Propaganda through ‘reflexive control’ and the mediated construction of reality

Christopher Till

doi:10.1177/1461444820902446

Abstract

The nature of reality has been a central concern of philosophy and the social sciences, but since the proliferation of social media, psychological operations have taken on greater visibility and significance in political action. ‘Fake news’ and micro-targeted and deceptive advertising in elections and votes has brought the tenuous character of political reality to the fore. The affordances of the Internet, World Wide Web and social media have enabled users to be mobilised to varying degrees of awareness for propaganda and disinformation campaigns both as producers and spreaders of content and as generators of data for profiling and targeting. This article will argue that social media platforms and the broader political economy of the Internet create the possibilities for online interactions and targeting which enable form of political intervention focused on the destabilisation of perceptions of reality and recruit users in the construction of new politically useful realities.

Highlights

It is not new for political actors to trick, cajole or confuse populations in attempts to produce political outcomes or for leaders to use propaganda as part of their military arsenal
This article will argue that social media platforms and the broader political economy of the Internet create the possibilities for online interactions and targeting which enable a form of political intervention focused on the destabilisation of perceptions of reality and recruit users in the construction of new politically useful realities
The technical affordances of online networks with their capacity for ‘steering’ populations have combined with the advertising-focused political economy of the Internet and social media to produce a particular relation to the mediated construction of reality described above

Summary

Introduction

It is not new for political actors to trick, cajole or confuse populations in attempts to produce political outcomes or for leaders to use propaganda as part of their military arsenal. This article will argue that social media platforms and the broader political economy of the Internet create the possibilities for online interactions and targeting which enable a form of political intervention focused on the destabilisation of perceptions of reality and recruit users in the construction of new politically useful realities.

Results

Conclusion