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Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
How The Actor's Mindset Sharpens Leadership And Communication
G. Riley Mills is an Emmy Award-winning producer and writer, and co-founder of Pinnacle Performance Company. In 1956, sociologist Erving Goffman published his seminal work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which argues that we are all, consciously or not, performers on a social stage. He wrote that we modify our behavior based on who is present and how we want to be perceived—a concept psychologists now refer to as signaling theory. Yet long before Goffman's insight, professional actors intuitively understood this. Every night on stage, they deliberately craft words, movements and emotions to shape an audience's perception. What might surprise you is that these same performance techniques are the key to becoming a more effective leader. The Theater Of Leadership At Pinnacle Performance Company, the training firm I co-founded, we've spent more than two decades coaching Fortune 500 executives, high-profile entrepreneurs and emerging leaders worldwide. Our methodology is built on a simple yet transformative idea: While not everyone is an actor, everyone benefits from adopting the actor's mindset. Communication isn't just a skill; it's a craft. And like any craft, it must be practiced with discipline, focus and intention. When you walk into a meeting, deliver a keynote or facilitate a tough conversation with your team, you're asking for something precious: their attention. Your audience doesn't owe you that. They grant it only when you've earned it through presence, authenticity and clarity of purpose. Every moment you hold their focus is a privilege. As General George S. Patton famously put it (quoted in the Netflix series American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden), "Half of leadership is theater." Patton understood that presence is power: the way you carry yourself, the energy you project and the stories you tell are not incidental; they are instrumental. You can't command influence through title alone. You must communicate it, intentionally and persuasively. That's where the actor's mindset comes in. Objectives And Intentions The connection between a great leader and a great actor is more than surface-level. Both disciplines are rooted in objectives ("What am I trying to achieve?") and intentions ("How am I going to achieve it?"). As Constantin Stanislavski, the father of modern acting, observed, "Every objective must carry in itself the germ of an action." Leadership is no different. Every meeting, every pitch, every conversation should be driven by an explicit objective and powered by deliberate intention. At Pinnacle, we've codified this into a three-step approach we call the Pinnacle Method: 1. Analyze your audience. 2. Identify a desired outcome. 3. Modify your delivery accordingly. It's simple to describe but transformative in execution. Our methodology fuses neuroscience, psychology and performance techniques to create an approach to communication that is adaptable, emotionally intelligent and deeply human. That focus on the "human" element is more critical than ever. In today's age of AI and automation, technical skills are easily replicated. What machines cannot do—at least not yet—is connect emotionally, inspire loyalty and rally others around a shared purpose. That's why L&D leaders are reframing so-called "soft skills" as "human skills"—an essential shift that elevates communication, collaboration and adaptability to core competencies. Nonverbal Communication In my new book, Synergy and Sparks: Unlock Excellence Through Communication, Collaboration, and Influence, I write about this intersection of human connection and leadership effectiveness. The "synergy" I reference comes from aligning connection and motivation, while the "sparks" ignite when we communicate with purpose and energy. One of the key concepts I emphasize is the power of intention. Without it, communication drifts aimlessly. With it, your message becomes a guided missile—targeted, focused, impactful. Intention shapes not only what you say but how you say it. It influences your tone, your posture, your energy—all the nonverbal cues that audiences pick up on, consciously or not. Research shows that much of a person's communication is nonverbal. If your body language and vocal dynamics aren't aligned with your message, your credibility suffers. For example, if your intention is to motivate your sales team, your delivery should embody energy, urgency and optimism. If your goal is to reassure a client during a crisis, your tone must convey steadiness, confidence and empathy. Without aligning your intention to your delivery, your message falls flat. In the corporate world, we often hear leaders say, 'I just want to update the team' or 'I need to inform the board.' Those are weak intentions. Information alone doesn't inspire action. Instead, choose intentions with a higher emotional connection: excite, challenge, persuade, reassure. These verbs signal not just what you want your audience to know, but how you want them to feel. When you marry a clear objective with a powerful intention, you create congruency—what actors call alignment between a speaker's text, subtext and behavior. This is where the magic of influence happens. It's how you capture attention, earn trust and compel others to act. Authenticity And Clarity Of course, adopting the actor's mindset doesn't mean pretending to be someone you're not. Quite the opposite; Stanislavski championed authenticity in performance, and we do the same in leadership. The goal is not to perform inauthentically but to communicate