CHAPTER 1
Explaining the Challenge: From Persuasion
to Relativisation
Miloš Gregor and Petra Mlejnková
1.1 Introduction
A chapter describing the history of phenomena such as propaganda
and disinformation could begin with the obligatory statement ‘even the
ancient Greeks’ or ‘the problem is as old as mankind itself’. Moreover, it
would be correct. The truth is that information has always been crucial
in politics and warfare, and those who possessed it and could manipulate
it were able to confuse the enemy, the adversary, or the public. As
O’Shaughnessy states, there was no golden age of truth (O’Shaughnessy
2020, 55). Information and its manipulation, therefore, have always been
present in our lives.
M. Gregor · P. Mlejnková (B)
Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
e-mail: mlejnkova@fss.muni.cz
M. Gregor
e-mail: mgregor@fss.muni.cz
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
M. Gregor and P. Mlejnková (eds.), Challenging Online
Propaganda and Disinformation in the 21st Century,
Political Campaigning and Communication,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58624-9_1
3
4 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
Propaganda and disinformation have changed along with every new
technology used for information and intelligence. With the development
of the media and information environment, the possibilities of propaganda
and disinformation have also changed (see Chapter 2). Rarely—or
slowly—however do the goals of propaganda change; they are by and
large an effort to influence, manipulate, and persuade a target audience.
The tools that propaganda deploys have undergone much more dynamic
development—from word of mouth, through leaflets and posters, to
modern communication technologies. The latest significant shift has been
the advent of the Internet and social media in particular. While it may have
seemed that propaganda was in hibernation after two world wars and the
ensuing Cold War, the events of recent years have refuted this.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, propaganda was mainly
associated with nondemocratic regimes geographically far from the
Western (democratic) world, as North Korea or China are. Democratic
regimes felt far from attempts at manipulation, far from threats of exposure
to external political influence through disinformation campaigns, and
far from attempts at meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign regimes
and their societies. Exceptions and controversial cases can be spotted, and
various conflicts can serve as a good example; however, these strategies
and techniques were far removed from the values represented by Western
liberal democracies. Yet, no later than 2014, exactly ten years after Facebook
came into being, the Western world began to struggle with massive
propaganda and disinformation campaigns targeting societies across the
world. Since that time, we have been able to trace with extreme precision
the connection between propaganda and disinformation campaigns
and the conflict in Ukraine. Nevertheless, it is not only state or statesponsored
actors actively running such campaigns, but it is also extremist
and terrorist organisations building, in a very professional way, propaganda
so as to threaten or radicalise and recruit individuals, as Daesh
has.
Since then, the whole issue of propaganda and disinformation has been
faced with a fate similar to many other scholarly terms and concepts which
have become more widely used by politicians, the media, and the general
public, thus misleading understanding and the use of individual terms in
the wrong way or the wrong context. The clear example is the modern
and catchy phrase fake news, which is now used by some politicians as a
label for media asking unpleasant questions or drawing attention to the
past scandals of politicians.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 5
The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to describe the concepts of
propaganda and disinformation, their development, and how they relate
to each other. Other related concepts, such as fake news, misinformation,
disinformation campaigns, psychological and information operations, and
influence operations will be introduced and put into the context of the
aim of this edited volume. In the last part of the chapter, changes in
society, media, and the information environment will be introduced: what
the Internet and social media especially have brought to propaganda and
disinformation, and how both the understanding and functional level
of propaganda and disinformation have changed in the so-called posttruth
era. Last but not least, the dynamic development connected to
the COVID-19 pandemic will be mentioned. It is no surprise that this
emotionally tense period has brought about a new level of disinformation
and public distrust.
1.2 Propaganda
One of the most problematic aspects of propaganda is its definition of
anchoring. A century ago, Lasswell defined propaganda as the management
of collective attitudes through the manipulation of significant
symbols (Lasswell 1927, 627). According to Ellul, propaganda is a process
aiming to provoke action, to make the individual cling irrationally to
a process of action. It does not lead to a choice, but to a loosening
of the reflexes—to an arousal of an active and mythical belief (Ellul
1973, 25). The minimalistic definition says that propaganda is a deliberate
attempt to persuade people to think and behave in a desired way
(Taylor 2003, 6). It encompasses conscious, methodological, and planned
decisions to employ techniques of persuasion designed to achieve specific
goals intended to benefit those organising the process. The methods
employed vary according to the communications channels available—
speeches, songs, art, radio, television, or the Internet. Propaganda uses
communication to convey a message, an idea, or an ideology which is
designed primarily to serve the self-interests of the person or people doing
the communicating. An essential component of propaganda is information
in the form of a lie or at least not the whole truth. This information
is designed to serve the primary interests of the propagandist, invoking
a common pattern of one-way, manipulative communication that solicits
the action—or inaction—of the masses (Baines et al. 2020, xxv). Concealment
of inconvenient facts and censorship are inseparable counterparts to
propaganda (Taylor 2003, 14).
6 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
The understanding of propaganda differs across many historical,
cultural, ideological, and political contexts. The first use of the notion
of propaganda dates back to 1622 and the establishment of the Sacred
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (originally Congregatio
de Propaganda Fide in Latin), through which Roman Catholic cardinals
managed their missionary activities (Guilday 1921). In the twentieth
century, political regimes began to use the term more actively. Dictatorial
regimes have never fought shy of the word ‘propaganda’ when
self-labelling. During World War II—and even before—Nazi Germany
had its Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, and the
Soviet Union had its Propaganda Committee of the Communist Party.
Marxism-Leninism referred to propaganda as the rational use of historical
and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and enlightened
people. In both countries, propaganda was perceived positively and as
an inevitable element leading to political victory (Smith 2019). Similar
examples could be found in China (Central Propaganda Department) or
Vietnam (Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of
Vietnam). In contrast, democratic countries used the word ‘propaganda’
to label the communication activities of their opponent. Their departments
avoided self-labelling themselves as propagandistic; the United
Kingdom established the Ministry of Information and the United States
had the Office of War Information.
The aim of propaganda is to shape the people’s worldview, creating
desired group, class, and society-wide role models as well as consciousness.
It presents the institutionalised dissemination of essentially systematically
arranged ideas, theories, opinions, doctrines, or whole ideologies.
Propaganda may or may not ask for belief; it usually does not employ
a rational appeal. As Baines, O’Shaughnessy, and Snow remind, ‘It does
not seek credibility based on the provision of accurate information … the
genre is almost exclusively defined by its emotive content and rejection of
non-emotive forms of persuasion’ (Baines et al. 2020, xxv). Propaganda
is distinguished from other forms of communication by intention and
by emphasis on manipulation of the recipient. The deliberate selectivity
of information and manipulation of propaganda also distinguishes itself
from the educational process (Smith 2019). However, the boundaries
between education and propaganda can be perceived differently, both
from an information and ideas perspective and from the point of view
of the recipient—as was shown in the Soviet Union’s understanding of
the term.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 7
All propaganda is inherently built on a trinity of concepts: mythology,
symbolism, and rhetoric (O’Shaughnessy 2004). Effective use of these
foundational elements differentiates between successful persuasion and
unsuccessful efforts to influence masses. Mythology represents the core
of any piece of propaganda. Propagandists usually exploit history and
tradition as well as national characteristics as a source. A myth is a story,
a narrative rather than an ideology, an idea or principle. These myths
usually tell a story which clearly identifies the heroes and villains, good
and bad behaviour patterns illustrated via publicly known cases. They are
not told in sophisticated language; contrariwise, they use easy to recognise
and easy to identify symbols—or at least their essence or meaning can
be transmitted through a mere sign (O’Shaughnessy 2016, 140). Myth
can often be accompanied by fiction, which is to the propagandist something
other than a mere lie—it represents a profounder form of reality, an
alternative narrative which embodies the sought after ideal state of affairs
(O’Shaughnessy 2020, 66). Symbols are essential not solely to mythology
but to effective communication and persuasion in general, including
propaganda. It springs from the fact that successful mass communication
has an inherently emotive nature, and symbols are crucial connections to
emotions. Therefore, the presentation of symbols can stand in place of
argument. Anything can become politically symbolic if the right context
is found (O’Shaughnessy 2016, 216). The last part of the triad is rhetoric.
