Emerson T. Brooking
BLUF
Emerson T. Brooking is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) and co-author, with P.W. Singer, of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (2018) — the foundational text establishing the analytical frame of social media platforms as military terrain. Since 2022, Brooking has produced substantial open-source intelligence coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war, focused on the information dimension of the conflict — Ukrainian and Russian strategic communication, the role of commercial satellite imagery and social media in battlefield intelligence, and the emerging best practices in OSINT-driven journalism. He represents the generation of analysts whose careers began in the social-media-as-battlespace era and who therefore natively understand its dynamics.
Core Contributions
LikeWar (2018, co-authored with P.W. Singer)
LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media is the text that established social media as a military analytical domain rather than a commercial phenomenon with political side effects. The core arguments:
- Platform architecture determines weaponization potential: Virality mechanics, recommendation algorithms, and engagement-based economics create structural vulnerabilities that bad actors exploit
- ISIS established the playbook: The Islamic State’s Twitter operations (2014–2016) pioneered the tactics — coordinated hashtag campaigns, content calibrated for algorithmic amplification, network effects — that state actors subsequently industrialized
- The 2016 inflection: Russian operations, the 2016 US election, and subsequent state-level information operations demonstrated that social media had become a central battlespace of contemporary conflict
- Implications for democracy: The book’s concluding chapters address the structural tension between social media’s commercial imperatives and democratic information environments
The book’s significance: it translated an emerging phenomenon into a framework analysts could apply. The “weaponization” terminology and ABC-style analysis became standard in the field.
Ukraine War OSINT Coverage (2022–present)
Since February 2022, Brooking has produced sustained analytical coverage of the Ukraine war via DFRLab. His work has focused on:
- Open-source battlefield intelligence: Geolocation and chronolocation of events; force disposition analysis
- Russian information operations: Identification of state narratives; tracking their evolution
- Ukrainian strategic communication: Analysis of the Zelensky communication strategy; Ghost of Kyiv and Snake Island narratives as information warfare
- Platform policy failures: Documentation of how platforms (Telegram especially) enabled Russian operations
- Satellite imagery application: Integration of commercial satellite imagery into real-time conflict monitoring
DFRLab Institutional Work
As DFRLab Senior Resident Fellow, Brooking contributes to:
- Investigative reports on specific information operations
- Methodological development in digital forensic research
- Training and capacity building for the OSINT community internationally
- Policy commentary for US, European, and Ukrainian audiences
Analytical Positioning
Brooking represents a specific analytical generation:
- Native to social media as battlespace: His career has operated entirely in the social-media-centric information environment, giving him intuitions that older analysts often lack
- Operationally practiced: Unlike academic-only analysts, his work is hands-on OSINT practice — geolocation, source verification, cross-platform tracking
- Integrated with Singer’s framework: The LikeWar collaboration created an analytical foundation he continues to extend and refine
- Ukraine-war shaped: The 2022 war has been the defining analytical proving ground for his generation; his work reflects the specific lessons of that conflict
Key Works
- LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (Eamon Dolan / Houghton Mifflin, 2018) — co-authored with P.W. Singer
- Ongoing DFRLab publications (2018–present) — the primary analytical output channel
- Atlantic Council commentary and policy papers — shorter-form policy and strategic analysis
- Twitter/X commentary (@etbrookings) — active real-time analytical thread during major events
Key Connections
- P.W. Singer — LikeWar co-author; doctrinal foundation
- Cognitive Warfare and Algorithmic Disinformation — primary domain
- Information Warfare — doctrinal framework
- Information Operations — operational domain
- Ukraine War — primary ongoing analytical subject
- Geolocation Methodology — core methodological practice
- Troll Farms and Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior — primary research area
- Renée DiResta — peer with parallel trajectory
- Camille François — peer with complementary focus