your authentic self with greater clarity and impact. That's the essence of the Pinnacle Method. It's not about teaching you to act; it's about teaching you to activate. To step into each interaction with clarity of purpose, emotional resonance and the agility to adapt in real time. Because here's the truth: Every conversation is a performance. Every meeting is a stage. Every leader is an actor, whether they know it or not. So, the question isn't whether you're performing. The question is: Are you performing well? The great leaders I've worked with don't leave that answer to chance. They prepare with the same rigor an actor brings to a role: understanding their audience, clarifying their objective, choosing a strong intention and delivering with authenticity and purpose. And when they do, the results speak for themselves: higher engagement, deeper trust, stronger influence and, ultimately, better outcomes. In a world where attention is fleeting and influence is currency, the actor's mindset can be your competitive advantage. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Professor who studied love for 40 years and can predict divorce reveals subtle sign of a failing marriage
A leading psychologist known for his expertise in romantic relationships has revealed a major sign that a marriage is facing failure. US-based Dr John Gottman is a marriage and family counsellor and founder of the Gottman Institute, who once conducted one of the largest long-term studies on relationships ever undertaken. As a result of his extensive research, Dr Gottman has identified factors which suggest a relationship is doomed for failure. In a recent video on YouTube, he responded to a question, identifying one of the signs that a coupling is in trouble. He was asked: 'So you can predict divorce. What exactly are you looking for when you observe a couple, and what's the science behind it?' Speaking in the clip, Dr Gottman noted that it depends on the situation in which you are observing a couple. He explained: 'If you're observing them just hanging out, you see what looks like a real willful attempt to disconnect, what Erving Goffman called away behaviors.' These represent a partner saying 'I'm not interested in you. I'm not connected to you, and so whatever you feel and whatever you need doesn't impinge upon me, I don't have to respond to that', the psychologist said. He continued: 'You know, that sort of colossal disinterest when they're just hanging out is really a sign of this relationship is not going to work, and especially in moments where the partner is reaching out, you know, is making themselves vulnerable and saying, "hey, look at this. Join me", you know. 'And being interested in something [for example] watching a boat, looking at a bird, [or saying something like] "join me in a conversation about your brother, because I'm worried about your brother", something like that. 'And what predicts divorce is the [other] person saying, "no, I'm not going to respond to that. I'm not going to respond to your emotions and your your desire to connect with me".' Dr Gottman then discussed what is a very good predictor of divorce when it comes to conflict. He said: 'What we find is that when people have a ratio of positive to negative emotion that is less than five to one. That's a really good predictor.' By this, he means that in a healthy relationship, for every negative interaction, there should be at least five positive ones, to offset the impact of the negative one. A number of viewers took to the comments section to discuss how they felt about Dr Gottman's theory. One said: 'My deceased husband spent the last 15 years if our marriage refusing connection with me. The grief was unbearable, helplessness and despair. Im still having anger and frustration for all those years.' Another mused: 'I wonder if marriage with an avoidant can work because they aren't the type to be vulnerable or accept bids for connection during conflict. Best to avoid imo.' 'My personal opinion is if a spouse shuts the other out and disconnect, thete is nothing the loving spouse can do. Each individual is responsible gor their own behavior. Lots of times the shut down spouse had gone to porn or adultery,' one replied. Dr Gottman, who has written a number of books on marriage, also calls this idea of the 5:1 ratio the 'balance theory' of relationships. 'As long as there are five times as many positive interactions between partners as there are negative, the relationship is likely to be stable,' the Gottman Institute blog explains. Positive interactions can be as small as smiling and laughing together, asking questions or saying I love you. Meanwhile, negative interactions are deemed as things like arguing or criticism. This means, he says, that if you do something that hurts your partner, you have to make up for it five times as much. 'If you do something negative to hurt your partner's feelings, you have to make up for it with five positive things,' Dr Gottman has explained in a video. A number of viewers commented on the video, sharing their views on Dr Gottman's theories 'The equation is not balanced.' Dr Gottman claims that he can predict divorces based on the theory, and that unhappy couples will have more negative interactions that the 'magic' number of the five to one ratio. 'The bottom line: even though some level of negativity is necessary for a stable relationship, positivity is what nourishes your love,' his website states. One way Dr Gottman suggests that couples can up the number of positive interactions they have is by practicing gratitude. He says that couples should regularly demonstrate appreciation and respect for one another, something that sometimes gets lost over time.
