INTL629 - Social Media Intelligence: Its Foundations and Applications

Course Code: INTL629 Course ID: 5408 Credit Hours: 3 Level: Graduate

The last ten years saw the rise of a new type of intelligence – Social Media Intelligence (SOCINT) – representing fertile ground for public and private organizations interested in collecting information regarding potential adversaries and competitors. As a result, SOCINT no longer stands as a subset of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) but embodies a discipline of its own requiring specialized knowledge, tools, and techniques. More and more, social media permeates every facet of our lives, asking individuals to give up more of their personal information and privacy, making it imperative to understand how these companies acquire our data and ultimately use/share/sell that information. Couple this with the need to understand the legal, ethical, and privacy issues of its use by organizations acquiring this type of intelligence makes SOCINT an equally important component of the overall intelligence continuum. As different nation-states begin to weaponize social media, it will be necessary for intelligence collectors to detect and deter these attempts at influence. All these issues point to an immediate need to educate individuals charged with collecting and utilizing this dynamic form of intelligence.