In a classic example, George Orwell represents the strength of language
in his masterpiece, 1984. In his novel, the author illustrates—besides
other tools in the total totalitarian absorption of power and control of
an individual’s life—that control of the people’s mind lies in the control
of language (Orwell 1949). Understanding the motives and mechanisms
of the group mind is the key to controlling and managing the crowds,
and the tool of rhetoric is the correct use of language (Bernays 1947).
Rhetoric is built on explicit or implicit framing which provides the recipient
with simplistic clues and a clear path to understanding the matter
correctly (O’Shaughnessy 2016, 256).
Whereas propaganda in the twentieth century could afford an explicit
lie because there were only limited ways to verify information, the situation
changed with the advent of the Internet. In general, a big task of
the propagandist is to gain trust, create credibility, and persuade the audience
to trust the source. Today, explicit lies can often be easily verified;
our access to many information sources radically reduced the effectiveness
of lies and their impact on society—in cases where we are willing to
8 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
find the correct information (which is discussed later on in this chapter).
Upon learning that part of a message was wrong, credibility suffers. And
vice versa, if a fact-checked part of a message is correct, the effect is the
opposite: The audience is more likely to believe the whole message and
believe the source in the future again. The propagandists’ strategy today is
therefore usually not telling lies but rather selecting the truth and mixing
it with manipulative content. The final mixture also contains lies, but in
that case, who cares about lies all around when it is based on a real story.
A different way of processing the truth is also to create an atmosphere
of uncertainty in terms of feeding feelings of ‘everybody lies’ and ‘the
truth is not relevant anymore’ because ‘nothing is as it seems’. This means
propagandists do not convince the audience about one particular ‘truth’.
Instead, they use selected manipulative techniques and even lies to raise
doubts about the credibility of a target audience’s information sources or
induce apathy in them with overwhelming conflictual information. This
is a strategy applied by authoritarian regimes. With the development of
modern technologies, however, it has become more difficult for these
regimes to control the flow of information. Instead, they produce an
incredible volume of information, making the information overwhelming
to navigate. It produces ‘data smog’, where useful information becomes
hard to find (Shenk 1997).
The strategy of creating ‘data smog’ or ‘information noise’—flooding
the information environment with plenty of alternative and conflicting
stories and information, some truthful, some not; some verifiable, some
not; relevant or irrelevant—creates the illusion that nothing is as it seems,
and it is difficult to search for the truth. In that case, nobody really cares
about being caught telling lies, because the propagandist’s primary aim is
not to build one’s own credibility or a coherent ideology as much as it is
to persuade that the enemies lie. The information is, after all, weakened
by misleading ballast and does not have any value anymore. An apathic
population is then the best for authoritarian governments to control.
The character and possibilities of propaganda are directly influenced by
the repertoire of means and tools which can be used for dissemination.
During the reign of Pope Gregory XV, when the Sacred Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith was founded, the main instrument of
communication was word of mouth. Literature was the prerogative of the
narrowest layers of society. By the second half of the nineteenth century,
however, the mass printing of newspapers had begun and would become
one of the tools in the arsenal of propagandists. A similar shift was seen
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 9
with the advent of cinema, radio, and television among the general public.
It is not an accident that the golden era of propaganda is associated with
the first half of the twentieth century’s world war period, when most of
the abovementioned media underwent a massive boom.
A similar boom accompanied the onset of the Internet and social media
especially. These are not solely exploited for propaganda purposes—now
termed digital propaganda—but also for the repression and oppression
of citizens in the form of blackmail, harassment, and coercion of those
opposing the regime (Pearce 2015). The possibilities of the current
information environment have given people almost unlimited access to
information, which makes censorship more difficult. It has also given rise
to the new phenomenon of online journalism (Bor 2014) and citizen
journalism (Atton 2009; Goode 2009; Kaufhold et al. 2010; Lewis et al.
2010). They represent a big challenge for us because these types of
journalism contribute to the increased amount of information—albeit,
sometimes of disputable quality and accuracy—in the information environment.
For the recipients of news, this democratisation of journalism,
as well as the abundance of information and its sources, are ambiguous.
They also empower the potential of digital propaganda, which, thanks
to these developments, uses the massive peer-to-peer replication of ideas
and active participation in the spread of propaganda. It decreases the
necessity for centralised structures to maintain or accelerate the propagation
of particular ideas. Propagandists may enjoy the advantage of the
decentralised structure of social media by orchestrating campaigns with
broad impact while the source remains difficult to identify (Farkas and
Neumayer 2018; Sparkes-Vian 2018). Using trolls and bots for astroturfing,
the simulation of public support, is one of the consequences
of the development of social media technologies. This specific aspect is
discussed further in Chapter 2.
1.2.1 Manipulation Is the Backbone of Propaganda
As was already implied, the concept of manipulation is crucial for propaganda.
All propaganda is manipulative, and it would be nonsense to speak
of non-manipulative propaganda (O’Shaughnessy 2004, 18). Manipulation
can acquire different meanings depending on the sector and context
in which it is applied. It acquires the broad and somewhat blurred
semantic field of the term, the negative intention of the speaker, and
the covert character of influence (Akopova 2013). Manipulation can take
10 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
many different forms and can be applied through the use of manipulative
techniques. Propaganda manipulation is often concerned with information,
information systems, and the networks people use. Propaganda
manipulates individuals in terms of processing people’s consciousness as
well. Data can be manipulated by changing its meaning or content. This
kind of manipulation is the least noticeable and, therefore, the most difficult
to detect. There are dozens of manipulative techniques of propaganda
and persuasion (see Pratkinis and Arons 2001; Bernays 2004; Shabo
2008). To mention at least some of those most often described by scholars
and used by propagandists, we can name the appeal to fear, blaming,
demonisation, fabrication, labelling or name-calling, relativisation, and
the use of manipulative pictures or videos.
The appeal to fear benefits from the fact that emotions are the backbone
of propaganda. Thus, fear belongs among the most common
emotions exploited by propagandists (Baines et al. 2020). Several underlying
fears frequently present in propaganda can be identified: the fear of
rejection, powerlessness, and, most significantly, the fear of death (Shabo
2008). The appeal to fear employs audiences’ worry about the unknown
or their bad experiences with the target group or principles. These fears
are one of the most potent motivations behind people’s behaviour and
attitudes. Blaming, as a manipulative technique, pinpoints the enemy
responsible for the event or situation. Propagandists often oversimplify
complex problems by pointing out a single cause or a single enemy
who can be blamed for it (even if not responsible at all). For everything,
from unemployment to natural disasters, blaming the enemy can
help the propagandist achieve his or her agenda (Shabo 2008). Demonisation
is used to dehumanise the opponent. It usually employs similar
tools to labelling— though in a more straightforward way. The aim is to
picture the opponent as an enemy not just with a different point of view
but also not even human. Such a technique is frequently used in armed
conflicts in order to remove the fear from soldiers who are meant to kill
the adversary’s soldiers (men killing men). When depicting the enemy
in a dehumanised way, equating humans with animals, it psychologically
makes the situation easier. Fabrications are false information presented as
true statements (Syed 2012). They usually take the form of misleading or
downright false information presented as verified information. Labelling
(or name-calling) is the use of negative words to disparage an enemy or
an opposing view. Labelling can take many different forms depending on
the circumstances, but they all, rather than making a legitimate argument,
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 11
attack the opposition on a personal level. They also often appeal to the
audience’s preconceptions and prejudices (Domatob 1985; Shabo 2008).
