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I am currently researching one of The Second Sight's topical foci: the economic, technological, and contentual cross-fertilization between the media, entertainment and the defense sector. 

For a general description of the technological cross-fertilization between entertainment and defense please read the January 2008 post: Military Entertainment Complex - the U.S. Entertainment Superpower or my June 2006 post, Creatonomics.

For a look at the cultural significance and asset of U.S. economic dominance in content production and distribution, see the March 2007 entry  The Arab Media Revolution - War of Ideas.  As I wrote then, "Lest we forget, creative content has a social impact as well as an economic value. I have always argued on this site, that media and entertainment sectors are undervalued assets in the American consciousness (both in terms of the economy and in terms of their social benefit in a global war of ideas)."  In another August 2006 post,  Why the fractured Chinese Market will never Buy your Movie?: The cultural and geo-political benefit of U.S. dominance in content creation and distribution "reminds me of what Simon Cowell remarked to Larry King in March this year [2006] when asked about the prohibition of "American Idol" like shows in China.  Says Cowell:

"Well, because it's a democracy, isn't it? You know, I mean, it's the public voting. So you can understand why they're getting slightly nervous about it. Because it wasn't our show in China, it was the laughing cow, so-and-so, so-and-so competition. And the public got to vote. And suddenly there were demos, and it was democracy. And I think the government went, we don't want this. So then they put out a stupid comment like that. You know? It's that we must control the public. Crazy."

What is the nature of the so called 'military entertainment complex' (also known as 'miltary nintendo complex') and what drives its organization?  The answer to the latter question is found in the maintenance of U.S. global military hegemony.  If the U.S. military is the primary global military power, and this hegemony is based on the ability of the U.S. Navy to dominate the world's oceans, then the condition of hegemony is partially based on the superior numbers and technology of U.S. naval vessels and augmented significantly by U.S. dominance in space-based reconnaissance technology, made possible by entertainment software consumers and movie goers world-wide.  In other words, the mainenance of U.S. global military hegemony, requires the continued militarization of outer and cyberspace; and the pentagon's organizational evolution and strategic positioning against asymmetric threats. 

We are focusing in the next few weeks on cyberwarefare.  Cyberwarefare encompasses a lot of terrain: “from posting misinformation on a blog to crashing a national stock exchange." That means cyberwarefare also encompasses media strategy (the production, distribution, and marketing of cultural content and propoganda) along the organs of communication from traditional media and their hybrids to the internet. 

For example, in a 2006 analysis, Stratfor, a private intelligence service, posted that al Qaeda’s relationship with the media was evolving so that it increasingly relied on the internet to accomplish organizational objectives, including communication and recruitment.  Whereas bin Laden and al-Zawahiri relied on traditional Arabic media outlets to distribute message, al-Zarqawi use of the internet shows the evolving ‘informational wing’ and philosophy of the new generation of al Qaeda:

Within this vein, al Qaeda in Iraq has used the Internet in two very significant ways: to disseminate propaganda in real time, and to shape public perceptions and debate in both the Islamic and Western spheres. In other words, the Web has been a timely, efficient and effective tool for conducting information warfare, which is key for breaking the will of the enemy and in motivating one’s own forces.

Another parallel that Stratfor posits in the same 2006 report is how this newer generation of ‘dot com’ terrorists compares in operational efficiency to their silicone valley counterparts of a decade prior.

It is not yet clear what the future will hold for al-Zarqawi’s organization in, but for the evolving generation of jihadists as a whole, past could be prologue. Ultimately, the dot-com terrorists might learn the same lessons as the dot-com entrepreneurs of the 1990s: There is no “new paradigm” in their industry. The most successful militants have recognized all along that certain basic rules — and operational practices — still apply. And for those who fail to grasp that reality, there will be a painful winnowing.

Cyberwarefare's conspicuity in the minds of Pentagon and intelligence strategists is evident by their acknowledgement of its threat in the 2008 Annual Threat Assessment [Download PDF.]