India Today
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Who are you when no one's watching? The ghost account test
Who are we when no one is watching?Let's be honest, most of us have at least one secret account online. Not the polished Instagram profile, not the professional LinkedIn page, not even the X account where we try to sound clever. I'm talking about the ghost account. No name. No photo. No followers. Just a quiet, anonymous corner of the internet where we scroll, lurk, maybe argue, maybe stalk, maybe just breathe. It's an account built for invisibility, for presence without performance. But pause and ask: who exactly is this silent presence? Is this shadow persona a more authentic version of us or something entirely different?advertisementIn today's hyper-digital existence, where identity is fragmented across platforms, this question is more urgent than it appears. LinkedIn highlights our ambition. Instagram sells our aesthetics. X captures our witty humor and ideology. Every platform demands performance. A self-carefully constructed for a particular audience. These aren't lies, necessarily. But they are highly selective truths. Sociologist Erving Goffman saw this coming. In his now-classic theory of dramaturgy, he argued that social life is structured like theatre. We're always performing, presenting different versions of ourselves depending on the stage and audience. The 'frontstage' is public, polished, and intentional. The 'backstage' is private, relaxed, and more 'real'. But what's fascinating about the digital age is how it multiplies these stages. And with the emergence of anonymous or pseudonymous accounts, we're forced to ask: what kind of stage is a shadow account?Is it just an extension of the backstage? Or is it something more radical? A space with no audience at all? Perhaps it's a darker theatre, where performance is replaced by impulse, restraint gives way to rawness, and the pressure to appear gives way to the desire to create shadow accounts for all sorts of reasons, most of them not malicious. Some follow celebrities or influencers they publicly roll their eyes at. Others explore forbidden interests— communities, desires, identities—they can't publicly acknowledge. For women especially, shadow accounts are often tactical: a way to scroll in peace, express opinions without harassment, or simply exist online without being sexualised. Anonymity, in these cases, offers a much-needed sense of there's another side to this coin which is less comforting, more corrosive. The same anonymity that offers safety can also become a weapon. Behind nameless handles and cartoon avatars, trolls flourish. Hate speech grows teeth. Anonymity shields the user and disinhibits the mind. The screen becomes a mask and masks liberate people not just from social judgment, but from moral anonymous handles are dedicated to spreading casteist abuse, misogyny, and communal bigotry. Influencers operating through faceless profiles routinely stir up hate against Dalit activists, divorced women, or anyone calling out structural injustice. Toxicity thrives where identity can hide. What looks like a harmless ghost account can become a hub of ideological is where the philosophical tension sharpens. Anonymity can be liberating or corrosive. It can be a quiet space for self-exploration or a breeding ground for dehumanization. And this ambiguity forces us to return to a deeper question: if the self splinters across platforms, masks, and intentions—what, if anything, holds it together?Identity has always fascinated philosophers. But in the age of digital selves and shadow accounts, those old debates suddenly feel immediate. What once lived in books now flickers across screens, logged in browser histories, encoded in John Locke, for instance. For him, identity was continuity. Your sense of self stitched together by memory, thought, and consciousness. If you remember doing something, if you can recall the emotion tied to it, then it's part of you. So yes, by Locke's logic, your anonymous 2 a.m. A Reddit rant or that shady insta comment belongs to your self. Uncomfortable? Definitely. But it contrast that with David Hume. He shattered the idea of a permanent self. According to Hume, we're nothing but bundles of impressions—sensory fragments, emotions, fleeting perceptions. There is no unified 'I.' So your shadow account isn't hiding a deeper version of you; it's just another flicker in the stream. Another bundle. Just as real, just as philosophy brings a completely different set of flips the script entirely. Anatta—no-self. According to this perspective, there is no permanent essence, no core