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

2026-03-06

AI Summary

This study addresses the strategic manipulation of narratives in digital spaces by adversarial and constructive actors, which profoundly shapes public perception and sociopolitical dynamics. Innovatively adopting an actor-centered approach, it dynamically extends the SAGES framework—comprising Seeding, Amplification, Agitation, Expansion, and Solidification—to elucidate the intervention logic and operational mechanisms employed across narrative evolution stages. Through a comparative analysis of the 2021 Myanmar coup and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, integrating narrative analysis with information operations modeling, the research systematically unpacks the tactical pathways of narrative manipulation. It further proposes targeted countermeasures, offering both theoretical insights and practical analytical tools for understanding and navigating influence campaigns within contemporary information ecosystems.

Technology Category

• Multiagent Systems: Adversarial Agents
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Adversarial Learning
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Responsible Web: Mitigating misinformation and disinformation
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Sentiment analysis and opinion mining

Abstract

Narratives in digital spaces are not merely organic phenomena. They are strategically shaped by a range of actors to influence public perception, behavior, and sociopolitical outcomes. This paper offers an actor-oriented expansion of the SAGES Framework, a five-stage model that traces the evolution of narratives from digital inception to real-world impact: Seeding, Amplification, Galvanization, Expansion, and Stickiness. This framework maps how adversarial and constructive actors intervene at each stage to accelerate, redirect, or counter narrative trajectories. Through comparative case studies of the 2021 Myanmar military coup and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, we show how narrative manipulation campaigns unfold and how targeted interventions can mitigate their effects. The SAGES framework contributes a practical lens for analyzing influence operations and developing countermeasures in an era of contested information ecosystems.

Problem

• narrative evolution
• actor interventions
• information campaigns
• SAGES Framework
• influence operations

Innovation

• SAGES Framework
• narrative evolution
• actor-oriented analysis
• information campaigns
• influence operations