Information in the national liberation struggle: developing a model
| Pages | 428-448 |
| Date | 01 August 2004 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410410548153 |
| Published date | 01 August 2004 |
| Author | Paul Sturges |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Information in the national
liberation struggle: developing
a model
Paul Sturges
Department of Information Science, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, UK
Keywords Warfare, Information science, Communication, Intelligence
Abstract Information and communication in times of war is an area that has been much written
about, but one which has not often been treated as a topic in its own right from an information
science perspective. The national liberation struggles of the second half of the 20th century offer
possibilities for the development of an information and communication model, incorporating data
on a range of covert and overt information and communication activities by both sides in the
conflict. The model takes account of such activities as scouting, secret communication,
propaganda, misinformation campaigns, censorship, intelligence gathering and collating, and
other aspects of information-related activity. It offers a capacity to structure this knowledge,
indicates gaps and concentrations in activity, and permits audit and assessment of
information-related activity in the struggle. It is intended to be capable of providing perspectives
on information warfare in other contexts, although this aspect is not explored here.
Introduction
This is a study of information and communication under extreme circumstances. It sets
out to break new ground both contextually and conceptually for the domain of
information science by exploring of the role of information in the late 20th century
conflicts between liberation movements and colonial governments. The approach is
rooted in an eclectic version of the discipline of information science, drawing on a wide
range of sources and seeking to extend the scope of the models available to both
information scientists and military historians. It proposes a new model of information
and communication in the liberation struggle, developed mainly from material dealing
with the struggles in Southern and Central Africa. It deals with models because
existing models of information flows generally seem to arise from a sense that organic
processes operating in a normal environment (although sometimes subject to
interference or “noise”) ensure that human beings are ultimately in a position to receive
the messages carried by the communication media. If we look at information flows in
extreme environments, such models have inadequate power to reflect the complexity of
the information and communication phenomena that are in play.
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
This article is dedicated to the memory of Pam Richards of Rutgers University (1941-1999) who
pioneered the study of information and communication in times of war from an information
science perspective. A small grant from the Faculty of Science at Loughborough University
made possible an initial information-gathering visit to South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe in
April 2001. The author also thanks Corina Possee for assistance with drawing the model.
JDOC
60,4
428
Received 23 October 2003
Revised 27 February 2004
Accepted 29 February 2004
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 60 No. 4, 2004
pp. 428-448
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220410410548153
In particular, warfare shifts the emphasis towards manipulation of information
content, creation of barriers to information flows, various forms of systematic
distribution of information, use of technology for new and unintended purposes, and
most of all the adjustment of boundaries between truth and lies. All of these aspects are
also present in other forms of competition involving information, not least those in the
industrial environment, but the connections between the phenomena of information in
war and information in the quasi-war of industrial and post-industrial society have yet
to be fully explored. Rayward (1996, p. 2) draws attention to the notion that studies of
information flows in times of war can cast a different light on the usual presumptions
of information science. In particular he suggests that the work of Richards (1994) on
competition for scientific information during the Second World War stimulates
broader questions about “alternative strategies that are developed when [information
flows] are disrupted in a war or revolution”. Significantly, Rayward (1996) makes the
further observation that the colonial wars of independence might pro ve interesting
from an information-centred viewpoint. This is the starting point for the present study,
but it is open to the possibility that more than just “alternative strategies” may be
involved. Information in wartime looks very much like a microcosm of a much more
turbulent information world than most conventional approaches allow.
Such a thought is implicit in the concept of “information warfare”, developed in the
1990s. To some extent this has been used as a metaphor for the use of information in
the struggles between business corporations and between the economies in which they
operate. Nevertheless, it also refers to the way in which governments make undeclared
war on each other with information as both target and weapon, and do so with
increased intensity in the present information age. As Schwartau (1997, p. 48) says of
its current manifestation, “Information warfare is an electronic conflict in which
information is a strategic asset worthy of conquest or destruction”. Significantl y for
our purposes, the asymmetrical nature of a conflict that might oppose industrialised
states or multinational corporations with peasant economies or small, poorly funded,
ideologically driven organisations has been noted by Toffler and Toffler (1993). They
argue that the ease of acquisition of technology gives certain advantages to the weaker
parties “which lack significant information-dependent targets, such as
communications, transportation, and economic infrastructures”. (Toffler and Toffler,
1993, p. 334).
Recent work has focused on the Internet as the field of information conflict. In
particular, Crilley (2001) has demonstrated the ways in which activists, extremists and
terrorists have used the potential of electronic communication media. The Internet
offers a swift, inexpensive and – crucially – anonymous means of communicating
ideological information. At the same time, the skillsof the hacker are being put to use by
extreme political groups to disrupt the communications and misrepresent the views of
rival groups. Attacks on infrastructure through illegal access to electronic systems are
also a part of the modern information conflict.Governments are increasingly concerned
to intercept communications, a trend whichis countered by the use of strong encryption.
The question for students of information warfaremay be the extent to which all modern
information environments are like war zones, but the immediate preoccupation of this
article is the actual nature of information and communication in circumstances of
conflicts that are partially open and partially carried on in the shadows.For guidance in
this area we have to look to the literature of the history of war.
Information in
liberation
struggle
429
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