The Digital Media War is Upon Us
… by Jim W. Dean, VT Editor
Phil Butler has given us a book whose time has come. “Putin’s Praetorians” is a kind of reverse “Empire Strikes Back” – an epic battle where many of the Jedi are just ordinary people without a light saber between them.
He has pulled together a group of “speaking truth to power” independent social media citizens and journalists, who have been tagged as Russian trolls simply for not following corporate media’s line on US-Russian geopolitical tensions.
Demonization of one’s opponent is an old game taught in a 101 course in public relations. Focus group studies have verified that, absent knowing any of the facts, the public will tend to believe an alleged victim simply out of affiliation, as they would want people to believe them when making charges.
The party being attacked, again without knowing anything about the dispute, is deemed to be questionable in his denial because, if he were guilty, that would be expected.
We find ourselves now in an international media war, where the powerful are attempting to protect themselves from exposure of their fake-news deeds via a take-no-prisoners offensive on alternative media, by singling out old and rising independent journalism stars for special treatment by demonizing their message, if not their character.
Our author Mr. Butler explains how journalists who have challenged the West’s assault on a politically and economically emerging Russia are being attacked as Russian trolls, not because Russia is a military threat as claimed, but because it will not accept the place the major western powers would like to assign it, that of a cooperative colony of the West.
Putin not only blocked this attempt, but saved the Russian economy to the extent where it became a major trade partner with the EU where it enjoyed a trade surplus with Moscow in the 110-billion USD per year range, which covered most of the EU’s Russian energy imports, a great deal for both.
Even former President George W. Bush played up his buddy Vladimir Putin relationship in the years after 9-11.
Phil Butler was uniquely suited to write this book, not only for the fire in his belly, but due to his being an early adopter of social media platforms and an expert PR analyst. He has watched social media turn into the digital ground-zero of today’s battle for the hearts and minds of the influential internet audience.
In his first book he has selected a handful of others who have been on the front lines of this battle to share their experiences with you. We are at a watershed moment in this digital age because we see the storm clouds gathering to eliminate dissenting views, especially the ones that most skillfully expose the corruption taking place in media.
This is the civil rights battle of the digital media generation, where journalists are targeted for registration as virtual enemy agents. We all need to fight back now while it is still legal to do it.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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