Propaganda In The Digital Age

Levent Buyukkilic

SHAPE American High School - Department of Defense

Abstract

This paper discusses the effectiveness of propaganda and fake news in the digital age that we live in.

This paper dives into how fake news, propaganda and bot networks influenced political

events, and why it is still important to study and understand propaganda. Propaganda

is different today then it was a few decades ago, and it is important for people to understand the

ever-quickly developing landscape of the World Wide Web in order to not fall for modern methods of manipulation.

Introduction

Propaganda is typically used as a tool used in mass society to directly influence and manipulate the

general public. In his book The Propaganda Menace, Frederick Lumley defines propaganda as

“promotion that is concealed in some manner regarding its source or origin, the interests involved, the

techniques used, the content disseminated, and the outcomes accruing to the victims—any one, any two,

any three, any four, or all five” (Lumley). Furthermore, according to Jowett and O’Donell,

propaganda is “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and

direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” (7).

In today’s digital era, misinformation and fake news are some of the examples of altered

communication that often overlaps with propaganda. While propaganda and fake news are

purposefully created to alter information in order to influence the public, misinformation on the other

hand, is false information that does not always have the objective of misleading, and could instead

be spread by those who believe it to be true. One of the pioneers of propaganda studies,

Harold D. Lasswell is known for developing a foundational communication model that is still used

to analyze propaganda, the development, and distribution of communications to this day.

The Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election in the United States is a remarkable

example of propaganda in recent times. It was an effort to sway public opinion and ultimately

impact the election’s outcome by utilizing social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram

to distribute said propaganda. This intervention is an example of how modern propaganda

may use social media sites to sway public opinion. Thus, it is important to study and

understand propaganda in the digital age not only by classic communication theories like that

of Lasswell’s, but also through the spread of fake news and misinformation.

Discussion

Fake News

One way of changing the public’s view is through the use of social media, fake news, and misinformation.

Over the last decade or so, fake news and misinformation have been spread all throughout various

social media platforms. One journalist writes about their own experience on social media and states

that they have “seen numerous posts and videos being shared over the past months filled with

misinformation in the forms of bias, conflict of interest, and blatant lies” (Moran 1247).

Because social media is so easy to access, it is a very effective way to spread lies and misinformation.

It is very easy to both spread lies and see them. Spreading lies is as easy as someone posting or

sharing false information, whether it be by accident due to a lack of understanding, or on purpose, and

to view said lies, is but one click away. It is because of this ease of accessibility that

“there has been widespread concern that misinformation on social media” (Allcott et al. 1).

But what makes fake news and misinformation so believable to the public? Pennycook and

Rand investigate this in an article for the Trends in Cognitive Sciences peer-reviewed journal.

The two found that “People are more likely to believe news content that is concordant (versus discordant)

with their political partisanship” (389) and that “engaging in more deliberation should lead to more

politically polarized beliefs – and, most importantly, to greater belief in politically concordant but

false claim” (392). From this study, we can conclude that people are much more likely to believe

in information that is presented to them if the information is aligned with their political beliefs,

even if the information is false, sometimes very blatantly. Another remark from the same article found

that “it seems that people fail to discern truth from falsehood because they do not stop to reflect

sufficiently on their prior knowledge (or have insufficient or inaccurate prior knowledge)” (393). This

suggests that another reason why fake news and misinformation is so effective is because most people

do not stop to think about whether the information that was presented to them is credible or not.

This proves especially correct for the field of social media, where most users do not stop to think

about much of anything, let alone about news. This could also go for traditional news outlets, as

most people simply trust what the big journalists and outlets say and move on with their day

without stopping to think or verify whether that information was actually true.

Still, the question remains of what exactly the results and consequences of misinformation and fake

news are. A very recent example of a surge of misinformation was during the

SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, commonly referred to as COVID-19. When the pandemic hit the global stage,

a majority of the world used social media platforms for information which paved the way

for them to “become one of the major outlets for the rapid dissemination of information and thus

has significant impacts on misinformation” (Caceres et al. 265). The most prevalent topic of

misinformation was on the vaccine for said pandemic, as well as many other healthcare risks.

Misinformation and fake news “perpetuated beliefs that led to vaccine avoidance, mask refusal,

and utilization of medications with insignificant scientific data, ultimately contributing to

increased morbidity” (Caceres et al. 262). A concerningly high number of people were in the belief

that the vaccine and other methods to slow, halt, or end the pandemic, would do more

harm than good. Many of these people got this belief from social media.

This led to a delayed end of the pandemic and to casualties that could have prevented otherwise.

On Lasswell

Lasswell finished his doctoral dissertation on propaganda during World War I at the age of 25,

with most of his work being linked to analyses of propaganda. His study was primarily focused

on the average person’s vulnerable mind (Loisen and Joye 145).

