Expert blog: We all fall for it - how online narratives shape war, politics and everyday life offline

Western intelligence agencies are no longer vague about the nature of modern conflict.

MI5 has recently warned MPs and parliamentary staff that foreign intelligence services are attempting to recruit people with access to sensitive information through online platforms such as LinkedIn.

At the same time, the new MI6 chief, Metriweli (2025), has cautioned that modern conflict increasingly unfolds in the space between peace and war, where influence, perception and information manipulation matter as much as tanks or missiles.

Living inside the Continuum

This is not an abstract security concern, but something most of us encounter daily, on our phones, in our feeds, and in our conversations. The ideas we encounter digitally shape how we interpret war, trust institutions, and respond to political crises in everyday life.

Our belief is formed mainly within a continuous loop between screens and streets. This is the online–offline continuum approach, and it helps explain why information campaigns are so effective and why none of us is immune to them.

We still tend to talk about the Internet as if it were separate from ‘real life’. But digital content does not stay on screens. For example, a meme shared in one country can shape how a distant war is understood elsewhere. A short video of a political leader can trigger admiration or outrage within hours.

Repeated online narratives about threats or betrayal can harden attitudes long before any physical confrontation happens. Belief does not switch off when we close an app; it travels with us into everyday life, shaping how we interpret events, who we empathise with and where we place blame.

War, Ukraine, and the grey zone of conflict

The war in Ukraine illustrates this dynamic with particular clarity. Alongside conventional military operations, Russia’s information disorder campaigns aim to erode trust and deepen division in Ukraine and beyond, using uncertainty, irony and repetition rather than outright falsehoods.

As intelligence leaders have warned, such influence operations now sit at the core of modern conflict, operating below the threshold of open warfare, meaning: Influence operations are not a side effect of war; they are a strategic component of it.

War intensifies emotion, uncertainty and moral pressure. Under such conditions, people naturally seek clarity and meaning. Online spaces respond instantly, flooding feeds with images, slogans, memes and emotionally charged narratives.

Some offer solidarity and resistance. Others aim to enrage, exhaust, confuse or disengage. Simplified frames, hero versus villain, inevitability versus uselessness, offer emotional shortcuts when reality feels overwhelming. This vulnerability is not ideological or intellectual; It is human.

Political populism in the digital loop

The same dynamics that shape wartime belief also promote political populism. Simplified narratives divide the world into ‘the people’ and ‘the enemy’, ‘truth’ and ‘corruption', and are intensified by online platforms because they provoke strong reactions.

Over time, repetition turns slogans into common sense. What begins as digital rhetoric does not remain that way: it shapes voting behaviour, public debate and trust in democratic institutions. When identity is constantly reinforced online, compromise offline can begin to feel like betrayal.

Memes sit at the centre of these information campaigns because they move effortlessly across the online–offline divide. They compress complex geopolitical realities into emotionally resonant images that spread easily across borders and languages. Sharing a meme rarely feels like political action; it feels social. Yet each share reinforces narratives, normalises frames and signals belonging to particular groups.

This is the logic of memetic warfare: influence spreads through everyday participation rather than overt persuasion. Ordinary users become participants not because they are deceived, but because the content feels familiar, meaningful or morally obvious. Importantly, the same tools are also used in civic resistance.

Pro-Ukraine memes have been used to ridicule authoritarian power, counter information disorder, and sustain morale. The format itself is not the problem; the ethical intent behind it is.

From digital belief to offline consequence

The consequences of online belief increasingly unfold offline. Narratives circulating online shape how societies respond to war, how migrants and refugees are perceived during crises, and how democratic institutions are trusted or rejected.

The shift from online exposure to offline impact is rarely dramatic. It builds slowly over time: a joke becomes an assumption, a slogan becomes common sense, a repeated frame becomes reality.

As MI5 and MI6 have warned, modern conflict no longer targets only territory or infrastructure, but public trust, perception and cohesion, turning everyday online behaviour into part of a wider information battleground.

In a hybrid conflict, media literacy is less about spotting ‘fake news’ and more about recognising influence as it happens. Resisting information disorder does not require constant vigilance or perfect judgment.

It requires awareness, reflection and a willingness to slow the flow of content designed to weaken trust, empathy and democratic resilience. When encountering content about Ukraine and the war, it can help to pause and consider a few simple questions:

A shared vulnerability — and democratic resilience

No one stands outside the online–offline continuum. Journalists, academics, policymakers, activists and everyday users all navigate the same attention-driven systems. Information disorder campaigns succeed not because people are irrational or malicious, but because they exploit ordinary human responses in environments built for speed, emotion and visibility.

Recognising this shared vulnerability is not a weakness; it is the foundation of democratic resilience. As intelligence agencies have made clear, the struggle over information is now part of how wars are fought.

In that context, the most meaningful resistance often begins with something deceptively small: the decision to pause, reflect, and choose what not to share.

Dr Tine Munk, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Social Sciences