It is an old phrase that a picture is a worth of over a thousand words but the new phrase is an altered image is worth of thousands of lies (deception). This and many thing related to propaganda, information warfare and different kind of deception operations are very well defined and explained Scot Macdonald’s Propaganda and Information Warfare in the Twenty-First Century . While it was published in 2007, the international event of the last few years warrants a closer examination of this book.

The book is divided into eleven cohesive chapters. Macdonald’s research attracts the attention of the readers interested in staging journalism, altered images, psychological warfare, deceptions in international relations and diplomacy and – indeed – the role of media in all these operations.

The early five chapters are all about the explanations – with historical examples – of information warfare including deceptions in psychological operations and how the media is being used effectively as a modern weapon of modern conflict. Chapters, six and seven, explore war deception – its principles and stratagems. In these chapters, Macdonald relies on past examples of conflicts to construct his scholarly argument.