Relativisation serves to weaken either the opponent’s merits or damage
a preferred actor. It is usually used to pacify emotions when (from the
propagandist’s point of view) something bad is happening. It explicitly
contains criticism of the opponent or trivialises the problem. Manipulative
video and pictures represent one of the most apparent manipulative
techniques here. In the context of this edited volume, we consider video
or picture as manipulative if it shifts audiences’ perception of the subject,
or if it presents a collage or somehow modified media.
A common denominator of most manipulative techniques is emotions.
They represent a crucial part of human existence, and they are an important
factor in different processes through which every individual goes.
In 2010, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio used his research to confirm
a major psychological theory. In decision-making, emotions play a very
important role and are perhaps even more decisive than logic. To blame
is the part of the brain responsible for the formation of emotions—
without it, we would not be able to make even simple decisions (Damasio
2010). The importance of emotions can be further demonstrated by prejudice—our
associations awaken different emotions, and our strong social
attitudes are emotionally supported. Frequently, manipulative techniques
target fear and feelings of uncertainty. The reaction of some political
actors to the 2015 European migration crisis was an excellent example
of manipulation that fed people’s (natural) fears, for example, creating
connections between immigrants and terrorists/criminals. When subjectively
feeling unsafe and unstable, an individual is more susceptible to
manipulation as the need for personal safety belongs among basic personal
needs.
Propagandists do not produce deceptive messages through linguistic
manipulation with an emotional appeal or accents only, but also by
manipulating the information as a whole or the context in which
the information is presented. We can distinguish among four primary
methods: biasing published information, ambiguously presenting information,
manipulation through the amount of information published, and
presenting irrelevant information to the discourse (McCornack 1992, 4).
With the developments described above, with the shift from persuasion to
relativisation, we can observe a shift from the first two manipulation forms
to the latter two mentioned: manipulation of the amount of information
and presenting irrelevant information to the discourse.
12 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
1.3 Disinformation
In the last decade, likely mentioned even more than propaganda was the
term disinformation. Disinformation can be perceived as a part of the
larger conceptual realm of propaganda. It deploys lies, but not always
and not necessarily. Therefore, we can say not all propaganda is disinformation,
but all disinformation is propaganda (O’Shaughnessy 2020, 55).
The intense debate about the dangers of spreading disinformation and
propaganda was revived in 2014 in the context of the Russian Army’s
occupation of the eastern part of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.
However, like propaganda, disinformation is also not a new phenomenon.
For decades, the concept of disinformation had been exclusively related to
intelligence activities around the world. A classic example of a disinformation
campaign in this regard is Operation INFEKTION, a disinformation
campaign run by the KGB, the Soviet intelligence service, in the 1980s.
The campaign was designed in order to undermine the credibility of the
United States and foster anti-Americanism. The campaign planted the
idea that the United States had invented the HIV virus in the laboratories
of the Department of Defense as a biological weapon. The term
disinformation, however, only began to penetrate the media lexicon and
the general public starting in the 1980s. In February 1992, David C.
Berliner presented a paper dedicated to educational reforms in the ‘era of
disinformation’ (Berliner 1992).
The aim of disinformation is not necessarily to persuade, to make
people change their mind. According to its purpose, we can distinguish
among four categories of disinformation (O’Shaughnessy 2020, 58–59):
1. Acquiescence, not belief: The purpose of disinformation is to create,
sustain, and amplify divisions within a rival political party, a government,
a coalition. In this sense, disinformation is a strategy of
political control.
2. Sow division: Disinformation as a national strategic tool with the aim
of sabotaging international consensus—a weapon against a hostile
nation or coalition. It becomes therefore a method of leveraging
advantage in international relations.
3. Sow confusion: The aim is to perplex—everything and nothing is
believable anymore, which is the precondition for political paralysis.
Lying is a strategy. The object is not to create belief but to spread
confusion.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 13
4. Raise doubt: The spread of doubt is a very effective genre of
disinformation since credible phenomena can seldom be proven
absolutely. There is always the possibility of doubt.
Disinformation includes a broad scale of false, fake, inaccurate, or
misleading information or messages which are generated, presented, and
disseminated with the aim of confusing the recipient of the information
or causing public damage. Disinformation is based on three necessary
characteristics (Fallis 2015), and we can speak of disinformation only if
all features are fulfilled. First of all, disinformation is information, information
which represents some part of the world as being a certain way.
Although some authors consider information only what is true (Dretske
1983), we do not have to have a philosophical discussion on the meaning
of information since we can accept the view that information provides us
content that is either true or false (see Chapter 6). The fact is, we perceive
information firstly and consider or evaluate it subsequently. And only in
some cases, the second characteristic defines disinformation as misleading
information, which means it creates false beliefs. Thirdly, disinformation
is not accidental in its misleading nature; there is an intentional attempt
to provide an audience with information which creates false beliefs. The
intention to deliberately disseminate false information is crucial to the
characteristic because it differentiates disinformation from other forms of
inaccurate messages, such as misinformation.
The intention is also reflected in the term disinformation campaign,
which refers to the systematic usage of misleading information and the
series of acts leading to desired goals. A disinformation campaign is the
focused, controlled, and coordinated dissemination of disinformation in
order to influence the opponent’s decision-making process or to achieve
political, economic, or other advantages (Kragh and Åsberg 2017). It
means the systematic and deliberate manipulation of an audience regardless
of whether the audience is represented by the general public or a
specific segment of the population, such as politicians.
1.3.1 What Disinformation Is and What It Is not
In discussions among politicians or in the general public, we can
encounter overuse of the term disinformation. In addition to cases which
fulfil the characteristics described above (intentionally misleading information),
other cases are sometimes referred to as disinformation as well. Not
14 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
only do politicians use the term disinformation as labelling, which serves
to discredit presented information, an argument, or even the bearer of
information, but marking a statement or argument as disinformation has
also become a heated point of discussion in and of itself.
There is much information which does not carry true content, which
can be misleading or even false. These cases, however, do not fulfil the
intention to mislead; they do not have this function. An example could be
information which used to be true but is not anymore (e.g. which team
is leading the National Football League). However, we can distinguish
between two main types of disinformation which may have this function.
First is the intention to mislead as the goal—that is, they try to change the
audience’s mind or behaviour. The second uses the misleading message
not as a goal but to benefit the author in a different way, for example,
financial gain. The goal of disinformation in such cases is not to change
the mind or behaviour of the audience but to gain a benefit resulting
from this change. In health care, for instance, disinformation can be used
to convince the audience of the harmfulness of drugs in order to make
people use products the author wishes them to.
Categories falling within the scope of disinformation are, among
others, represented by lies, audio-visual messages, or those produced
and spread altruistically. It represents information which is not just out
of context, presented as partly true, or incomplete but also information
presented against objectively verifiable truth. Audio-visual disinformation
can take the form of pictures or videos with post-production modifications
or presented in a different context (place or time) than that in
which it was created. Deepfakes are another example (see Chapter 2).
Even altruistic misleading information can be considered disinformation;
it makes no difference whether the presentation of misleading
information was driven by good intentions. Conversely, barely true information
cannot be considered disinformation; otherwise, the meaning
of the term would be empty. False information can also be presented
without the intention to manipulate; it can be accidental falsehoods.
A special category represents jokes and satire, which are usually based
on mendacious or incomplete information. Their intention is rather to
entertain the audience than to mislead it. However, this does not mean
that the abovementioned cases cannot mislead people. Even if they were
not created with the purpose of misleading an audience, they can later
become disinformation when they are disseminated (Table 1.1).