identity at all. What we call the self is just a flux of conditioned experiences. In many ways, the digital age is a perfect mirror for this view. We log in, log out, change usernames, moods, beliefs, aesthetics. Nothing holds still. Identity, online, becomes performative Shaivism introduces the notion of bhasa—transient manifestations that ripple across consciousness. Viewed through this lens, every display picture, bio, tweet, or screen-name is a digital nama-rupa (name-form): an evanescent pattern that flickers into being, holds our attention for a moment, and dissolves with the next science complicates the picture even further. There's no one place in the brain where the self 'lives.' Identity, neuroscience suggests, is emergent shaped by attention, memory, emotion, and constant social feedback. Your sense of self is a moving target, heavily influenced by what you consume and how others respond. Online platforms hijack this feedback loop let's not pretend the platforms themselves are pushes perfection. X weaponizes opinion. YouTube hoards attention. Algorithms reward outrage, shame, and polarization. As Tristan Harris put it, this is 'a race to the bottom of the brainstem.' Shoshana Zuboff calls it what it is 'surveillance capitalism'. Our most raw, impulsive expressions are not accidental, they're of Michel Foucault's Panopticon a metaphor he borrowed from Bentham for explaining modern power. A prison where you never know if you're being watched, so you watch yourself. Social media reverses this: we become our own wardens, curating and censoring our presence even when no one's looking. The self becomes both prisoner and here's where anonymity flips the moral script. Remove the face, remove the name and something changes. Empathy shrinks. Responsibility blurs. Behind avatars, people who are kind in person become John Suler calls this the online disinhibition effect. When identity is hidden, social brakes come off. We become bolder, meaner, weirder. Dissociative anonymity lets us separate our actions from our self-image. Invisibility tricks us into thinking words don't hurt. It's Plato's Ring of Gyges again. Give someone invisibility, and even the noble might Levinas believed that ethics begins in the face of the other, in the vulnerability we recognize there. But online, there is no face. Only usernames. Pixels. Blurred abstractions. The moral bond weakens. We respond not to a person, but to an idea of a person. And that is seen the effects. Remember when Indian diplomat Vikram Misri's daughter was brutally trolled during a diplomatic flare-up? Anonymous users doxxed her, issued threats, and questioned Misri's patriotism. When one troll was exposed, he wasn't some dark web anarchist. He was an employed, middle-class man in his thirties. A regular person. Just faceless, is what anonymity does. It doesn't create evil but it removes the immediate consequences that usually restrain it. Kant's moral imperative to treat others as ends, not means collapses when empathy is filtered through ethical fallout is real, and governments are scrambling to anonymity isn't purely corrosive. It can be life-saving. It provides refuge for whistleblowers revealing corporate malpractice, for LGBTQ+ individuals navigating hostile families or regimes, for survivors quietly tracking their abusers or speaking without fear. Anonymity enables resistance. It allows speech where speech would otherwise be dangerous. But here's the bind it protects the vulnerable and the violent alike. The same cloak that shelters the afraid also shields the aggressor. Navigating this paradox isn't just a design problem. It's an ethical tightrope with no universal shadow accounts ultimately reveal is that identity has always been layered. We've always slipped between selves—professional, intimate, aspirational. There's the one we show our boss, the one we show our friends, and the one that only appears at 3 a.m. with a screen glow in the dark. Social media didn't invent these divisions. It simply exposed them. Made them searchable.. And in this visibility, ancient philosophical questions re-emerge in everyday behavior: Who am I, really? Am I the curated feed, or the deleted draft? Am I the witty username, or the handle I created just to comment on politics, fandoms, or kink?Maybe identity was never supposed to be singular. Maybe we've always been multitudes in motion. Not stable, not final, not fully knowable. But ongoing a negotiation between performance and sincerity, between being seen and staying not necessarily a crisis. It can be liberating. Confusion doesn't imply inauthenticity. It's a sign of evolution. Of being alive. The tension between our public selves and private experiments often generates our best insight, our deepest art, our most genuine empathy. It's where contradiction lives—and where creativity identity was never about finding one pure self. Perhaps it's always been about holding space for all the selves we become. The ones we show. The ones we hide. The ones that show up only when no one's it's often in those invisible corners of the internet—unfiltered, untagged, unnamed—that something unexpectedly honest slips out. Not despite the mask, but because of time while scrolling through your feed, ask yourself, quietly:Who are you at that exact moment?Who are you, when no one is watching?- Ends
