The Architects of Narrative Evolution: Actor Interventions Across the SAGES Framework in Information Campaigns

This paper introduces an actor-oriented expansion of the SAGES Framework to analyze how adversarial and constructive actors strategically shape narratives across five stages of evolution, demonstrating its utility through case studies of the 2021 Myanmar coup and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war to inform countermeasures in contested information ecosystems.

The Gist

Imagine the internet not just as a place where people chat, but as a giant, living garden. In this garden, stories (narratives) grow like plants. Sometimes, these plants are beautiful flowers that help us understand the world. Other times, they are invasive weeds that choke out the truth and poison the soil.

This paper argues that these stories don't just "happen" on their own. They are carefully planted, watered, and pruned by specific people (actors) who want to control what we think and how we act.

The authors, researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Singapore's Ministry of Defence, created a new tool called the SAGES Framework to track how these stories grow from a tiny seed into a massive, unchangeable forest. They call it SAGES because it has five stages: Seeding, Amplification, Galvanization, Expansion, and Stickiness.

Here is how the framework works, using the analogy of a garden battle between two teams: the Weed-Planters (adversaries like dictators or troll farms) and the Gardeners (constructive actors like fact-checkers, journalists, and regular people).

The Five Stages of a Story's Life

1. Seeding (Planting the Seed)

• What happens: This is the very beginning. A lie or a manipulative story is planted in a hidden corner of the internet.
• The Weed-Planters: They sneak a poisonous seed into the soil. For example, before the 2021 Myanmar coup, the military secretly spread rumors that an election was rigged, even though it wasn't.
• The Gardeners: The good guys try to spot the seed before it sprouts. They might say, "Hey, that's a fake seed!" or "We checked the soil, there's no evidence of fraud."

2. Amplification (Watering and Fertilizing)

• What happens: The story starts to grow. It needs water to get big fast.
• The Weed-Planters: They use "robotic sprinklers" (bots) and paid influencers to water the seed thousands of times a day. They make the lie look like it's everywhere. In the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia used thousands of fake accounts to flood social media with stories about "Nazis" in Ukraine.
• The Gardeners: They try to turn off the sprinklers. They ban the fake accounts, label the posts as "False," or slow down the algorithm so the story doesn't go viral.

3. Galvanization (The Plant Blooms and Shouts)

• What happens: The story is now big enough to make people feel strong emotions. It stops being just a story and starts making people angry or scared.
• The Weed-Planters: They use the plant to scream, "Look at this monster! We must fight it!" They want to turn online anger into real-world action. In Myanmar, they called protesters "terrorists" to make people support the military crushing them.
• The Gardeners: They try to calm the crowd. They might say, "Wait, let's look at the facts," or they organize a counter-movement to show the truth. In Ukraine, a group called NAFO used funny memes to mock the Russian propaganda, making it look silly instead of scary.

4. Expansion (The Plant Spreads Its Roots)

• What happens: The story leaves the garden and affects the real world. People start protesting, governments start fighting, or countries start isolating each other.
• The Weed-Planters: They try to export their weed to other gardens. They team up with other bad actors to make their story look global. Myanmar's military tried to get Russia to help spread their story to the world.
• The Gardeners: The rest of the world steps in. Diplomats might cut ties with the bad guys, or other countries might send their own gardeners to help clean up the mess.

5. Stickiness (The Plant Becomes a Tree)

• What happens: The story is so old and big that it feels like a permanent part of the landscape. People believe it without thinking.
• The Weed-Planters: They try to make the weed unkillable. They ban all other plants (censorship) so nothing else can grow. In Russia and Myanmar, they arrested journalists and blocked the internet so people only hear the lie.
• The Gardeners: They try to keep a small patch of truth alive. They use secret tunnels (VPNs), shortwave radios, or underground newspapers to keep the truth flowing, hoping that one day the truth will grow back.

