurate profile of a ‘violent extremist’ whatever the age (Pisoiu et al., 2020). Noting this lack of consensus, we need to be critically reflexive of risk assessments and prevention programs (Borum, 2011) which might inaccurately profile certain groups, leading to misdirected resources, and can promote further distrust from those groups.

Multi-context measures rather than mere generational factors are frequently more accurate in establishing risk profiles (Marsden, 2020). These approaches argue for capturing diverse context through employing a variety of objective and subjective reports related to tracking group and individual political views, expressions of belief, and cognitive elements (Borum, 2011; Nugent, 2019).

Social Crisis

Crisis events can be recognised in terms of their distinct phases each with empirical indicators and structural properties. A prominent model used to comprehend social crises is Victor Turner’s (1986) conceptualisation of social drama (Cabot, 2023). Turner argues that social crises are characterised by four phases – breach, crisis, redress, and reintegration – each with their own indicators (1986. 105):

Breach involves the perception of a norm, law or community standard being crossed. Reactions, including panics, may arise from relatively minor events. Indicators of this initiation of a social drama are organised collective action (including concentration of media attention to the topic) and heightened level of campaigning by interest groups, particularly for the issue to be addressed through direct action by the state (including new laws).

Crisis involves an escalation of the social drama, including growing evidence of social conflict and increased polarisation. This is a period of social schism when people take sides. This can take on liminal characteristics with established political and cultural orders subject to questioning.

Redress takes place as efforts at conflict resolution and arbitration come into play. Symbolic sacrifice and scapegoating may also take place here. This stage though can fail, with a return to the crisis stage.

Reintegration involves the offending social group being joined again to mainstream society, or else “the recognition and legitimation of irreparable schism” (Turner 1986: 35).

There is a continuity of influence that derives from social dramas, with many having a place in collective social memory, providing a cultural template for how similar events in the future may be understood. Social dramas also resonate as they not only become about the specific issues but can take both the form of “entertainment and a metasocial commentary on the lives and times of the given community” (Turner 1986, p. 39).

Most analysis of social crisis involves analysis of public discourse (Smith, 2005), typically media that is (a) serious and involves the civil sphere rather than that which is peripheral or primarily entertaining; (b) is of an extended nature allowing for appreciation of the complexity in discourse; (c) analysed in terms of a genre that is cross-national allowing for comparability. Broadsheet newspaper and quality magazines are frequently used in assessments of events though new online platforms increasingly provide indicators of heightened times. Comparative analysis of different media facilitates understanding of how the one social crisis or disruption can play itself out through multiple public spheres. This allows insight into how multiple public spheres interact, rather than assuming societies only have one discursive sphere.

Social influence campaigns during times of social crisis require more consistent monitoring due to the propensity for narrative shifts, including through the emergence of counter narratives (West, 2008), with new genres being utilised and alternative forms of meaning being established. The methodological tools for considering influence during times of crisis though also needs to be carefully considered, with what is appropriate for stable time periods potentially inappropriate for crisis. Influence efforts will be dependent on the stage of crisis, with the effects of influence campaigns needing to be considered in relation to their distinctive characteristics. Clear empirical indicators based on discursive material should be developed in his regard. During times of social crisis normal counter influence strategies that rely on rationalist approaches are likely to become ineffective, with more symbolic and affective forms of disruption potentially more effective.