He argued that the process of people’s opinions could be monitored with the use of

propaganda if done correctly (Loisen and Joye 145). Propaganda, according to Lasswell’s book,

The Theory of Political Propaganda, is the control of the public’s opinion through the manipulation

of symbols (627). The term attitude in this topic, refers to how willing one is to act according to

specific patterns. According to him, attitudes are a consequence of symbols, rather than an

outcome of direct experience. Symbols in this context could mean many things. Facial expressions,

style of dressing, a logo, anything of the sort. These symbols can be used as a tool for

both propaganda and expression. A good example of symbols

being used as a propagandist tool would be in the case of

reaffirming or redefining a set of ideas. For example, Nazi Germany employed several

symbols such as the Hitler salute and the swastika to spread propaganda.

In the same book, Lasswell connects the role of propaganda to the chaos caused by

technological advancements (631). For example, people become more susceptible to

manipulation as a result of the collective psychosis caused by political conflict.

He argues that the strength of propaganda comes from the vulnerability of the average person,

rather than the messages’ content itself. The propagandist should develop meaningful

symbols so that people will learn to correlate and link that symbol to a set of emotions and ideas.

For example, a feeling of patriotism and pride probably rises up within a significant part of the

American population when they see the fifty stars and thirteen stripes of the

American flag (Baran and Davis 84), or during Memorial Day where it is advised that

Americans “take the time to remember the good souls whose memories are a blessing” (Powell 3).

Lasswell created the components of his propaganda theory following his research on

propaganda. He founded a number of essential elements that are critical to the idea of

propaganda. These elements are, the propagandist, the person or group of people

who make the propaganda, their message, through which channel and forms of

communication they would like to deliver this message, whom the message is to,

and the effect of the campaign. An example of this theory would be wartime propaganda.

The propagandist is crucially important in this case as “the ‘telling of history’...is not and

never has been neutral. It is always the reflection of the priorities of the narrators

and their perceptions of the world” (Binney 213).

During World War II, both sides used propaganda in order to keep up morale and influence

the opinion of the public in favor of the war. Lasswell’s theory laid the groundwork

for understanding the principles of propaganda and highlighting the

significance of symbols in influencing public opinion. His theories are still applicable

to this day, especially when examining the ways in which modern propaganda spreads

through the usage of fake news, misinformation, and other digital platforms.

Therefore, it is crucial to consider every element of propaganda in this theory when

examining the subject, as how the propaganda is meant to work and the

intended effect is just as important as the message itself.

More on the 2016 Election

Coming back to the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian organizations

spread propaganda and fake news on social media sites like Instagram and Twitter to

influence the outcome of the political election. But how exactly did they do it?

They did this primarily in the form of fake news headlines, attempting to glorify one

candidate or unfairly criticize the other, sometimes both. It is believed that “the average US adult

read and remembered on the order of one or perhaps several fake news articles during

the election period” (Allcott and Gentzkow 232). This shows that practically every American

eligible to vote was exposed to fake news during the election period. This highlights just

how widespread fake news were at that time. Fake news headlines were not the only

factor contributing to this campaign however. Russian organizations also utilized

bots on social media platforms such as Twitter. A study done “reveals a very high presence

of bots in the active Russian political Twittersphere, significantly higher than Twitter’s estimate

of the presence of bots on Twitter overall” (Bonneau et al. 318). This quote proves that Russian

bots were heavily involved during the election period, and that it was very widespread.

These bots posted propaganda directly, or linked the reader to a fake news article

mentioned before, sometimes even both. In total, this campaign by Russian organizations

“changed vote shares by an amount on the order of hundredths of a percentage point.

This is much smaller than Trump’s margin of victory in the pivotal states on which

the outcome depended” (Allcott and Gentzkow 232). This example ties into the aforementioned

theory of Lasswell, "Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect?"

This campaign of fake news, propaganda and misinformation by Russian organizations

fills out that theory as “Russian organizations say that one party is good and that the other is bad

in the channel of social media to American voters with the effect of swaying the political election.”

Conclusion

Propaganda has become a more effective and widespread force in the digital age.

As explained by Lasswell’s theory, propaganda should not be taken or understood as just a message,

but also the process by which the propaganda attempts to change the opinion of the public

and the desired outcome. In recent times, utilizing misinformation and fake news

have developed into tools of propaganda, doing especially well on social media

platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, allowing the content to spread much faster.

A somewhat recent example of this was when propaganda was used through social media

platforms to sway the public opinion and the result of the 2016 United States presidential election.

For a society to become more resistant to manipulation it is crucial to understand the ways of how

propaganda spreads, and develop critical thinking skills to not fall under deception.

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