The Hindu
30-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Hindu
What did you do this weekend?
Every Monday morning, in the liminal space between work and routine, a familiar question drifts through India's cities. It's heard in the offices of Bengaluru, on the terraces of Bandra, in the awkward silence before Zoom calls begin: 'So… what did you do this weekend?' It sounds innocent enough — small talk, a social placeholder. But like all good rituals, it's loaded. For many young urban Indians, it's less about plans than projection, and more about who you were while doing it. This is the hidden psychology of modern leisure. In the language of Erving Goffman, the 20th-century Canadian-American sociologist who likened life to a stage, we've moved our weekend from the backstage of anonymity to the frontstage of performance. The weekend used to be a breath. Now it's a brand. I first noticed it in Mumbai, walking past a sunlit studio in Bandra where a dozen 20- and 30-somethings were shaping clay into mugs. They worked in silence, brows furrowed in concentration. Later, I'd hear from a participant who said, 'It just feels good to use my hands for something.' She didn't say she liked pottery. She said she liked using her hands. That's the language of intentionality, of meaning-seeking — a telling linguistic tic of a generation that wants its free time to say something about its inner life. And this isn't unique. From sourdough starters to film cameras, salsa classes to stargazing meetups, young Indians are filling their weekends with activities that are, consciously or not, acts of self-curation. Psychologists might call this narrative identity: the stories we tell ourselves (and others) about who we are and why we matter. We measure rest. We track joy. We optimise the weekend. In resisting the 9-to-5, we've built a 5-to-9 that looks eerily similar. The harder we try to escape productivity's grip, the more we reinvent it. Access and instant gratification To understand how we got here, it helps to look at the numbers. India is now home to over 600 million people under the age of 35, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence study. In cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad, a new class of young professionals — many unmarried, many living away from their families — have both the income and the autonomy to shape their downtime. This demographic shift is seismic. A generation ago, weekends in India were not individual experiences; they were communal and obligation-heavy. Visiting relatives. Catching a movie with cousins. Running errands for the household. The idea that you would 'do something for yourself' on a weekend was, if not selfish, then certainly rare. But today's urban Indian is surrounded by different signals. Time has become a currency, and weekends are seen as investments: of energy, of identity, of social capital. The stakes are high because the time is short. And into this temporal vacuum has stepped an entire industry. To really understand the psychology of today's curated weekend, you have to travel back — not to the last decade, but to the 1950s and 60s, when India's middle-class was forged in the quiet discipline of scarcity. As Surinder S. Jodhka, a sociology professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, points out, 'Consumer goods then weren't just hard to afford, they were often impossible to find.' Desire wasn't about acquisition. It was about patience. The good life was deferred, not displayed. Urban India, even then, set the tone — what was aspirational in Delhi eventually became meaningful everywhere else. But the post-liberalisation shift cracked that model open. The Nehruvian ethic of restraint gave way to a new moral order: one that celebrated access, aspiration, and immediate gratification. Today's weekend, in many ways, is a symptom of that transformation. The people shaping their Saturdays around calligraphy classes and handmade pasta