Link: Global Guerrillas: INFO WARFARE, NARCOCORRIDOS, AND YOUTUBE.
"The best way to view Mexican narcocorridos, or ballads to drug traffickers, is as a form of information warfare directed simultaneously at:
internal/general audiences (to enhance the prestige of affiliation and attract adherents),
the opposition (to demoralize and provoke),
the state (to demonstrate its impotence through brazen announcements of intent).
"Here's an example. The popular Mexican singer, Valentin "The Golden Rooster" Elizalde wrote a paean to the Sinaloan cartel that villified the Zetas/Gulf Cartel. The song's video was posted on YouTube (featuring bodies of killed cartel members from news clips). The Gulf Cartel/Zetas sent a return message by killing Elizalde and his manager outside a concert, punctuated by a YouTube video of Elizalde's autopsy.
"Popular Infowar
"Historically, information warfare was restricted to elites (government, media, parties, etc.). The onrush of Jihadi videos, political pro-war/anti-war blogs, and narcocorrido videos have categorically demonstrated that this state of affairs has changed. We now live in a world where infowarfare is accomplished by individual practitioners through an open source framework. Over time, the gap between those in the open source framework and the elites will widen in the favor of the former – we have only scratched the surface of where this empowering technology can go.
While the new media infowar will be chaotic (as much as against each other as for or against the state), the bulk of the momentum will be with those that represent revisionist forces. Namely, those groups that want to change the status quo...."
