Description: Social media platforms do not just circulate political ideas, but support computational propaganda and manipulative disinformation campaigns. Although some of these disinformation campaigns are carried out directly by individuals, most are waged by software, commonly known as bots, programmed to perform simple, repetitive, robotic tasks. Including case studies from nine countries and covering propaganda efforts over a wide array of social media platforms, this book argues that bots, fake accounts, and social media algorithms amount to a new political communications mechanism that it terms "computational propaganda."
Review Quotes: "[Computational Propaganda] offers robust data-driven evidence around the degree to which social and political manipulation occurs over social media, in countries and contexts, as well as within communities in more mature liberal democracies." -- Sanjana Hattotuwa, The Island
"In the first two decades of the worldwide web, Internet studies focused on how the technology expands social and political space. The 2010s have brought ample evidence of that space being colonized by the usual suspects - states and other powerful anti-democratic actors. This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of how various digital methods, from automated scripts to human trolls, are being harnessed to pollute the information ecosystem, divide societies, and manipulate public opinion. Through their systematic and sober multi-country study, the authors push for evidence-based responses, to avoid the kind of moral panic that in many societies is leading to hasty and ill-conceived regulation.^" -Cherian George, Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy"Propaganda used to be broadcast--today, propaganda flows in digital networks of human as well as non-human agents. This timely volume brings together a unique set of case studies from around the world revealing the current state of computational propaganda."-Klaus Bruhn Jensen, A Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies"For a long time, politicians struggled to make sense of social media. Then in one electoral season, bots, blogs, YouTube posts and other types of social media amplifiers turned election projections, referenda, and the political landscape upside down. What you thought you knew about the political process is wrong. You have been misinformed. Read this excellent book and find out why."-Zizi Papacharissi, Affective Publics: sentiment, Technology, and Politics