aren't just spending — they're rewriting the script of middle-class aspiration. The good life is no longer about waiting. It's about choosing. The value of variety This growing demand for meaningful, shareable moments has sparked a surge in curated experiences. The idea once captured by the iconic Tata Safari ad — 'Reclaim your life' — no longer calls for a road trip or an SUV. It's happening in two-hour workshops and weekend retreats, micro-escapes designed to restore a sense of control, creativity, and self. According to Prof. Anirban Chakraborty of IIM Lucknow, 'This is part of a broader shift among young professionals: the urge to close the gap between the real self and the ideal self through curated, meaningful experiences.' He calls it an 'experience-seeking economy' — where value isn't just about relaxation, but variety, novelty, and narrative. The more diverse the activity, the richer the self-story. And in this context, even leisure becomes a kind of emotional labour. Borrowing from American sociologist Arlie Hochschild, we could say we're toggling between shallow acting (performing interest) and deep acting (genuinely feeling it). Pottery isn't just about clay — it's about who you are while shaping it. As Akash Biswas, a 29-year-old consultant in Gurugram, explains, there's a constant pressure to appear interesting — to have hobbies that spark conversation or shine on social media. 'Sometimes, in pretending to be curious, you actually become curious,' he says. He once tried a sushi-making class, signed up for improv comedy, and even joined a weekend hiking group. 'Improv really stuck with me,' he admits. 'It felt freeing to just respond in the moment, without overthinking — kind of like a break from the polished version of myself I usually present [to everyone].' And he's still exploring. 'I want to be the guy who picks up odd, cool hobbies — and who knows, maybe I'll actually like one of them.' Economic impact of curated leisure You can trace much of how Indians spend their weekends today back to the pandemic — a moment that forced millions indoors, nudging them towards slower, more tactile experiences. Suddenly, the kitchen wasn't just where you ate; it was where you created. Across cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Pune, boutique studios began to crop up, offering everything from ceramics classes in Koramangala to calligraphy workshops tucked into Mumbai's Kala Ghoda Festival. Last month saw a series of pop-ups inviting people to try their hand at cyanotype photography or even brew their own kombucha — a strange, artisanal rebellion against the instant and disposable. Meanwhile, micro-retreats promising 'peace in 48 hours', complete with sound baths and journaling, have taken hold in places like Goa and Auroville. Behind this burst of activity lies a bigger truth: where identity lives, economy follows. India's 'experience economy' in Tier 1 cities is growing 30% year-on-year, fuelled by millennials and Gen Z, according to a joint study by Boston Consulting Group and the Retailers Association of India. This isn't just consumption; it's participation in a narrative economy — where your weekend is a chapter in the story of who you want to be. But it's more than just business, it's psychology. The modern urban professional never truly clocks out. Work seeps into phones, chats, even dreams. So free time becomes sacred. And it can't just be empty — it must be meaningful. A hike is wellness. A photo walk isn't just about light; it's about taste and style. Even 'doing nothing' comes with hashtags such as #DigitalDetox or #SlowLiving. Leisure has become a soft performance review — not of skills, but of sensibility. It isn't all performance Still, for some, the appeal isn't performance at all. It's access. 'Growing up, most of these things were either unavailable or unaffordable,' says Priya Yadav, a 31-year-old graphic designer in Bengaluru. 'Now I can try a pottery class on a whim. It feels like having a cultural buffet right in my neighbourhood.' That sense of possibility is echoed by Arjun Mehra, a finance professional in Mumbai. 'Growing up, eating out was reserved for special occasions — a treat, not a routine. Now, with food clubs and casual meetups, it's become a part of everyday life. I get to explore new cuisines and spots every weekend.' And it's not just about eating out; it's about being experimental, about tasting the world — from Korean BBQ pop-ups to Ethiopian injera dinners — and reconnecting with regional traditions. There is something undeniably hopeful here. After years of screen saturation, the return to analogue — the handmade, the slow — is more than a trend. It's cultural therapy. The people shaping clay or writing poems aren't posing; they're recovering something lost. 