Disinformation has become a pivotal concern for policymakers globally. While the issue has been a longstanding issue for communication and foreign affairs scholars and practitioners, recent years have seen an escalation in its severity driven by geopolitical conflicts like the Ukraine war or the Israel-Gaza conflict. These conflicts, coupled with international tensions, are exacerbated by state-led foreign interference and information manipulation intersecting with domestic partisan disinformation campaigns. Democracies with open media systems are particularly exposed to disinformation campaigns by other actors. In this article, we understand disinformation campaigns as a political instrument of increasing the power of interpretation among target groups. These may be populations of foreign states but also domestic citizens that are targeted with disinformation by partisan groups or autocratic governments. To better assess the aim of disinformation campaigns, we propose to focus on informational power as a mediator underpinning Michael Mann’s IEMP model based on ideological, economic, military, and political power. Working from this theoretical framework, we discuss the actors, messages, incentives, and techniques and tactics of disinformation campaigns from a European perspective.

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Informational Power and Disinformation: Actors, Messages, Incentives, and Techniques of Disinformation Campaigns

  • Philipp Darius,
  • Michael Urquhart

摘要

Disinformation has become a pivotal concern for policymakers globally. While the issue has been a longstanding issue for communication and foreign affairs scholars and practitioners, recent years have seen an escalation in its severity driven by geopolitical conflicts like the Ukraine war or the Israel-Gaza conflict. These conflicts, coupled with international tensions, are exacerbated by state-led foreign interference and information manipulation intersecting with domestic partisan disinformation campaigns. Democracies with open media systems are particularly exposed to disinformation campaigns by other actors. In this article, we understand disinformation campaigns as a political instrument of increasing the power of interpretation among target groups. These may be populations of foreign states but also domestic citizens that are targeted with disinformation by partisan groups or autocratic governments. To better assess the aim of disinformation campaigns, we propose to focus on informational power as a mediator underpinning Michael Mann’s IEMP model based on ideological, economic, military, and political power. Working from this theoretical framework, we discuss the actors, messages, incentives, and techniques and tactics of disinformation campaigns from a European perspective.