The US information infrastructure—including telecommunications and computer networks and systems, and the data that reside on them—is critical to virtually every aspect of modern life. Therefore, threats to our IT infrastructure are an important focus of the Intelligence Community. As government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations, as our digital systems add ever more capabilities, as wireless systems become even more ubiquitous, and as the design, manufacture, and service of information technology has moved overseas, our vulnerabilities will continue to grow.

Our information infrastructure—including the internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers in critical industries—increasingly is being targeted for exploitation and potentially for disruption or destruction, by a growing array of state and non-state adversaries. Over the past year, cyber exploitation activity has grown more sophisticated, more targeted, and more serious. The Intelligence Community expects these trends to continue in the coming year.

We assess that nations, including Russia and China, have the technical capabilities to target and disrupt elements of the US information infrastructure and for intelligence collection.  Nation states and criminals target our government and private sector information networks to gain competitive advantage in the commercial sector. Terrorist groups—including al-Qa’ida, HAMAS, and Hizballah—have expressed the desire to use cyber means to target the United States. Criminal elements continue to show growing sophistication in technical capability and targeting, and today operate a pervasive, mature on-line service economy in illicit cyber capabilities and services available to anyone willing to pay.

Each of these actors has different levels of skill and different intentions; therefore, we must develop flexible capabilities to counter each. It is no longer sufficient for the US Government to discover cyber intrusions in its networks, clean up the damage, and take legal or political steps to deter further intrusions. We must take proactive measures to detect and prevent intrusions from whatever source, as they happen, and before they can do significant damage. (p. 16)

As did the Pentagon’s 2008 Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China [Download PDF].

In the past year, numerous computer networks around the world including those owned by the U.S. Government were subject to intrusions that appear to have originated within the PRC. These intrusions require many of the skills and capabilities that would also be required for computer network attack. Although it is unclear if these intrusions were conducted by, or with the endorsement of, the PLA or other elements of the PRC government, developing capabilities for cyberwarfare is consistent with authoritative PLA writings on this subject.

In 2007, the Department of Defense, other U.S. Government agencies and departments, and defense-related think tanks and contractors experienced multiple computer network intrusions, many of which appeared to originate in the PRC (Sec 1:4)

"Non-Contact” Warfare: An example of China’s current thinking on asymmetric warfare is encapsulated by a military theory termed ”non-contact” which seeks to attain a political goal by looking for auxiliary means beyond military boundaries or limits. Examples include: cyberwarfare against civilian and military networks – especially against communications and logistics nodes; fifth column attacks, including sabotage and subversion, attacks on financial infrastructure; and, information operations. (Sec 1:21)

According to Stratfor, “The United States has a very impressive ability to function in and command cyberspace. But by no means does it enjoy the unquestioned military dominance it enjoys in so many other domains." Hence the creation of the Air Force Cyber Command and the organizational shift this asymmetric threat precipitates:

Mastery of cyberspace is essential to America’s national security. Controlling cyberspace is the prerequisite to effective operations across all strategic and operational domains—securing freedom from attack and freedom to attack.  (Air Force Cyber Threat Vision Statement [Download PDF], Sec 2: II)

"America has never been less influential, and nobody needs to understand that more than Americans."
-from Frontline World, "News War"

According to Greg Barker, the U.S. State Department has 30,000 employees, of that only twenty are fluent in Arabic and another 150 conversant. Television is as much entertainment as it is a weapon, and television networks complete for market share as much as they compete for political influence.

Assuming the trend toward long tail marketing comes about, effecting the growth of a plethora of content niches and fluid distribution, tell me, how will this effect the social dimension and disruptive factional power of art and ideas?

Lest we forget, creative content has a social impact as well as an economic value. I have always argued on this site, that media and entertainment sectors are undervalued assets in the American consciousness (both in terms of the economy and in terms of their social benefit in a global war of ideas).

"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." -Publius, Federalist No. 10, Federalist Papers