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 15
Table 1.1 Categories
of disinformation Disinformation Not disinformation
Malicious lies Truthful statement
Audio-visual disinformation Accidental falsehoods
True disinformation Jokes
Side-effect disinformation Sarcastic comments
Adaptive disinformation Accidental truths
Altruistic disinformation Implausible lies
Detrimental disinformation Satire
Source Authors, based on Fallis (2015, 415)
1.3.2 Disinformation Versus Fake News
Today, the term fake news has become more common than disinformation
after becoming publicly known and widely used during the 2016 US
presidential election at the latest. Its popularisation was due to the then
presidential candidate Donald Trump, who labelled media critical of him
as fake news. As a relatively new concept, it has not been given enough
epistemological attention, and its understanding varies across the general
public and academia (Gelfert 2018).
Some authors consider fake news to be all news which is not factbased
but, despite that, is reported as true news (Allcott and Gentzkow
2017). Others perceive fake news as news which denies the principles of
quality and objective journalism (Baym 2005). However, there is difference
between the media spreading fake news and so-called political media,
which adjusts news coverage in such a way that it seeks to establish the
political agenda of a related political party or entity (Vargo et al. 2017).
Silverman claims that fake news is news which is not based on truth and
is made for financial gain—typically through ad revenue. Fake news is,
therefore, close to tabloid journalism, but unlike the tabloids, the profit
motive, aside from the selling of the medium itself, is crucial in this definition
because, according to Silverman, it should be considered propaganda
when a financial motivation is missing (Silverman 2016).
Fake news is also often used as a catch-all term for all disinformation,
but it is a narrower term falling within this classification (Gelfert 2018).
Therefore, fake news is a kind of disinformation and can be defined as the
deliberate creation and dissemination of false stories and news which are
claimed to be serious news by their author.
16 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
The concept of fake news in a way responds to the fact that we
rather associate disinformation with agents and governments and much
of the misleading information presented in the information environment
and media with other actors. Today, however, anyone with a political or
economic intention can deliberately create disinformation.
1.4 Disinformation and Propaganda
as a Tool to Promote Political Outcomes
Nobody, perhaps with a few exceptions, uses disinformation and propaganda
just for fun. There is always some intention standing behind it,
which is also the purpose of disinformation and propaganda and their
inherent characteristic. State, state-sponsored, or non-state actors decide
to walk the pathway of manipulation usually in order to promote its
political, economic, military, or cultural interests and goals, or the actor
deems it necessary to protect themselves against adversaries. Mostly, it has
been undemocratic regimes and their supporters or extremist and terrorist
organisations being mentioned in this context. Disinformation and propaganda
give them the opportunity to use manipulative techniques and lies
in order to target the hearts and minds of predefined target groups, which
is after all believed to be the most important factor in any conflict.
Disinformation and propaganda based on its character are usually
exercised in a planned and coordinated manner, indicating that any intentionally
misleading information does not stay alone for a long time; it
mostly fits into a series of actions taken to achieve someone’s desired
advantages and goals defined within time and place. This may not appear
as misleading information at the time, but it is usually revealed later to
be part of a more complex sequence of actions, supporting strategic aims.
We can call it an operation, a performed action, including its planning and
execution (Merriam-Webster Dictionary n.d.). More specifically, disinformation
and propaganda represent major components of psychological
operations.
The ability to manage and change the perceptions of a targeted
audience may be considered the fourth instrument of power available
to a political actor next to diplomatic, economic, and military powers
(Brazzoli 2007, 223). The use of psychological operations increases
the effectiveness of other instruments, and it increases one’s chances in
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 17
conflicts, which, contemporarily, often happens in an asymmetric environment.
Psychological operations (psyops) can be defined as pre-planned
activities using communication methods and other resources aimed at
selected target audiences to influence and shape their emotions, attitudes,
behaviours, perceptions, and interpretations of reality. Thus, by using
special methods, it is possible to induce desirable responses in the target
population, which, in the broader context, contributes to the fulfilment of
specific objectives. Every psychological operation is based on a particular
psychological theme: the main, carefully prepared narrative or ideas. The
higher the target audience’s receptivity—in other words, their sensitivity
to specific psyops tools—the higher the probability of the whole psychological
operation’s success (NATO Standardization Office 2014, 2018;
Vejvodová 2019; Wojnowski 2019).
The importance of psyops is based on the belief that the psychological
nature of a conflict is as important as the physical (Stilwell 1996). People’s
attitudes and behaviours affect the course and outcome of a conflict
and the nature of an environment in which a conflict takes place. For
a well–conducted psychological operation, it is crucial to know the target
audience, its will, and its motivation. Psyops work with these elements
and aim to influence them, weakening the adversary’s will, strengthening
the target group’s commitment, and gaining the support and cooperation
of undecided groups (Vejvodová 2019). Psyops can promote resistance
within a population against a regime, or it can put forward the image of
a legitimate government. They have the power to demoralise or enliven a
population. They can reduce or increase desired emotions among a target
population. They can even support apathy, on the one hand, or radicalise,
on the other. Brazzoli (2007) distinguished between hard and soft aspects
of psyops: He relates the hard aspects to the creation of negative perceptions,
for example, of state, government, or society in order to sow the
seeds of alienation. The soft aspects relate to positive images motivating
the audience to follow a lead. Both aspects have the goal of subverting
the mind and influencing unconscious behaviour as decided by those who
direct the operation.
It is believed that conflicts end when one side has lost the will to
continue the conflict and comes to the decision that there is more to
be gained or less to be lost by letting the adversary prevail. Therefore,
the adversary’s will is, in addition to military and economic tools
18 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
or external support, a decisive factor in a conflict. In military conflicts,
psychological operations achieve objectives where military force is not
available, is inappropriate, or where it can be combined with the military
in order to minimise expenditures and maximise effects. Psyops persuade
via nonviolent means—psychological weapons of persuasion and deception.
In this context, the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu is very often quoted.
Sun Tzu advocated for the psychological undermining of the adversary
and mentions in his The Art of War that one of the fundamental factors
affecting war is that which ‘causes the people to be in harmony with
their leaders so that they will accompany them in life and unto death
without fear of mortal peril’ (Post n.d.). Dortbudak quotes another piece
of his work when stressing that victory is rather determined by which side
has influence over the other side’s decisions and actions: ‘To fight and
conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence
consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting’ (Dortbudak
2008).
Psyops can be divided into three types: strategic, operational, and
tactical. Strategic psyops advance broad or long-term objectives. They
might even be global, or at least focused on large audiences or key
decision-makers. Operational psyops are conducted on a smaller scale.
Their purpose can range from gaining support for an action to preparing
the defined field or environment for an action. Tactical psyops are then
even more limited and used to secure immediate and near-term goals.
But do not mistake psyops as connected only with the military environments
and military actions. Psyops are also conducted in environments
short of military conflict or declared war; they belong among the tools
of political, economic, and ideological influence. They are conducted
continuously to influence perceptions and attitudes in order to effectively
target an audience to the benefit of the influence source. In political
theory, psyops are studied mostly in the context of nondemocratic
regimes, where they are based on propaganda, and where the ultimate
goal is to control and manipulate the population, adversaries, or even
neutral actors in and outside the regime. The same applies to extremist or
terrorist organisations. Modern versions of these organisations put great
emphasis on their psyops methods so as to increase fear within their target
audience (Ganor 2002). Spreading fear beyond the direct target is an
essential aspect of terrorism, and the development of the Internet and
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 19
social media has served as a force-multiplier for terrorists. The emergence
of virtual space combined with increasing technological literacy
among terrorist organisations has created new opportunities for the use
of psyops (Bates and Mooney 2014; Cilluffo and Gergely 1997; Emery
et al. 2004). 9/11 is a classic example of terrorist psychological influence.
Nevertheless, democratic regimes and actors conduct psyops as well.
