Propaganda Strategy Research Articles

Digital Propaganda in South Asia: An Analytical Perspective

This article examines the existing response strategies of Pakistan to Indian digital propaganda on the Kashmir Issue. By analyzing key propaganda strategies on X (formerly Twitter), state-sponsored X accounts, media reports, and academic scholarship, the researcher has identified a number of deficiencies in the prevalent approach and offers policy recommendations for better practices. Overall, this article recommends that Pakistan should articulate a response strategy that has clear objectives, is powered by algorithms and computational techniques, should include news actors, and utilize the void created by India's state-backed digital propaganda machinery.

Surveillance, Disinformation, and Legislative Measures in the 21st Century: AI, Social Media, and the Future of Democracies

In contemporary society, the internet, particularly social media, has become a significant area where individuals spend considerable amounts of time engaging in various activities. Concurrently, the growing utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a critical component of the propaganda that is disseminated online within economic, social, and political spheres. AI encompasses a broad range of applications, including data collection for microtargeting and the dissemination of diverse forms of disinformation. Additionally, AI can be effectively employed to detect and remove content from social media platforms that contradicts democratic principles, such as disinformation or hate speech. This study reviews the existing literature on the use of AI in political propaganda, examining not only how AI has become an integral part of propaganda strategies, but also how it is utilized to counter propaganda that violates democratic values. It explores the legislation in various countries that enables (and mandates) the removal of propaganda content contrary to democratic principles from social media platforms with the assistance of AI, and it discusses perspectives that highlight the potential conflict between these practices and the principle of freedom of expression.

The General Directorate of Press and Dissemination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: its propaganda strategy to confront the 'anti-Argentina campaign' (1977-1981)

The General Directorate of Press and Dissemination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: its propaganda strategy to confront the 'anti-Argentina campaign' (1977-1981)

Multiple benefits of new-energy vehicle power battery recycling strategies based on the theory of planned behavior and stimulus organism response

With the yearly increasing market penetration of new-energy vehicles in China, the retirement of power batteries has gradually become a scale, and most of the waste batteries have entered informal recycling channels, which has induced a series of environmental problems. Considering this issue, we introduced the system dynamics (SD), stimulus organism response (SOR), and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in behavioral economics to establish the environmental economic benefit evaluation model of power battery recycling strategies, and we performed a dynamic simulation analysis on the effect of government subsidy policy, policy advocacy, and other recycling strategies. The results show that: (1) the recovery subsidy policy can improve the formal recycling quantity and economic benefits of recovery, but the effect on the degree of environmental pollution is limited. (2) The combination of environmental awareness promotion strategy and subsidy policy can overcome the shortcomings of subsidy policy and has significant environmental and economic performance. (3) Compared with the benchmark scenario, the formal recycling quantity, the CO2 emission reduction, and the economic benefits of recovery in scenario 4 (high subsidy-high policy propaganda strategy) increased by approximately 112 %, 208 %, and 223 %, respectively, and the degree of environmental pollution decreased by approximately 65 %.

Family, politics and media

Abstract In this paper, we utilise the Nineteenth Century Newspaper Corpus to examine reporting surrounding William Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign, a key point in the democratization of British politics where a politician not only communicated with ordinary people through hustings but indirectly to a wider electorate via media reporting of those hustings. With the use of social actor analysis (van Leeuwen 2008), approached through collocation, we find that a distinctive feature of media reporting was a focus on Gladstone’s family. This surprising intersection of family and electioneering reveals a powerful hierarchy of social relationships in terms of gender and seniority, which became an effective propaganda strategy as Gladstone, enabled by Liberal-supporting newspapers, utilised his family as a political tool.

Directorate General of Taxes propaganda strategy to build public trust

Various corruption cases involving tax officials have eroded public trust in the Directorate General of Taxes. This can be seen from a survey conducted by political indicators in April 2023 which showed that public trust in the Directorate General of Taxes was only 53.7 percent in terms of tax management. This research examines the propaganda strategy of the Directorate General of Taxes in an effort to build public trust. The theory used in this research is Arthur F. Lykke, Jr.'s strategy theory. The research method uses a qualitative design with data collection techniques through interviews and literature studies. The results showed that the Directorate General of Taxes' strategy in building public trust uses human resources and social media (means) to conduct propaganda through Instagram, by prioritizing crisis management on social media (ways) with the aim of building public trust in the Directorate General of Taxes (ends). The Directorate General of Taxes' strategy in building public trust is a combination of using the resources of 44,787 personnel spread throughout Indonesia with the support of increasing social media followers applying the concept of Employee Advocacy and supported by Tax Volunteers for the Country (Renjani) to conduct propaganda through Instagram with the aim of building public trust has succeeded in restoring public trust in the Directorate General of Taxes, this can be seen from the political indicator survey in July 2023 which shows that public trust in the Directorate General of Taxes rose to 83.7 percent in terms of tax management.