Two Real-Life Battles

The paper looks at two specific battles to prove this works:

1. The 2021 Myanmar Coup: The military planted a lie about election fraud. They used bots to water it, called protesters "terrorists" to make people angry, and then tried to cut off all internet access to make their lie the only truth. But, regular citizens and exiled journalists kept the truth alive using secret apps and international pressure.
2. The 2022 Russia-Ukraine War: Russia planted a lie that Ukraine was run by Nazis. They used a massive "firehose" of fake news to drown out the truth. But, Western countries warned people beforehand (pre-bunking), banned Russian TV, and regular people used memes and fact-checking to fight back.

Why Does This Matter?

The authors say that to win the war against lies, we can't just look at the "weed" (the fake news) itself. We have to look at who is planting it and what stage of growth it is in.

• If we catch the Seed, we can stop it before it starts.
• If we stop the Watering (Amplification), the story stays small.
• If we calm the Anger (Galvanization), people won't riot.
• If we block the Spread (Expansion), the lie stays local.
• If we keep the Truth alive (Stickiness), the lie eventually dies.

The Big Takeaway:
Information warfare isn't just about computers and bots; it's a human drama played out on a digital stage. By understanding the "SAGES" stages, we can figure out exactly where to intervene to stop bad stories from taking over our world, and how to help the good stories grow strong enough to survive.

Technical Summary

Based on the paper "The Architects of Narrative Evolution: Actor Interventions Across the SAGES Framework in Information Campaigns," here is a detailed technical summary covering the problem, methodology, key contributions, results, and significance.

1. Problem Statement

Current frameworks for analyzing information campaigns (e.g., MITRE ATTA&CK, D3FEND, BEND) are limited in scope. They typically:

• Focus exclusively on the digital realm, failing to account for the transition of narratives from online discourse to offline physical consequences (e.g., protests, violence, policy changes).
• Analyze single actors or static actions (e.g., bot networks) rather than the dynamic, coordinated interplay between diverse adversarial and constructive actors over time.
• Lack a structured model to trace how narratives mutate and evolve as they traverse platform boundaries and sociopolitical contexts.

The authors argue that narratives are not merely organic viral phenomena but are strategically engineered by a complex ecosystem of actors (state actors, troll farms, fact-checkers, platforms, grassroots movements) to influence public perception and behavior. There is a critical need for a framework that maps these actor interventions across the entire lifecycle of a narrative, from digital inception to real-world impact.

2. Methodology

The paper employs a qualitative comparative case study approach grounded in an actor-oriented analytical framework.

• Framework Development: The authors developed the SAGES Framework through iterative coding and analysis by three information researchers with backgrounds in government and civil society. The framework synthesizes prior work on narrative lifecycles (MITRE, BEND) and cognitive psychology (stickiness of truth/myths).
• Case Studies: Two distinct geopolitical events were selected to test the framework's versatility:
  1. The 2021 Myanmar Military Coup: Analyzing the erosion of democratic norms and the justification of authoritarian power.
  2. The 2022 Russia–Ukraine War: Analyzing the weaponization of information to legitimize interstate aggression.
• Data Analysis: The authors mapped specific actor interventions (both adversarial and constructive) against the five stages of the SAGES model for both cases. This involved identifying specific tactics (e.g., bot networks, pre-bunking, diplomatic isolation) and their outcomes at each stage.
• Cross-Case Synthesis: A comparative analysis was conducted to identify common patterns, divergences in tactical sophistication, and the effectiveness of counter-measures across different sociopolitical environments.