In comparison to undemocratic ones, however, they are short of propaganda
and disinformation, which are believed to be excluded from the
democratic toolbox.
Today, psychological operations are perceived as a specific part of
information operations. With information operations, we are already
moving more towards the area of strategic and military thinking. Nevertheless,
the term information operation has also been integrated into
civil and political communication language, mainly due to the debates
over Russian and Chinese activities abroad. Information operations can
be defined as activities undertaken to counter hostile information and
information systems while protecting their own. It is the coordinated
and integrated employment of information-related capabilities to influence,
disrupt, corrupt, or usurp decision-making (United States—Joint
Chiefs of Staff 2014; Miljkovic and Pešic 2019). They represent offensive
and defensive measures focused on influencing an adversary’s decisions,
manipulating information and information systems. They also include
measures protecting their decision-making processes, information, and
information systems. Information operations must have specifically predefined
goals and targets; therefore, careful planning is part of the process.
Information operations are conducted within an information environment
in which they affect all its three dimensions: physical, informational,
and cognitive. In the physical dimension, we think about information
infrastructure; information collection, transmission, processing, and
delivery systems and devices can be affected, as well as command and
control facilities, ICT, and supporting infrastructure. This dimension also
covers human beings. What is important is that the physical dimension
is not connected exclusively to military or nation-based systems and
processes. Even though we are considering the military arena, civilians
and civil infrastructure is included in information operations as well. In
the information dimension, we think of information itself and its content
and flow. When command and control facilities are affected in the physical
dimension, the same feature may also be targeted in the information
dimension but from the perspective of the type of collected information,
20 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
its quality, content, and meaning. In the information dimension, information
operations target the ways information is collected, processed, stored,
disseminated, and protected. Last but not least, in the cognitive dimension,
information operations influence the minds of those who transmit,
receive, respond to, or act upon information. The cognitive dimension
means individuals and groups, their individual and cultural beliefs, norms,
vulnerabilities, motivations, emotions, experiences, education, mental
health, identities, and ideologies (United States—Joint Chiefs of Staff
2014; Miljkovic and Pešic 2019; Vejvodová 2019). Understanding these
factors is crucial for developing the best operations in order to influence
decision-makers and produce the desired effect.
From the above description, it is clear that thinking about information
operations as a collection of single pieces of information would be
too reductive. They are complex processes of activities integrating the
effects of information activities (collection, creation, transmission, and
protection) leading to influence over an adversary and the attainment
of goals. Information operations integrate a wide spectrum of activities,
such as psychological operations, operations security, information security,
deception, electronic warfare, kinetic actions, key leader engagement,
and computer network operations. All together, they target the will of
adversaries, their understanding of the situation, and their capabilities.
Information activities aimed at influencing the adversary focus mainly
on decision-makers who have the ability to influence the situation. Activities
in this case include questioning the legitimacy of political leaders,
undermining the morals of the population or, in military terms, the
morals of the military, polarising society, and so on. Information activities
intended to affect the understanding of the situation seek to influence the
information available to the enemy for their decision-making processes.
This includes disseminating disinformation, using military-scale mock-ups
to fool the enemy’s radar systems, deliberately leaking distorted information,
destroying or manipulating information inside the opponent’s
information systems, and so forth. The third kind of information activities
are enacted upon the enemy’s abilities and are meant to disrupt their
ability to understand information and promote their will. These include
internet connection disruptions, physical destruction of infrastructure,
and cyberattacks.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 21
In this approach, information operations can be subdivided
as information-technical and information-psychological activities.
Information-technical activities represent, for example, attacks on critical
infrastructure, attacks on elements of information infrastructure, or cyberattacks.
By information-psychological operations, we mean management
of an adversary’s perception, propaganda, disinformation campaigns,
psychological operations, and deception. It is manipulation with or by
information in a cognitive manner. That returns us to the reason why we
classify psychological operations as a tool in information operations.
Let’s move for a moment to another relevant term often mentioned by
political representatives and decision-makers when discussing disinformation
and propaganda, typically in relation to elections, the promotion of
particular interests in society, the external polarisation of society through
existing inner conflict lines, or in relation to the question of national
security—influence operations. Influence operations are coordinated, integrated,
and synchronised activities which use diplomatic, informational,
intelligence, psychological, communication, technical, military, cultural
(identity-based), or economic tools in order to influence the attitudes,
behaviour, and decisions of a predefined target audience so that the audience
supports the goals of the actor performing the influence operations.
In principle, influence operations aim to promote, undercut support, or
a combination of both in order to create a space which can be filled
with a desired solution. They can be developed in peacetime, in times
of crisis, conflicts, and post-conflict periods (Brangetto and Veenendaal
2016; Larson et al. 2009). They are carried out in both physical and
digital space. Notoriously used as an example of influence operations is the
rivalry between the Russian Federation and United States. With its origin
in the Cold War, it continues currently through the partial use of previously
tested patterns and tools as well as under new conditions generated
by the onset of the online information environment and technological
progress, which has been developing novel techniques and methods
of exploitation and influencing. Tromblay (2018) describes aspects of
influence collection as information on and exploitation of vulnerabilities
outside formal diplomacy, the exploitation of lobbyists, university
and academia idealism, cultural/ethnic/religious affinities (e.g. China’s
concept of ‘overseas Chinese’—Chinese people living abroad as a block
beholden to China), and the media.
22 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
Influence operations is an umbrella term for all operations in the information
domain, including activities relying on so-called soft power tools.
However, influence operations are not exclusively soft power tools; due to
infiltration into and disruption of information systems, secret and disruptive
activities are also part of influence operations. Soft power tools and
influence activities overlap, but they are not synonymous. Soft power
includes overt activities meant to sell an agenda. Covert influence includes
activities meant to disrupt processes (Tromblay 2018). In the military
field, they can be used during military operations and serve to weaken
the will of the adversary, intimidate or confuse decision-makers, influence
(disrupt, modify, or shut down) their information systems, weaken public
support for the adversary, or attract audiences to support their activities.
Victory can be achieved without firing a single bullet.
Similar to information operations, influence operations affect all three
dimensions of the information environment as well. They affect information
systems, the content of information, and how information affects
the target audience, creating space for the implementation of disinformation
and propaganda as well. Influence operations use activities with
both an information-technical and information-psychological character.
This may sound interchangeable with the definition of information operations;
however, that would be a misleading perception. First, influence
operations integrate a much broader scope of tools than information
operations. Information operations are, therefore, a subset of influence
operations, as already mentioned. Second, information operations are
limited to military operations. Influence operations are conducted as coordinated
activities in both civil and military affairs, and, in the case of civil
affairs, they are performed regardless of peace or war, usually in relation
to the projection of (geo)political power.
Although hierarchy and relations among defined terms may seem
complicated, Figs. 1.1 and 1.2 can provide us with a clear picture;
however, to understand them, it is necessary to distinguish between civil
and military affairs, and between times of peace and conflict insomuch as
each term may play a different role.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 23
Fig. 1.1 Hierarchy of terms in civil affairs (Source Authors)
1.5 What Is New in the Twenty-First
Century, and Where Are My Facts?