Analyzing Digital Propaganda on X through Topic Modelling Approach: The Case of Afghanistan

The dissemination of propaganda has become a formidable weapon, with nation-states exploiting social media platforms to engineer narratives favorable to their geopolitical interests. This study delved into Indo-Pakistan states' orchestrated propaganda in the wake of the Taliban's recapture of Afghanistan. This period is marked by a sophisticated blend of propaganda strategies to mold online discourse. Utilizing a dataset derived from X (formerly Twitter), the research examines how Pakistan and India leveraged information warfare to advance their politico-diplomatic narratives, shedding light on the propaganda strategies of such digital warfare and the emergence of narratives and counter-narratives. The findings highlight the instrumental role of propaganda strategies in amplifying political, diplomatic, security, and humanitarian narratives and manipulating public discourse, with distinct tactics and officially approved state maneuvers identified through the topic modeling and analyzing key strategies of propaganda.

PECULIARITIES OF THE PROPAGANDA TRANSFORMATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INFLUENCE IN THE METAMODERN SOCIETY

The article reveals the substantive characteristics of the transformation of propaganda as an instrument of influence, and also shows its both destructive and constructive role in the metamodern society. The importance of considering propaganda in a neutral context is determined, which allows us to describe it as an important form of directed communications aimed at changing public opinion in favor of a specific task or intention. The author reveals the positive function of propaganda as a technique of social unification, strengthening faith and ensuring social harmony. At the same time, its destructive potential as a means of manipulation and disinformation is revealed. The stages of transformation of the content, methods and forms of propaganda from antiquity to the present are described. The influence of communication means on the nature of propaganda is shown. If in the twentieth century the main instruments of propaganda were radio, cinema and television, in the twenty-first century they have become social networks. The article identifies the peculiarities of propaganda in the metamodern society, which is characterized by indirect methods of influence based on the mechanisms of seduction and soft power and includes appeals to either rational interests or irrational needs for spectacular or emotional communication. The deterritorialization of ideas and narratives in the modern digital environment creates favorable conditions for concealing propaganda and promoting it more quickly. The author identifies such mechanisms of modern propaganda as temptation, performance, reformatting of contexts, false intertextuality, and personalization of messages. While classical propaganda was vertical in nature, in the metamodern society, horizontal ties through which propaganda narratives are promoted are becoming more important. The increasing dependence of the authorities on the desires of citizens in modern democracies causes propaganda to be built on the basis of public expectations, which leads to the prevalence of populism in political decisions. The author describes the phenomenon of post-truth as a product of modern propaganda, which shapes public opinion not by using facts but by relying on emotional reactions of people. The author proves the importance of controlling the methods and strategies of propaganda in the metamodern society.

Enhancing the International Communication Effectiveness of "The Spirit of Lei Feng" in Anshan: A Study of the External Propaganda Strategy of "Guo Mingyi's Story" from the Perspective of Eco-translatology

As an important part of the fine traditional culture of the Chinese nation, the "spirit of Lei Feng" has always been an important content of domestic propaganda. With the continuous deepening of globalization, how to effectively spread this cultural phenomenon with Chinese characteristics to the international community has become an urgent problem to be solved. The Story of Guo Mingyi is a typical work that demonstrates the "spirit of Lei Feng". By applying the theoretical framework of ecological translation to its external publicity strategy research, exploring its translation strategies in terms of language, culture, and communication, and proposing targeted suggestions and measures, we can not only enrich and develop the theoretical system of ecological translation, but also enhance the international communication effectiveness of the "spirit of Lei Feng" in Anshan, promote the international dissemination of Chinese culture, and provide useful reference and enlightenment for the international dissemination of other cultural phenomena.

