Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Especialista en Comunicación Estratégica, Amenazas Híbridas y Seguridad

Modality: remote

1. Asymmetry, Hybrid Threats, and Security (30 hours)

The objective of the module is to provide the student with the knowledge and skills to understand the current security environment and the main threats to peace, stability of Western democracies, and the security of States and citizens, paying special attention to natural threats. asymmetric and hybrid threats, the vulnerabilities of our democratic systems, and the importance of strategic communication in this context. In particular, the module addresses the following issues:

• Global security and asymmetric threats
• Terrorism, radicalization, religious and violent extremism
• Human security and resilience
• Hybrid warfare and hybrid threats
• international communication

2. Digital environment, cyber defense, and cybersecurity policies (50 hours)

Cyberspace has become a new domain for the expression of power and conflict, coercion, the development of criminal activities, attacks on critical infrastructures, and hostile influence operations by state and non-state actors for various purposes... Preventing, detecting, and responding to threats in the cyberspace domain is a challenge for our democracies, requiring multidimensional responses where citizen awareness and training policies on the threats of this new domain to which they are exposed become an essential part of the answer. From a fundamentally political and advocacy perspective, the module addresses the following issues:

• Cyberspace: a new dimension of security for information and communication
• Vulnerabilities, risks, and threats in the cyberspace domain
• Cyber ​​defense, cybersecurity policies, and cyber hygiene
• Cyberspace and critical infrastructures: a new scenario for hybrid threats

3. Propaganda, misinformation, and deception (50 hours)

External influence on the electoral processes of our democracies and the erosion of trust in their institutions constitute some of the most important challenges facing our societies. Similarly, terrorist groups, criminal organizations, extremists of different political persuasions, and other actors use information and communication for various purposes, including among others radicalization, proselytizing, and hostile influence.

The new communication environment created by the technological revolution and the appearance of social networks has provided the traditional instruments of political warfare, such as disinformation and propaganda, with new possibilities for their dissemination and use in the security context of hybrid threats. The module addresses the vulnerabilities of our information processing and decision-making systems that may be objective in hybrid influence operations through information and strategic communication. The module provides the fundamental theoretical, conceptual, and analytical tools for the following issues involved in overt and covert influence processes in the security context of hybrid threats:

• Attitude, behavior, and public opinion
• Cognitive and heuristic biases
• Overt and Covert Propaganda
• Misinformation and strategic deception
• Speech analysis

4. Intelligence and Strategic Planning (50 hours)

From an intelligence perspective applied to hybrid threats, the module provides the student with the necessary knowledge and skills to analyze and develop intelligence in order to plan responses to this challenge. The module will pay particular attention to open sources of information and social media intelligence, as well as best practices identified by academics and practitioners, addressing the following issues:

• informed decision making
• Information sources and evaluation
• Analysis and intelligence production

5. Communication strategy and tactics (50 hours)

The objective of the module is to train the student in the design, planning, and development of strategic communication campaigns that can contribute effectively to dealing with hybrid threats. The theme of the module addresses:

• target audiences
• Definition of communication objectives and strategy
• public diplomacy
• Influence Communication: Techniques
• Evaluation and measurement of effects

6. Workshops, simulations, and games (40 hours)

From an active and experiential learning approach, the program includes the development of workshops, role-playing simulations, and war games, as a necessary complement to the theoretical and case study sessions.

7. Scheduled visits (15 hours)

As part of the activities, the program includes scheduled visits to security and defense institutions and organizations related to the contents addressed in the program, such as the media.

8. Academic Work (50 hours)

As part of the mandatory evaluation activities, to obtain the specialist title, the student must prepare and present an original academic paper on one of the topics covered in the program.

Assessment

All the modules will have at least one evaluation test, which may consist of the elaboration of a work and/or a written test of the acquired knowledge.

At the beginning of each module, students will be informed of the criteria necessary to pass the contents of the subject.

The main objective of the Specialist is to train profiles with knowledge and skills for the multidimensional analysis of these threats, the detection of hybrid influence campaigns and the planning of effective responses, where the development of intelligence capabilities and strategic communication activities are fundamental.