The year 2016 and the presidential election in the United States are associated
not only with the advent of fake news but also the point at which
we began to increasingly talk about the decline of people’s concern with
facts, verified sources, and truthful information. More and more, people
believe widely circulating conspiracy theories, lies, and manipulation. This
phenomenon is known as the post-truth era, which, not coincidentally,
became the Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 word of the year. Post-truth can
be described as a manifestation of a ‘qualitatively new dishonesty on the
part of politicians who appear to make up facts to suit their narratives’
(Mair 2017, 3). Post-truth is leading to ‘the diminishing importance
24 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
Fig. 1.2 Hierarchy of terms in military affairs (Source Authors)
of anchoring political utterances in relation to verifiable facts’ (Hopkin,
Rosamond 2017, 1–2). When voters accept such a mindset, politicians can
lie to them without blushing and voters will even appreciate it. This can
explain the current political situation observable in the United States and
elsewhere. Presidential elections in America are the most widely followed,
and this most visible case of fake news propagation has spread, in addition
to other post-truth symptoms, around the world. However, a similar
trend could be found in other countries even prior to 2016. This is not an
issue connected only to politicians. It refers to obvious lies being routine
across a section of society. The traditional standard of truthfulness has
lost its importance—the distinction between factual truth and falsehood
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 25
has become irrelevant; only public preferences for one set of facts matter
(Kalpokas 2020, 71). Similarly, at the academic level, the role of truth
and its questioning was being discussed beforehand (see Bufacchi 2020).
Today’s situation is different from the cliché that all politicians lie and
make promises they do not keep. Of course, politics and especially the
electoral campaign periods have always been characterised by efforts of
candidates to present reality framed so as to advantage them. Electoral
campaigns are conducted to persuade people; they cannot be confused
with education, no matter how informative they seem to be sometimes.
Political communication and marketing cannot fulfil the educational role
we know from the presentation of objective and impartial information.
As a rule, however, political proclamations in the past bent the truth
within the boundaries set by the rules of the political game in democratic
contests. If politicians were caught lying, they were usually forced by
party members, political competitors, the media, or the voters to explain
their standpoint and provide apologies (Sismondo 2017). If they were
unable to do so, they often had to give up their candidacy or elected
office—Richard Nixon could tell the story.
Such a mindset is not typical of everyone anymore. There is a significant
part of society—not just politicians but citizens and voters as
well—which does not rely on facts for truth. Post-truth is for politics a
qualitatively new game. Facts are not simply twisted or omitted to disguise
reality, but, instead, new realities are discursively created to serve a political
message (Kalpokas 2020, 71). The prefix post in post-truth does not
allude to a chronological reference that something occurs after truth.
Instead, it indicates the fact that truth is no longer essential and has been
superseded by a new reality (Bufacchi 2020). Hence, we can speak about
a post-truth or post-factual society. We are facing a situation in which a
significant part of the population has abandoned the conventional criteria
of evidence, internal consistency, and fact-seeking. In a post-truth world,
the principle of honesty as the default position and moral responsibility for
one’s statements is something some politicians no longer hold (Higgins
2016).
Many among the electorate seem not to register the troubles stemming
from the fact that politicians are lying to them. This is probably
because they believe their favoured candidate’s intentions are good, and
they would not be deliberately misleading (Higgins 2016). Therefore,
today’s politics can be described as a competition to choose which ‘truth’
can be considered the most salient and more important. The question
26 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
of which claims can be considered true and false seems to have been
sidetracked, no matter how important the consequences these choices
have (see Sismondo 2015). This is a prominent attribute of today’s politics,
and it is the essence of the post-truth era: it empowers people to
choose their reality; a reality where evidence-based and objective facts
are less important than people’s already existing beliefs and prejudices.
The phenomenon has sometimes been labelled by the buzzword term
‘alternative facts’.
However, post-truth claims or so-called alternative facts do not seek
to establish a coherent model of reality. Instead, they serve to distract
the public from unwanted information or potentially unpopular policy
actions, which as a result of the distraction can go uncommented on or
unnoticed. Moreover, they are able to destroy trust in facts and reality to
the point where facts no longer matter or are not even acknowledged
to exist. Instead, people seek affirmations even when they know they
are being misled; people wish to believe them (Colleoni et al. 2014;
Lewandowsky et al. 2017). This can be amplified by politicians who
incorporate misleading information and deception into their arsenal as
an adequate way of gaining power. To this portion of the political establishment
and society, lying is not only accepted but also rewarded. As
Lewandowsky et al. (2017) add, falsifying reality is no longer about
changing people’s beliefs, it is about gaining and sustaining power.
Thus, the post-truth era is characterised by the shift from persuasion
to relativisation, sometimes leading to apathy. It is no surprise that disinformation
and propaganda have found more than favourable conditions
for their development and dissemination these days, irrespective of how
easy it is to find facts and evidence-based information—there are some
audiences which are just not interested in them.
In the political sphere, there are frequent discussions about historical
periods and interpretations of historical events. Democratic representatives
and experts in the post-communist region struggle with those who
present an ‘alternative interpretation of history’, mainly in the context of
the installation of communist governments after the end of World War II
with the support of the Soviet Union. For example, in Czechoslovakia,
the installation of the communist regime was preceded by the abuse of
political power and the intimidation of political opponents by Communist
representatives. However, the current interpretation of revisionists
(e.g. Communist Party representatives supported by some Russian media
channels) is framed as democratic. The same could be said even of the
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 27
Holocaust, a very well-documented atrocity. We are still witnessing discussions
when doubts about single aspects are expressed, or the Holocaust as
a whole is denied. This perception of information, facts, and the evidence
does not concern only the political views and attitudes of voters, it grows
into other spheres of our lives. The growing number of people who
believe in conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and disinformation in the health
care or nutrition fields only prove that. We no longer wonder how many
people still believe the measles vaccine causes autism. We have become
used to it. A few years ago, we would not have thought that at the beginning
of the twenty-first century the number of people believing the Earth
was flat would be increasing. Today, however, we may be shocked by this,
but it is a fact. Yes, a real fact, not an alternative fact. What do these
cases have in common? Distrust of scientists, experts, and professionals
and their knowledge and skills.
Relativism and the tendency to misuse, misinterpret, or question facts
and research is nothing new. New is the degree and intensity with which
it is happening. Discussions of facts focus on what is right and what
is wrong. But for some, this is simply not relevant (Ihlen et al. 2019).
An indispensable condition for a relationship among the general public,
politicians, and experts, like almost all relationships in a democracy, is
trust. The general public trusts politicians in their political decisions, while
politicians trust experts whose knowledge provides them with the base for
political decision-making. Thus, directly or indirectly, the general public
must trust experts. When that trust collapses, when the public or politicians
no longer trust experts, democracy itself can enter a death spiral
which presents an immediate danger of decay either into mob rule or
towards an elitist technocracy. Both are authoritarian outcomes (Nichols
2017, 216). While mob rule is not observable in today’s democracies
directly, there are cases of politicians dominating the political scene who,
in their words, represent the common people and define themselves in
opposition to experts (not just elites as in the case of populism). In fact,
these cases are on the rise in the twenty-first century, and post-truth is
one of the main causes.
What is also surprising is the high level of public tolerance for the
inaccurate, misleading, or false statements of fact deniers. Since you are
reading this chapter, you may not be surprised at this point that it is not
unusual for these deniers of reality to appear on television screens or other
media side by side with scientists. There are serious discussions about who
is right and who is wrong and, moreover, whether fact deniers just have
28 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
a different perspective or opinion. Indeed, the blurring of the differences
between objectively recognisable facts and the presentation of one’s own
opinion is another typical feature of the post-truth era. ‘Don’t bother
me with facts’ is no longer a punchline, it has become a political stance.
(Higgins 2016).
1.5.1 The Journey We Have Taken to the Post-Truth Era
It is obvious that the post-truth era has not appeared out of nowhere.
When we consider the factors which caused its onset, we can distinguish
three main categories: psychological factors affecting our daily work
with information, societal changes and transformation, and technological
progress affecting both the media and our lives as such. We cannot say
which one of these is predominant. They are interconnected and all of
them are crucial for understanding why we are dealing with the post-truth
era, and why it is happening at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
It is not our intention to analyse them in detail—each of them would
require a book on their own—the aim of the following paragraphs is to
provide readers with at least a basic introduction of them so that they
can gain a better understanding of why we are dealing with post-truth
now. This will also provide readers with the raison d’être of the following
chapters of this edited volume.