“Tears have never won anyone freedom:” a multimodal discourse analysis of Ukraine’s use of memes in a propaganda war of global scale

Abstract Purpose This paper analyzes memes posted by @Ukraine to X, formerly known as Twitter, from the account’s inception in 2016 through September 2023 to examine the function and utility of memes as tools of propaganda in global conflict. Methods A multimodal discourse analysis of more than 100 memes was conducted by a small research group to separate the memes into thematic categories in an exploratory fashion. Then, a small subset of the research group conducted a recursive analysis on the images and text in a handful of memes selected purposively to determine what types of ideological appeals were present. Results Our findings align with observations made in previous studies that internet memes might be used to bolster national unity and might be employed to bolster pleas for sympathy from wealthy, more powerful allies, in this case in the West. The essential propaganda ideals were those of democracy, friendship, and independence on the side of Ukraine while Russia is framed as a dictatorship. Practical Implications A small number of the memes referenced in our paper garnered global media attention. Though we do not make any claims about broad media effects relating to the memes studied here, garnering the attention of major U.S. publication seems clearly to have been a goal of some of these memes. For those who wish to find a key to the playbook for a nation’s propaganda strategy, its social media memes are a great place to begin. Social Implications It is apparent in this study that governments might use memes to cover all their propaganda bases, so to speak. Ukraine’s memes appear to serve mainly to reinforce messages of national unity and messages of connection with the West. Originality Though others have studied @Ukraine’s tweets, this is believed to be the first to focus exclusively on memes posted to the feed. This study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how wildly varied memes can communicate core concepts of a propaganda strategy, perhaps with the hope that a few will “hit” with desired media outlets, if only to bolster propaganda efforts.

The Interaction Between the Publishing Strategy of Dabiq Magazine and the Terrorist Actions of ISIS in the Western World

In recent years, the terrorist organization ISIS has come to the fore with its international terrorist attacks. However, the fact that the ISIS terrorist organization remains on the agenda as much as it is on the agenda, and that it gains new sympathizers and even new terrorist fighters is also related to its propaganda power. Because of it the organization focused on propaganda activities in the visual-written media and tried to use this area professionally. One of the means used for the transmission of propaganda activities in the media is the magazines they publish in different languages. Addressing both a regional and a global audience with magazines published in Turkish, Arabic, Persian and English is also an indication of the ISIS terrorist organization's strategy to be effective in many parts of the world.
 In this study, the words that are frequently repeated in Dabiq Magazine, which is published in English by the terrorist organization ISIS for the purpose of propaganda against the Western world, are examined. Among these words, "violent-aggressive-negative" words and "motivational-positive" words were identified for their followers, and an attempt was made to analyze ISIS' action and propaganda strategy based on these words. In addition, the study examined the timing of terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIS in the West and the periods when the violence-glorifying words used in Dabiq magazine increased, and determined whether there was a correlation between them.

ПРОПАГАНДИСТСЬКІ СТРАТЕГІЇ В СУЧАСНОМУ МЕДІАДИСКУРСІ: АНАЛІЗ ПРИКЛАДІВ ЗІ СВІТОВОЇ ПРАКТИКИ

<pre><strong><em>The purpose of the study </em></strong><em>is to identify propaganda strategies in foreign media. Conducting the research is due to the fact that in the context of significant changes in the military and political situation in the world in general and around Ukraine, with the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression, propaganda, which is an effective tool for manipulating public opinion, is becoming widely spread in the media space. The media use different propaganda strategies, forming an irrelevant picture of reality. This leads to a decrease in the level of information security of the state, the result of which is the destabilization of the social and political situation, opposition to the adoption of certain state decisions, etc.</em></pre><p><strong><em>Research methodology</em></strong><em>. The study of propaganda strategies in modern media was based on the media manipulative approach, methods of manipulation of mass consciousness and content analysis. Their application made it possible to identify the main principles of consideration of the problems of propaganda strategies.</em></p><p><strong><em>The results</em></strong><em>. In the process of work, it was found that propaganda is the purposeful dissemination of unreliable information with a specific goal. Propaganda is aimed precisely at the human consciousness, because it allows to form clear concepts and images in it. Depending on the orientation, propaganda is divided into external and internal; according to the sphere of distribution – cultural, personal, informational, political; according to the degree of reliability of the information – true, partially true, false; according to the stage of spread – preparatory, active, latent.</em></p><p><em>Propaganda strategies include lies, decontextualization, disinformation, demonization of the enemy, obfuscation, deliberate obscurity, confusion, labelling, half-truths, repetition, join the crowd, commoners, stereotypes, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The study states that the main propaganda strategies used in the analyzed media are «common people» and «stereotypes», less so – «join the crowd» and «half-truth».</em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty.</em></strong><em> The novelty of the study is that propaganda strategies in foreign media were investigated for the first time. The understanding of the concept of «propaganda» has also been improved, the peculiarities of the functioning of propaganda strategies in foreign media have been investigated.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical significance</em></strong><em>. The practical significance of the research lies in the fact that the obtained results can be applied to journalists, diplomats and politicians when promoting certain ideas and opinions.</em></p><pre><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> information space, media discourse, mass manipulation, media, propaganda, propaganda strategies.</em></pre>

