How Social Media Exacerbates Propaganda
We should fear the coming election.
Propaganda has existed since the dawn of humanity.
Only recently has it gotten very good due to social media. To understand why this is, we’ll first look at the classical form of propaganda and why it works or fails. Then we’ll see that several aspects of our new social media landscape exacerbates the problem of propaganda.
Unfortunately, the 2016 U.S. presidential election was heavily influenced, and possibly decided, by social media propaganda.
It’s ridiculous to think that people will just turn off Twitter and Facebook before the 2020 election. My hope now is that by understanding why and how this propaganda happens, more people can see through it this time around.
What is Traditional Propaganda?
Propaganda takes many forms, but classically, it’s a piece of media specifically designed to alter a person’s beliefs or emotions, often of a political nature, in an intentionally misleading way.
Let’s take one of the most well-documented early propaganda campaigns: Edward Bernays’ work for Lucky Strike cigarettes.
In the 1920s, it was considered improper for women to smoke in public. This was obviously not the best social…