Every human being must deal with biases when receiving and
processing information and news (Nickerson 1988). No one is impervious
to them; only if we are aware of them can we minimise them by knowingly
changing our habits and behaviours associated with receiving news and
information. Both our current views and attitudes are factors which play
a significant role in how we receive new information. They have an impact
on communication in general. We consciously and unconsciously try to
avoid communication which contradicts our beliefs, and, on the contrary,
we seek messages which confirm our already established attitudes. The
new information one is able to accept tends to entrench further the fault
lines of existing perspectives (O’Shaughnessy 2020, 60). When exposed
to inadequate information, we often ignore it, reformulate it, or interpret
it to support our existing attitudes. We also usually forget information
we disagree with more quickly in comparison to the information which
agrees with us. These processes are called selective exposure, selective
perception, and selective memory. Selective exposure is a tendency to
expose ourselves to information or news which are in line with our current
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 29
attitudes while avoiding those we disagree with. Selective perception for
change embodies the phenomenon of a person projecting what we want
to see and hear into what we see or hear. Selective memory makes it easier
for us to recall from our memory information which supports our views
(see Freedman and Sears 1965; Hart et al. 2009; Stroud 2010; Zillmann
and Bryant 2011).
Another principle affecting our attitude to information is cognitive
dissonance. Festinger (1957) argues that if we have two or more pieces
of information which are incompatible, then we feel a state of discomfort—dissonance.
The information we have and believe in should be in
harmony to make us feel comfortable. Therefore, in the case of any
discord, we must act. Nevertheless, this state of mental discomfort does
not only occur when the information we have does not match. There
is also discomfort which arises after a decision is made, when there is
discord between attitude and behaviour, and when there is discomfort
from disappointment. The discomfort is caused by two or more relevant
pieces of information, and the discomfort experienced is higher the more
important the information. The state of discomfort itself is perceived as
unpleasant and can be reduced, for example, by reducing the significance
of non-conforming information or re-evaluating it. We can also add information
which confirms our initial opinion to eliminate the discomfort (see
Harmon-Jones 2002).
Confirmation bias is probably the best known and most widely
accepted notion of inferential error to emerge from the literature on
human reasoning (Evans 1989, 41). However, there is in fact a set of
confirmation biases rather than one unified confirmation bias (see Nickerson
1998). There are often substantial task-to-task differences in these
observed phenomena, their consequences, and the underlying cognitive
processes we are able to identify. Generally, though, their direction is a
tendency for people to believe too much in their favoured hypothesis.
The term confirmation bias refers to looking for the presence of what we
expect as opposed to looking for what we do not expect, to an inclination
to retain or a disinclination to abandon a currently favoured hypothesis
(see Jones, Sudden 2001; Knobloch-Westerwick and Kleinman 2012).
Societal changes represent the second category affecting our perception
of information and news. It is natural for human beings to evolve
and change. Likewise, the values and conventions which prevail in society
evolve and change. This is nothing new or a characteristic purely found
in recent decades or the last century. However, the specific changes play
30 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
to the cards of post-truth. First of all, in Western democracies, there
has been an observable decline in civic engagement, trust, and goodwill
since the 1960s. Values which have encouraged people to discuss,
exchange opinions, and seek consensus are increasingly less relevant to
people. This trend leads us to stay in contact with people with similar attitudes,
social status, political views, and hobbies. With our enclosure into
social bubbles, there has also been a shift of values and life goals among
the majority of people. The will to help the environment or interest in
the philosophy of life has declined significantly since the 1970s. On the
other hand, the importance of being well-off financially has risen over the
same period (Twenge et al. 2012). Although we may have seen increased
environmental concern in recent years, the question is how this trend will
be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic
development of individual countries. We cannot predict since this text is
being written in the middle of the pandemic.
These changing life goals have unexpectedly been accompanied by
growing inequality. As Lewandowsky et al. (2017) note, it is a paradox
that at the same time as money has become more prominent, real income
growth for young Americans has largely stagnated since the 1960s. Nor
is this a problem for youth in just the United States. It is something the
younger generation must deal with in most of the democracies. The ability
to become independent and acquire their own housing is more difficult
for millennials than to the generation of their parents. This generation
gap leading to inequality is associated with affective political polarisation,
which means that members of political parties tend to view members of
their political party more positively and those of opposing parties more
negatively than ever before (see Abramowitz and Webster 2016). Party
affiliation or, more precisely, ideological preference is also the link to
another societal effect: politically asymmetric credulity. Recent studies
have shown that there are cognitive and psychological differences between
liberals and conservatives in the way they access information and evaluate
their relevance or trustworthiness: conservative voters tend to believe
in disinformation and false information more often than liberal voters
(see Jost 2017). This societal effect is represented by a declining trust
in science as already mentioned above. Naturally, when considering individual
specific cases of trust in disinformation and alternative facts, not all
of these societal effects or changes must be present or fulfilled. However,
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 31
looking at the current political developments on the national and international
level, it is not easy to free oneself of the impression that these are
often exemplary cases of the effects mentioned here.
Last but not least, there are technological changes. Probably the most
visible technological development affecting our perception of information
are the changes in the global media landscape which have led to
fragmentation. The advent of the Internet, especially Web 2.0, produced
sources of information tailored to each user’s needs and wishes. In light
of the fractionalisation of the media landscape into echo chambers (e.g.
Jasny et al. 2015), many people believe their opinions, however exotic
or unsupported by evidence, to be widely shared, thereby rendering
them resistant to change or correction (Lewandowsky et al. 2017). Thus,
alternative facts have increasingly moved in from the outskirts of public
discourse. Conspiracy theories and disinformation gain more attention
from mainstream audiences than ever before (Webb and Jirotka 2017).
If traditional and mainstream media does not provide us with the information
confirming our opinion and biases, we can look for media which
does provide it—even if it is bullshit. Furthermore, this heterogeneity
contributes to the incivility of political discourse. The media is trying to
supply more shocking news or frame them in ever catchier ways to get
our attention.
Social media is a phenomenon in and of itself. It polarises society
through algorithms which embody the essence of its functioning. Functionality
based on the logic of consumer behaviour, where we are offered
products and services which are evaluated as attractive to us based on
our previous behaviour, can be appreciated when talking about goods.
However, it is highly problematic in the field of news and political
content. Users are presented with content which reflects their view of the
world (O’Shaughnessy 2020); therefore, they are less and less confronted
by other views. The willingness to speak to people with a different opinion
is declining. Because why should we even bother to do so? In order to
filter inconvenient information (or data smog), people naturally tend to
belong to an ‘information group’—people who are ‘marked by allegiance
to particular types and sources of information, to particular modes of
problem perception and solution’ (Marshall et al. 2015, 23). Belonging to
an information group saves our time. Consciously or not, we are getting
closed in our filter bubbles or echo chambers—communities where we
like to confirm our opinion regardless of whether it is based on real facts
or not—without being exposed to counter arguments (Ihlen et al. 2019).
32 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
Since we are like–minded people in these echo chambers, the chance
that someone will question false information is declining. People tend
to believe their opinions are widely shared regardless of whether or not
they are actually widely shared (Lewandowsky et al. 2017). When people
believe this, they are more resistant to changing their minds, less likely
to compromise, and more likely to insist on their own views (Leviston
et al. 2013). Of course, people can belong to more than one information
group, hearing more than one echo chamber with varying degrees
of commitment or awareness (Marshall et al. 2015, 24). Another effect
connected to social media is the roughness of discussions. We do not see
those with whom we are conversing with on social media. It is, therefore,
easier to slip into rougher language. In the same way, trolls and bots have
a similarly vulgarising effect.
Until now, the focus has mainly been on users, citizens, or voters.
