Background
CATHERINE L. WADDELL
I am a senior at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart. My Advanced Integrated Studies project includes a website documenting my research, ongoing site visits, and interviews. In May, I will present the findings of my research in am academic forum open to the community.
Soft Power Evaluation Framework
- I developed the Soft Power Evaluation Framework as a way to determine how trustworthy a site of soft power is on a numeric scale of 1-100. While other indexes and frameworks exist to measure soft power, including Global Soft Power Index by Brand Finance, Soft Power 30 by Portland, the IFG-Monocle Soft Power Index, Global Soft Power Index (IMF), and The HEPI Soft Power Index, I did not in my research find a framework for measuring the degree of trustworthiness or manipulation of assets such as social media accounts and news sources.
- I wanted to better understand the intersection of disinformation and soft power that was not necessarily used for manipulation by foreign governments. I therefore brainstormed seven categories or degrees to which sites of soft power are backed by state manipulation so that a user could determine if they were more likely engaging with propaganda or fact-based information.
- The first version of this framework includes the following categories: Institutional, Facilitated, Coercive, Sharp Power, Strategic, and Manipulative.
- I applied a simple mathematical formula to take into account factors including: authenticity, communication accessibility, institutional independence, scale/reach, and impact/ effectiveness.
- I used AI to code the app.