Digital Propaganda: The Tyranny of Ignorance

Cassian Sparkes-Vian

doi:10.1177/0896920517754241

Abstract

The existence of propaganda is inexorably bound to the nature of communication and communications technology. Mass communication by citizens in the digital age has been heralded as a means to counter elite propaganda; however, it also provides a forum for misinformation, aggression and hostility. The extremist group Britain First has used Facebook as a way to propagate hostility towards Muslims, immigrants and social security claimants in the form of memes, leading to a backlash from sites antithetical to their message. This article provides a memetic analysis, which addresses persuasion, organisation, political echo chambers and self-correcting online narratives; arguing that propaganda can be best understood as an evolving set of techniques and mechanisms which facilitate the propagation of ideas and actions. This allows the concept to be adapted to fit a changing political and technological landscape and to encompass both propaganda and counter-propaganda in the context of horizontal communications networks.

Highlights

The existence of propaganda is inexorably bound to the nature of communication and communications technology and the widespread availability of digital communication tools allows a much larger number of individual citizens to produce and distribute propaganda on a mass scale than has been possible in previous eras
This paper will begin by introducing memetic theory as an appropriate way to study propaganda in general and digital propaganda before outlining the methodological considerations applied to a case study which will focus on the use of Facebook by the right wing extremist group Britain First (2015a, 2015b) and the subsequent responses by their online detractors
Whilst in this instance there will be a focus on the internet or pop-cultural meme as it is relevant to the case study, this paper will argue that memetics has considerable analytical and methodological potential with respect to scholarly work on propaganda, and this is not limited to digital communications or internet memes

Summary

Introduction

The existence of propaganda is inexorably bound to the nature of communication and communications technology and the widespread availability of digital communication tools allows a much larger number of individual citizens to produce and distribute propaganda on a mass scale than has been possible in previous eras. In order to problematise notions of organisation and persuasion, the paper will draw attention to the often decentralised and chaotic nature of digital propaganda, in which the perpetuation of ideologies can be highly disorganised when compared to the professionalised propaganda produced by states and corporate entities It will discuss the way in which echo chamber and trench warfare dynamics result in propaganda targeted at those already sympathetic to an ideology, with the purpose being the affirmation of beliefs which are already present, with persuasion (where it is present at all) limited to action. There are numerous recognisable variations on the Internet or pop-cultural meme of which the infographic is amongst the most recognisable, usually taking the form of a captioned image, with specific images and text formulations replicated as distinct memes (Rintel, 2013, IMD, 2014)

Methods

Findings

Conclusion