ABSTRACT
Combating disinformation is a difficult challenge for practitioners and authorities due to the large list of factors involved. The adoption of anticipatory approaches that consist in providing situational awareness and intelligence, including for informing preventive communication strategies can facilitate decision-making processes and counter responses. In this sense, an adaptation of issues management tools as an anticipatory approach to communication and management can provide a useful perspective for dealing with disinformation activities sponsored by hostile actors. This chapter explores how disinformation and foreign manipulation information operations impact the intelligence function in democracies and the contribution of intelligence in addressing the threat. Anticipatory identification and assessment of threats and vulnerabilities, foresight and early warning, together with holistic views (including a set of government and nongovernment actors such as fact-checking organizations) should determine the capability of being anticipatory and the effectiveness of the response from authorities. The chapter also explores the role of technology in supporting analysis and early warning with this regard, as well as in supporting fact-checking activities.
