The Manufacture of Dissent: Misinformation and the Mainstreaming of the European Margins

This paper examines the relationship between misinformation campaigns, political mobilisation and the normalisation of marginal beliefs in the European context. In particular, the study focuses on the strategic use of migration-related conspiracy theories by nativist movements and parties to mainstream their agenda. The central argument is that, within the nativist European political realm, misinformation campaigns, especially conspiracy theories, are orchestrated with the clear intent of spreading a concrete message, recruit and mobilise the public through the manufacture of dissent. In his much celebrated “Public Opinion”, Walter Lippman analysed the “manufacture of consent”, ascertaining that “it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise” (Lippmann, 1922/1991, p. 248). Almost a century later, I believe that knowledge of how to create dissent is altering every political calculation and modifying every political premise. I qualify the strategic use of misinformation campaigns as a new form of manufacturing dissent, which follows the old logic of collective action, but within transformed political and media ecosystems permeated by “connective action ” (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, p. 36). Indeed, the manufacture of consent is only possible due to the network effects of political “information cocoons” (Sunstein, 2009, p. 44) and media concentration. Contrary to the common idea, networks are inherently hierarchical structures. Both the political networks and the digital platforms used to diffuse them are subject to networked hierarchies that control the possible mainstreaming of otherwise marginal beliefs. Consequently, the chief objective of this paper is to explore the eventual outcomes of misinformation and mass manipulation, using migration-related beliefs and attitudes as a case-study. This refers to the instrumental use of conspiracy theories for political ends and, if confirmed, should uncover attempts of networked mass manipulation by nativist movements and parties. This central goal is directly connected to two subsidiary research objectives: RO1: the identification of nativist “conspiracy centrals” with vested political interests at the centre of networked structures steering the misinformation campaigns; and RO2: the measurement of the eventual repercussions in the general public. Methodologically, this forces us to confront the dual-world problem, that is, the difficulties associated with the assessment of the offline impact of online interactions (Ruths & Pfeffer, 2014). To overcome this divide, I used data from across the online-offline continuum. This was done through the combination of data collection on online social networks and three original surveys fielded in six European countries (Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Sweden): YouGov Centre/CRASSH. (2016). Daily Polling, Conspiracies in Great Britain; YouGov Centre/CRASSH. (2017). Conspiracies, YouGov Centre/CRASSH. (2018). Conspiracies. The former addresses RO1, the network structure of the studied political networks, while the later confronts RO2, the relative impact of misinformation campaigns on people’s beliefs.