SHARP POWER AND DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE: THE NEW COGNITIVE WAR

Abstract

To the new forms of conflict taking place in the world correspond, or are linked, new
forms of power: from cognitive warfare to sharp power, up to what is now called surveillance
capitalism. Through cognitive conflict and sharp power strategies, we are witnessing an
epochal change, an IT revolution that brings political conflict into a digital dimension, which
acts on the ground of public opinion, politics and economics; but even more subtly it acts in the
control and conditioning of knowledge, of our world view and of facts. The general objective,
from a political philosophy and communication ethics point of view, is to understand what
changes are taking place and the purposes of controlling information, the conditioning of
knowledge, the power of world markets and economic forces, which can be destructive as
weapons of war: they can affect the strength of moral and collective resistance of a people, the
reputation of a head of state, can pollute information for the failure of diplomatic operations,
etc. How can one find adequate tools for cognitive response, autonomy of judgment and
decision, exercise of freedom, protection of rights, in particular those of the most fragile
social groups who are also the most affected by the new forms of power and unconventional
conflict? The aim of my work will be to analyze forms, methods and languages of this
interweaving of knowledge conditioning, digital market control, power (political and social),
and global competitiveness