Information War is fought in the abstract domain, with, or by, images and symbols. IW is war of ideas upon ideas, sigils on glyphs on symbols, belief on belief; of protean forms and complex models, hard science and New Age woo, code on code, noetic and allusive, animated by violent emotion, as frequently in dreams.
Information War is a moral battle; we must accept or deny the truth about ourselves, alive to the consequences of our actions, knowing in the end God wins.
Ever been part of "the wave" at a sporting event? Stood up at a show or event and applauded because others were applauding without knowing much about who, why or what the applause was for? Or remained in your seat, when every other member of the audience stood applauding?
We need humility, it is foundational to understanding.
It is trivial to exploit our human propensity for imitation and conformity to create and propagate beliefs and behaviors (fads, trends, crazes) in a culture for marketing purposes or for social control. It's a commonsense observation that such phenomenon, ripe for exploitation, are used by individuals and interested in directing our collective attention and the future course of human psychological, social and economic development.
Pop culture is not the organic phenomena it appears, but a cultivated cultural medium engineered to permit rapid introduction and transmission of fads trends and for conditioning consumer behaviors. Historical change doesn’t just happen. It is engineered.
Cultures where commerce controls media and where art is used to sell consumer goods have the power to engineer psychological operations which induce delusions and powerful contagious mental illness; collective insanities or psychogenic illnesses. Historical incidents and many of the known forms of contagious psychogenic illness are described in "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Mackay, a book which every parent should read and summarize for their children to insure they understand.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
In recent years, we have seen mysterious maladies proliferate. Recently, American and European psychologists have been tracking the blue whale game, the momo challenge, and news stories written in a fashion calculate to prompt individuals susceptible to suggestion to huff wasp spray.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Whale_Challenge
There many ways to solve social problems which have been ignored. The future of humanity has never appeared so blindingly promising – if one can, as Ada Lovelace put it, look beyond the dark and shifting planes of the present.