Formed in 2015 The 77th Brigade is a group of 1500 UK Army soldiers and support who work on “controlling the narrative” on social media including Facebook and Twitter.
Here is an article from The Guardian on The 77th Brigade
The serious nature of all this though is the possibility of psychological warfare being waged by the state upon those outside the mainstream narrative. The unit is involved in psychological operations and more as described below on the Ministry of Defence website.
From the MOD website:
77th Brigade is a combined Regular Army and Army Reserve unit. The Reserve element draws specialists on a nationwide basis. This new Brigade aims to challenge the difficulties of modern warfare using non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of the opposing forces and adversaries.
77th Brigade is formed from; the Military Stabilisation and Support Group, Media Operations Group, 15 Psychological Operations Group and the Security Capacity Building team. The 4 individual units above were reshaped and formed the structure of 77th Brigade.
77th Brigade is an agent of change; through targeted Information Activity and Outreach it contributes to the success of military objectives in support of Land Component Commanders, whilst reducing the cost in casualties and resources.
77th Brigade outputs are a fundamental part of the Army’s Integrated Action model.
Aside from the delivery and support of Information Activities and Outreach (the latter encompassing Capacity Building, Infrastructure and Support to Governance), the Brigade has a role in planning and advising both across the Army and wider Defence.
- Conducting timely and appropriate Audience, Actor and Adversary Analysis (A3A).
- Planning and integrating IA&O into supported military HQs and units.
- Supporting and delivering IA&O within pre-designated boundaries or across an operational area.
- Supporting counter-adversarial IA within pre-designated boundaries or operational area.
- Support to Partners Across Government (PAG) upstream and post-conflict institutional development/reform through Outreach.
- Collecting, creating and disseminating digital and wider media content in support of designated missions and tasks.
- Monitoring and evaluating the information environment within boundaries or operational area.
- Information Activity Group – Planning support focusing on the behavioural analysis of actors, audiences and adversaries. Provides the detail synchronisation and delivery of effect
- Task Group – Provides highly deployable specialists to other parts of the Armed Forces and Government organisations
- Outreach Group – Provides professional specialists in Security Capacity Building in Defence
- Support Group – Media Operations and Civil Affairs
- Engineer & Logistic Staff Corps (ELSC) Group – A powerful and influential specialist Army Reserve unit providing engineering, logistics and communication consultancy to both the MOD and across government agencies.