'The return to analogue is an intentional choice for many. There is something quiet about it. You have to zone in; you cannot be lost in your devices,' shares Varun Gupta, co-founder of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB), whose workshops, from cyanotype photography, film development and printing to Van Dyke Brown printing, are always sold out. He doesn't feel that the people CPB attracts are there to merely check boxes or share posts on social media. 'It's about tactility. People want to work with their hands; they are tired of typing and scrolling. Just being able to paint chemicals on paper is such a unique feeling that it kicks off a separate set of endorphins in your brain. It helps you rescript your day to day, and heal your soul,' adds Gupta. Building a new yet similar 5-to-9 And yet the paradox remains. The harder we try to escape productivity's grip, the more we reinvent it. We measure rest. We track joy. We optimise the weekend. In resisting the 9-to-5, we've built a 5-to-9 that looks eerily similar. Sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls this search for 'resonance', our deep craving to feel connected and alive. When leisure hits the mark, it does just that. But when every moment must resonate, it stops feeling real. It becomes performance. So, where does it go from here? If curated leisure is a response to burnout and alienation, its next phase may not be about more options, but a quieter kind of honesty. In the West, signs of this shift are already visible. 'Nothing clubs' in London gather people simply to be, while movements such as 'bare minimum Mondays' in the U.S. push back against hyper-efficiency. India isn't far behind. The same generation that gamified rest is now bumping up against the fatigue of constant optimisation. The next iteration of leisure may hinge less on what we do and more on how we feel doing it. Less proof, more presence. Because maybe the ultimate luxury isn't a kombucha workshop or a calligraphy kit. It's being boring — and being okay with it. So the next time someone asks, 'What did you do this weekend?', perhaps the most honest — and subversive — answer is: 'Nothing much.' And let that be enough. The author works in consulting by day and writes about culture, business, and modern life.
AllAfrica
26-04-2025
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Before the missiles: How disinformation could spark Asia's next war
'The problem with fake news is not that people believe it. The problem is that they don't believe anything anymore.' — Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century In February 2022, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered the largest European conflict since World War II. But this war isn't just being fought with tanks and missiles — it's also a relentless battle over truth and perception. From Kyiv to Moscow, and from Washington to Beijing, propaganda, disinformation and media manipulation have become critical tools of modern warfare. While most of the spotlight remains on physical battlegrounds, the struggle for narrative dominance is strongly shaping the war's trajectory. The information war is being waged globally — and Asia is watching closely. As geopolitical tensions rise across the Indo-Pacific, particularly in Taiwan, the South China Sea and as ever the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine conflict offers sobering lessons in how disinformation can be used to destabilize, divide and dominate. Propaganda has long been used to manufacture consent, justify aggression and suppress dissent. In the 21st century, however, its scope and scale have grown exponentially thanks to digital platforms, algorithmic amplification and a fragmented media landscape. Russian state media outlets such as RT and Sputnik have become central to the Kremlin's narrative strategy. These platforms don't simply broadcast news — they shape realities. By framing Russia's actions as 'defensive' and painting Ukraine as a Western puppet state, Moscow has rallied domestic support and muddied international waters. But the West has its own narratives. US and European media frame the conflict as an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation — a framing reinforced by NATO, EU institutions and global human rights organizations. The result? Competing realities where audiences consume drastically different versions of the same event. The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2024 lists 'misinformation and