Propaganda as a Social Process: Erecting Monopolies of Truth in a High-Choice Digital Information Environment

Abstract

With the weaponization of digital social media in the context of ongoing conflicts and crises, propaganda has made a forceful return onto the social-scientific research agenda. Yet, much recent work focuses narrowly on the algorithm-assisted dissemination of disinformation. In this conceptual intervention, we argue that the key to understanding contemporary propaganda is not audiences’ exposure to invalid information, but rather, how they determine which contested claims are credible and significant. Shifting focus from propaganda’s epistemic qualities toward its anti-democratic thrust, we define propaganda as a social process geared toward the construction of monopolistic truths and the delegitimization of pluralistic dissent. Drawing upon propaganda practices during Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, and the war between Israel and Hamas, we illustrate how propaganda constructs strategic identity-based narratives to predispose audiences toward selectively accepting propaganda-aligned information while discounting contravening claims. Mobilizing long-standing cultural narratives, propaganda fans perceived identity threat to incentivize supporters to voluntarily participate in the amplification of supportive claims and the active de-legitimization of dissent. Building considerable social pressure capable of dominating public discourse, propaganda cultivates resilient world views capable of withstanding the ubiquitous contradictions characteristic of high-choice digital information environments.