3. Key Contributions: The SAGES Framework

The primary contribution is the SAGES Framework, a five-stage model that traces narrative evolution and identifies intervention points for various actors:

1. Seeding: The introduction of narratives into the ecosystem.
   • Adversarial: Exploiting fringe forums, anonymous leaks, or ambiguous events to plant false premises (e.g., alleging election fraud).
   • Constructive: Pre-emptive debunking and official rebuttals to deflate narratives before they gain traction.
2. Amplification: The rapid rise in visibility and engagement.
   • Adversarial: Use of bot networks, coordinated influencers, and state media to saturate channels; migration to alternative platforms (e.g., Telegram, TikTok) when banned.
   • Constructive: De-platforming, algorithmic down-ranking, fact-checking, and removing imitation accounts.
3. Galvanization: The shift from digital discourse to real-world mobilization.
   • Adversarial: Using polarizing frames to incite outrage, label opponents as "terrorists," and provoke calls to action.
   • Constructive: Deploying counter-narratives, pre-bunking, and grassroots digital resistance to mobilize solidarity against misinformation.
4. Expansion: The translation of online mobilization into real-world actions (protests, international propaganda).
   • Adversarial: Forming international alliances (e.g., with other state media) to export narratives and gain legitimacy.
   • Constructive: Diplomatic isolation, policy coordination, and targeted outreach to vulnerable demographics (e.g., Global South).
5. Stickiness: The cultural entrenchment of a narrative.
   • Adversarial: Extreme censorship, criminalization of dissent, and suppression of alternative voices to normalize the false narrative.
   • Constructive: Archival fact-checking, investigative journalism, and media literacy to preserve informational pluralism and prevent long-term internalization of falsehoods.

4. Results

The application of the SAGES framework to the Myanmar and Russia-Ukraine cases yielded several key findings:

• Actor Diversity: Influence campaigns are not driven solely by automated bots but by a hybrid ecosystem involving state leadership, troll farms, coordinated human networks, and constructive actors (platforms, NGOs, governments).
• Tactical Convergence: Both cases utilized similar core tactics:
  • Seeding: Fabricating pretexts (Myanmar: election fraud; Russia: genocide/Nazis) to justify illegitimate actions.
  • Amplification: Heavy reliance on state media and coordinated digital networks, though Russia demonstrated higher sophistication with "firehose of falsehood" strategies and astroturfing.
  • Galvanization: Mobilizing nationalist sentiment against a constructed enemy, countered effectively by grassroots movements (e.g., #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar, NAFO).
  • Expansion: Efforts to export narratives internationally, with Russia targeting the Global South and Myanmar seeking authoritarian alliances.
  • Stickiness: Both regimes resorted to severe domestic censorship and legal penalties to entrench narratives, while constructive actors used circumvention tools (VPNs, shortwave radio) to maintain truth flows.
• Effectiveness of Countermeasures: The study highlights that interventions are most effective when stage-specific. For example, "pre-bunking" is crucial at the Seeding stage, while diplomatic isolation is vital during Expansion. However, the "Stickiness" stage remains the most difficult to reverse, requiring long-term resilience strategies like media literacy.

5. Significance

• Theoretical Advancement: The paper moves beyond static, platform-bound analyses to offer a temporal, cross-platform, and digital-to-physical continuum. It bridges the gap between technical cybersecurity frameworks and sociopolitical impact analysis.
• Practical Utility: The SAGES framework provides a roadmap for policymakers, platform designers, and researchers to identify specific vulnerabilities at each stage of a narrative's lifecycle. It suggests targeted interventions (e.g., anomaly detection at Seeding, algorithmic friction at Amplification, pre-bunking at Galvanization).
• Policy Implications: The authors emphasize the need for integrated responses involving law enforcement, cyber agencies, and media liaisons. They also highlight the trade-offs between disrupting manipulation and preserving freedom of expression, advocating for transparent and proportional countermeasures.
• Future Research: The framework opens avenues for quantifying actor influence, simulating multi-actor interactions in synthetic environments, and addressing emerging challenges like AI-generated content and deepfakes in low-literacy information ecosystems.

In conclusion, the paper establishes that understanding the dynamic interplay of actors across the SAGES stages is essential for diagnosing how online narratives contribute to societal polarization and for developing effective countermeasures in contested information ecosystems.