disinformation' among the top threats to global stability. In conflict zones, this threat is magnified. False narratives, deepfakes and coordinated campaigns blur the line between fact and fiction, weakening public trust in journalism, governance and even democracy itself. This erosion of trust extends far beyond Ukraine. In Asia, governments from India to the Philippines have faced and used disinformation campaigns—both foreign and domestic—that polarize societies and distort elections. In Taiwan, digital propaganda from China aims to discredit the democratic process and sow division. These aren't isolated incidents — they're previews of a future shaped by invisible warfare. Media framing plays a decisive role in how populations understand conflict. According to Erving Goffman's Framing Theory, how information is presented influences how people perceive reality. Consider the 2022 missile strike on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, a city in Ukraine. Western media labeled it a deliberate Russian attack on civilians, citing satellite imagery and Ukrainian sources. Russian outlets claimed the target was a military facility and accused Western media of exaggeration. The incident exemplifies how the same event can generate two divergent truths — one for the West, another for Russia's domestic audience. Propaganda doesn't just manipulate facts — it manufactures consensus. During Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, state media claimed 95% of residents supported the move, despite reports of coercion and a lack of international observers. The goal wasn't just to legitimize the annexation — it was to silence dissent by presenting unity as fact. In Asia, similar tactics have been used to frame controversial actions. China's handling of Hong Kong protests, India's narrative around Kashmir or Myanmar's coverage of the Rohingya crisis all show how governments use media control to build the illusion of national consensus while marginalizing opposition voices. One of the most troubling consequences of information warfare is the creation of parallel realities. In Russia, the invasion of Ukraine is widely seen as a 'special military operation' to protect ethnic Russians and counter NATO aggression. In the West, it is viewed as a blatant breach of international law. This polarization makes diplomatic dialogue nearly impossible. When populations are fed mutually exclusive worldviews, compromise becomes a sign of weakness, not progress. This pattern is visible in Asia as well — from cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwanto domestic divides over foreign policy in Japan and South Korea. Despite intense propaganda from Russian media and its allies, Ukrainian public opinion has remained largely pro-Western. A 2023 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 89% of Ukrainians support NATO membership. Even in historically pro-Russian areas, support for Ukrainian sovereignty is rising. However, war fatigue is setting in. Gallup reported that support for fighting until total victory dropped from 73% in 2022 to 38% in 2023. These shifting sentiments highlight the psychological toll of prolonged conflict — a reality that authoritarian regimes often exploit through information manipulation. The Russia-Ukraine war offers a grim forecast of what unchecked disinformation can do — not just to nations at war, but to the international system at large. For Asia, the implications are clear: if disinformation remains unchallenged, it will continue to erode public trust, undermine democratic institutions and inflame regional tensions. The Indo-Pacific is already a hotspot for narrative battles. China's media expansion, North Korea's cyber propaganda, and growing domestic disinformation in Southeast Asia all point to a future where digital influence operations become the norm. Asia must invest in media literacy, cybersecurity and cross-border collaboration to defend against this invisible warfare. Otherwise, the next major battle may be fought not with weapons, but with words — and Asia could be the next front line. The Russia-Ukraine conflict isn't just reshaping Eastern Europe — it's redefining how wars are fought and understood. As Harari suggests, the greatest threat may not be that people believe lies, but that they cease to believe anything at all. For Asia, the stakes couldn't be higher. As information becomes weaponized, the region must act decisively to protect truth, transparency, and trust — before reality itself becomes just another battleground. Zaheer Ahmed Baloch is an international relations scholar focused on security & media dynamics in global affairs
