The project will provide the Ministry of Defense with a research-based approach for enhancing public understanding of the threat landscape, drawing on the core principles of psychological defence. It will deliver concrete recommendations to increase public resilience in a new age of security policy where hybrid threats such as disinformation proliferate.
The project is based on the acknowledgement that ensuring high situational awareness in the public must be included in the broader defense- and emergency preparedness work, and the main aim is to analyse what current approaches for increasing public resilience to disinformation look like in other European contexts in 2024 and to provide a mapping of the most prominent aspects. Furthermore, by drawing on the principles of psychological defence, it explores and suggests measures to increase public resilience by advancing public knowledge about the threat of disinformation.
The three main research questions are: RQ1: Drawing on existing knowledge, what do current approaches for increasing public resilience to disinformation look like in European contexts, other than Norway? RQ2: In the Norwegian context, what is the potential of the concept of psychological defence as a way of advancing public knowledge about the threat of disinformation? RQ3: Based on the insights derived from RQ1 and RQ2, what are the key recommendations for the Norwegian Ministry of Defence?