When communist propaganda meets western public relations: Examining Vietnam’s government pandemic communication

This article explores the communication strategies used by Vietnam’s communist government during the earlier phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. What makes this case worth studying is the examination of Vietnam’s hybridised use of Western public relations strategies with communist propaganda and the fluctuating, emphasis on one or the other depending on the outbreak’s implications. While Vietnam was praised as a pandemic hero in 2020, thanks in part to some academic and news media representations of the Vietnam government as an effective communicator, this perception changed when the Delta variant hit the country. What happened? Which communication strategies changed? Which remained? To answer these questions, we used a mixed qualitative method consisting of a case study and manual and computational thematic analyses of government and news media and social media texts to identify the strategies and themes that were dominant during the first COVID-19 outbreaks. This study helps to throw light on the effectiveness but also the problems that may arise from a mixed use of public relations and propaganda strategies during a global pandemic; it also raises questions about the need to build a country-specific pandemic communication framework as well as to rethink theories and uses of propaganda vis-à-vis PR today.

The Impact of Mass Media on Vote Structure and Party Politics in U.S. Elections in the Framework of Trumps Populism

The 2024 presidential election is just around the corner, and Trump, who has recently gained leading polling support and is himself a political leader with populist traits, represents the current change in the thinking of the American public. The main focus of this paper is on the impact of Trumps mass media propaganda strategy on the vote structure of the U.S. presidential election, as well as on the party system. In the past research, only for the vote structure and media propaganda research, did not put these contents in the populist research paradigm to analyze, but this paper will be a combination of mass media and populist theory and discuss the interests of the two parties in the United States of the change of demand and the change of the representative class.

Propaganda Content and Strategies of Nazi Germany from the Perspective of Emotional Communication

This paper, based on the theory of emotional communication, examines how Nazi Germany utilized and controlled public emotions in their propaganda content and strategies. Emotions play a crucial role in shaping audience attitudes and behaviors in the field of journalism and communication. Emotionally charged content can capture audience attention and resonance, and more importantly, emotions can induce specific behaviors during the process of communication. In terms of propaganda content, Nazi Germany extensively employed emotional rhetoric in their internal and external propaganda materials, frequently utilizing emotive language to incite the public, manipulate their value orientation, and cater to their emotional demands. They tightly linked the people's desire for national resurgence with an anti-Semitic ideology. In terms of propaganda strategies, Nazi Germany facilitated the spread of emotions through the "repetition-memory" effect, creating specific symbols and establishing an emotional space by constructing a simulated environment. Simultaneously, the Nazi regime attempted to mobilize emotions and induce people to participate in specific actions to enhance the efficacy of emotional communication. From the perspective of emotional communication efficacy, this propaganda approach undoubtedly garnered support and consolidated the power of the Third Reich to a certain extent. However, on the other hand, excessive stimulation and exploitation of public emotions also triggered a backlash and accelerated the downfall of the empire. The propaganda strategies of Nazi Germany serve as a reminder to contemporary media practitioners to make good use of emotional communication and strike a balance between emotional manipulation and truthful reporting. It also advises the general public to maintain calmness and objectivity when consuming news reports, so as not to be swayed by excessive emotional values.

LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISIS’ MISCONTEXTUALISATION OF THE QURANIC VERSES: PROPAGANDA STRATEGY

The key multilingual propaganda documents and media modes have been used as primary sources for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) propaganda strategy. To further expand the discussion on the propaganda intentions by ISIS, the researchers demonstrated the study conducted that attempted to explore the role of miscontextualisation of Qur’anic verses through ISIS’s linguistic propaganda strategy from a socio-political perspective. The study seeks to illustrate how ISIS utilised its miscontextualisation of Qur’anic verses through its linguistic propaganda strategy to justify its extreme actions for achieving the socio-political goals. It uses linguistic stylistics to demonstrate that ISIS made a piece-meal usage of the Qur’an by miscontextualisation of Qur’anic verses through its propaganda publications to justify its extreme actions. It systematically situates the particular Qur’anic passages that ISIS uses within the wider Qur’anic passages/chapters in which they originate. More specifically, this contextualisation highlights the discrepancies between the original contexts of these passages and their miscontextualisation by ISIS. The results of the study revealed that all linguistic strategies that comprise ISIS’s discourse revolve around four main themes: Khilaafah, Imamah, Jihad, and Hijrah. These connections are important because they clarify the priorities inherent in ISIS’s discourse as an instrument for achieving socio-political gains and agendas.

Retracted: The Construction of Smart Tourism City and Digital Marketing of Cultural Tourism Industry under Network Propaganda Strategy

Retracted: The Construction of Smart Tourism City and Digital Marketing of Cultural Tourism Industry under Network Propaganda Strategy

A Study of the Imperial Propaganda Strategy and Connectivity Projected on the Colonies -Focusing on Textbooks, Magazines, and Videos in the 1940s-

A Study of the Imperial Propaganda Strategy and Connectivity Projected on the Colonies -Focusing on Textbooks, Magazines, and Videos in the 1940s-

Film, Propaganda, and the “New Nigeria” National Philosophy

This qualitative research examined the utility of film for political propaganda purposes and behavioral change objectives. It critically assesses how film, as a communication medium, has been optimized in constructing a national rebirth philosophy tagged “New Nigeria” political constructs. The objectives of the study were to demystify the political propaganda strategies adopted by the filmmakers in propagating the “new Nigeria” national philosophy and to unearth the latent and manifest socio-political propaganda themes embedded in the film that reinforce the ‘new Nigeria’ political philosophy.
 In ascertaining the potentials of film in projecting propagandists’ ideologies, the film “If I am President” (Bright Obasi, 2018) was thematically deconstructed using the qualitative content analysis research design. The “New Nigeria” political constructs content-analyzed were placed into discourse paradigms, and discussions were attempted using the critical discourse analytical method.
 A deconstruction of the latent socio-political themes in the film revealed the filmmakers’ subtle utilisation of mental conditioning, mental provocativeness, ‘scapegoatism’, psycho-emotional articulation, appeal to socio-political action, and entertainment-education political propaganda strategies in projecting the “New Nigeria” national philosophy for social action through behavior change.
 The dominant “New Nigeria” political philosophies expressed in the film included, but were not limited to, leanings suggesting national rebirth, nation-building, socio-political egalitarianism, youth activism, digitization of national politics, techno-democracy, zero tolerance for corruption, and tolerance across racial, religious, tribal, ethnic, and political lines. These philosophies are the ideals suggested in the film as cardinal constructs and conditions for the rebirth of a new nation, thus, “New Nigeria”.

Robust Benchmark for Propagandist Text Detection and Mining High-Quality Data

Social media, fake news, and different propaganda strategies have all contributed to an increase in misinformation online during the past ten years. As a result of the scarcity of high-quality data, the present datasets cannot be used to train a deep-learning model, making it impossible to establish an identification. We used a natural language processing approach to the issue in order to create a system that uses deep learning to automatically identify propaganda in news items. To assist the scholarly community in identifying propaganda in text news, this study suggested the propaganda texts (ProText) library. Truthfulness labels are assigned to ProText repositories after being manually and automatically verified with fact-checking methods. Additionally, this study proposed using a fine-tuned Robustly Optimized BERT Pre-training Approach (RoBERTa) and word embedding using multi-label multi-class text classification. Through experimentation and comparative research analysis, we address critical issues and collaborate to discover answers. We achieved an evaluation performance accuracy of 90%, 75%, 68%, and 65% on ProText, PTC, TSHP-17, and Qprop, respectively. The big-data method, particularly with deep-learning models, can assist us in filling out unsatisfactory big data in a novel text classification strategy. We urge collaboration to inspire researchers to acquire, exchange datasets, and develop a standard aimed at organizing, labeling, and fact-checking.