However, the technological giants of the online world have also had
an undeniable impact on the current situation, as demonstrated in the
strengthening effects of algorithms. In addition to social media platforms
like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, Google and its targeted ads are
among the most influential. It is enough for a user to read an article
on a disreputable website a few times, and search engines and ads already
recommend similar resources to them. As with shopping behaviour, when
receiving information, the Internet players offer ‘similar products’. Therefore,
paradoxically a small number of technological ‘superpowers’ have
come to dominate the global spread of information and affect not only
the way we consume information but also what information and from
what sources (Webb and Jirotka 2017).
1.5.2 Infodemic—Post-Truth on Steroids
The year 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought—among other
things—a further acceleration of the spread of misleading information.
Misleading health information, such as ‘guaranteed’ advice and tips on
how to treat the disease, has become a new issue in particular (Lilleker
et al. 2021). The term ‘infodemic’ has become widespread, highlighting
the danger of the misinformation phenomenon throughout the management
of virus outbreaks since it has the ability to even accelerate the
spread of the novel coronavirus by empowering reluctance towards the
social response. The pandemic has shown how crucial and important a
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 33
role social media plays in the new information environment (Cinelli et al.
2020, 2). Users increasingly see trusted sources of information within
their peer networks and further share their statements. As that information
is further spread, it often increases in its perceived legitimacy. This
method of sharing and validating information contrasts with methods
implemented by mass media, who have specialised knowledge and specific
responsibilities related to information verification and sharing. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have, not surprisingly, been turning to
this new digital reality for guidance (Limaye et al. 2020, 277). We can
see this trend all around the world, with countries and even supranational
organisations, such as the European Union or the World Health
Organisation (WHO), having faced it (see Lilleker et al. 2021).
It would not be correct to state that social media has served exclusively
the dissemination of misleading information. There were numerous cases
when social media helped to empower and support hospital staff as well as
information campaigns on epidemiological recommendations or governmental
measures. The latter two especially represent a battlefield where
social media has met mass media and fought for the audience’s attention,
for the privilege of who gets to inform the general public. Even
though users share information on social media, ‘old school’ techniques
of (political) communication have proved that they do not yet belong in
the scrapheap. Mass media has played a crucial role mainly in two aspects:
(1) mediation of press conferences and speeches of government members
to the masses, and (2) the selection of experts who provide comments
based on their expertise.
The phenomenon, which is not new but has been boosted by the
pandemic, is the comments and statements of self-proclaimed experts
or authorities with expertise from fields not correlated to the pandemic.
These statements have been widely circulated on social media and have
often undermined the official statements made by the government. ‘Scientific
misinformation has been actively propagated as a means to destabilise
trust in governments and as a political weapon’ (Limaye et al. 2020, 277),
and mass media, at least to some degree, has played the role of moderator,
returning the debate to acceptable norms with eligible speakers. Although
social media has strengthened its power during the pandemic, mass media
has shown itself to be crucial if verified and reliable information is needed.
Nevertheless, even mass media has not gone without blemish and has
been criticised, for example, for providing space to ‘erroneous’ experts.
34 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
*****
People usually hear what they want to hear because they get their news
exclusively from sources whose bias they agree with. A source provides the
framing for the information. It tells the consumer whether the information
is likely to be agreeable and conform to expectations (Marshall et al.
2015, 24). It is not decisive how trustworthy the source is according
to the objective criteria—we recognise the source as trustworthy when
it provides likeable ‘facts’, no matter how ‘alternative’ they are. Although
some authors expect that echo chambers boosted by computer algorithms
to select news on Web 2.0 (and social media especially) will have an effect
on both solid news and fake news (see Sismondo 2017), recent data shows
that disinformation and lies spread faster and to a broader audience than
truth—a product of the different predominant emotions both types of
news evoke (Vosoughi et al. 2018). However, no matter what side people
choose, whether to trust facts or alternative facts, both ways play into
approaches which treat voters as people to be manipulated rather than
convinced (Sismondo 2017).
Lies and bullshit have always been among us, but technologies, such
as social media; the growth of so-called alternative media; and even bots
have elevated them to a common cause, which a part of our society is
unashamed of, elevating it even to a political attitude. Verifying information
and debunking lies and disinformation is then perceived as a
restriction on freedom of speech and the enforcement of political attitudes
to the detriment of others. All these trends have encouraged politicians to
strategically target their supporters with radical and, in some cases, even
extremist messages. At a time when people are overwhelmed with information,
the political struggle is often won not by the politician who is
able to compromise and use substantive reasoning, but the one whose
tweets and Facebook statuses are more visible and striking. And while
you are reading the explanation of what the post-truth era is, more and
more people argue on Facebook about blatant lies which are presented
and defended as their opinion.
1 EXPLAINING THE CHALLENGE: FROM PERSUASION TO RELATIVISATION 35
1.6 Conclusion
On the previous pages, we tried to explain what propaganda and disinformation
are, how they differ from other forms of false or misleading
information, and how they fit into the broader concept of influence
operations. The way we receive information and news has changed radically
over the past decade, which is also linked to the emergence of the
post-truth era or, more recently, the so-called infodemic. Although there
is a lack of consensus on the universally accepted definition of propaganda,
the individual definitions are characterised by standard features: (1)
systematically and intentionally disseminated (2) ideas and information
(3) are inaccurate, distorted, false, or omitted (4) and intended to influence
or manipulate the public (5) to harm the opponent. Disinformation
represents a conceptually more straightforward phenomenon (intentionally
misleading information). However, it is often confused with other
forms of deception.
The form and strategy of propaganda are influenced by the means
which propaganda can use—propaganda depends on the tools and channels
of information dissemination on offer. Today, it has taken the form of
using the Internet and social media so anyone can write what they want,
anyone can be a journalist, or, more generally, be a creator of popular
content. This means, among other things, an overloading of the information
environment and the individual as well. Laswell’s, Ellul’s, and
Taylor’s definitions of propaganda as introduced in this chapter remain
valid, but the nature of the information environment and the means
through which we can use in it have changed, affecting the strategies that
lead to the fulfilment of those still valid goals for which both propaganda
and disinformation are used. Manipulative techniques remain the same,
although the frequency varies in the use of particular techniques. What
does not change is the essential role of emotions.
Today’s propaganda and disinformation do not necessarily aim to
persuade; another strategy used is the effort to overload a targeted audience
with information and thus induce relativisation, which suits the
post-truth era. In the post-truth era, three primary shifts can be identified:
(1) a lie is elevated to political opinion, and if the facts do not fit
into our vision of the world, we choose other, alternative facts which
do; (2) technologies accelerate our enclosure into echo chambers and
opinion ghettos; and, paradoxically, (3) politicians who benefit from posttruth
rely on people’s tendencies to believe that others are telling (at least
36 M. GREGOR AND P. MLEJNKOVÁ
mostly) truth, and they exploit it. Moreover, the post-truth era is often
characterised by an intertwining of political ambitions and politicians with
propaganda narratives and disinformation.
The question is which came first, the chicken or the egg? Are the
information overloading and relativisation strategies a characteristic of
the post-truth era or were they just an advantageous condition which
facilitated the onset of the post-truth era? Did the post-truth era enable
this strategy to be applied, or did the use of the strategy lead to its
development? The purpose of this chapter was not to answer such questions
but instead seek to highlight that these new strategies respond to
the fact that society has access to nearly unlimited information which
is affected by strategies of applied propaganda and disinformation. It is
challenging to control or even stop the flow of information unless we
create a downright new and controllable information environment. Thus,
the new method of manipulation is to create the illusion that things are
not as they seem, that there are always alternative facts for everyone.
With the change in the information environment, so too have the strategies
changed. We have moved from persuasion to manipulation through
the sheer amount of information and the presentation of information
irrelevant to the discourse and, therefore, to its relativisation.
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