History and use of disinformation / narrative-creation / propaganda
Cage, Caleb. (2019) War narratives: shaping beliefs, blurring truths in the Middle East. Available in print
Author Cage, a veteran of the war in Iraq, brings a unique perspective to the understanding of how we talk about war. Why does the American public believe that those who served are somehow both heroes and victims, while the typical service member rarely embraces either identity? There are many competing narratives—both fiction and nonfiction—that are used to explain recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how those narratives are perceived through preexisting social, political, and literary lenses, and how they often fall short.
Cheng, Dean. (2017) Cyber dragon: inside China's information warfare and cyber operations. Available in print and eBook
This book provides a framework for assessing China's extensive cyber espionage efforts and multi-decade modernization of its military, not only identifying the 'what' but also addressing the 'why' behind China's focus on establishing information dominance as a key component of its military efforts. Provides a detailed overview and thorough analysis of Chinese cyber activities. Makes extensive use of Chinese-language materials, much of which has not been utilized in the existing Western literature on the subject.
Connellly, Mark (2019) Propaganda and Conflict: War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century. Available in eBook
What are the challenges of propaganda studies in the twenty-first century? Much scholarship remains locked into the study of state-led campaigns, however an area of special concern in recent years has been the loss of official control over the basic instruments of mass communication. This has been seen in the rise of 'fake news' and the ability of non-state actors to influence political events. This volume presents the latest research in propaganda studies, featuring contributions from a range of leading scholars and covering the most cutting-edge scholarship in the study of propaganda from World War I to the present.
Cortada, J. & Aspray. (2019) Fake News Nation: The Long History of Lies and Misinterpretations in America. Available in eBook
The authors present a series of case studies that describe how lies and fake facts were used over the past two centuries in important instances in American history. Cortada and Aspray give readers a perspective on fake facts as they appear today and as they are likely to appear in the future.
Demm, Eberhard. (2019) Censorship and propaganda in World War I: a comprehensive history. Available in print
This book explains how people were kept ignorant by censorship and indoctrinated by propaganda. The many illustrations and organograms provide a clear visual demonstration of Demm's argument. Chapters include: 2. Propaganda - Aims and Organization 3. What Were the Principal Arguments of Propaganda? 4. How did the Techniques and the Distribution of Propaganda Function? 5. How Were Entertainment and the Visual Arts Transformed by Propaganda 6. Which Groups Were Especially Targeted and How Did They React?
DePaulo, Bella. (2020) State-Sponsored Bullshit, and Why Truth Matters: Propaganda, the manipulation of American minds and the illusion of freedom. Available online
From the essay: “Deception then means deliberate, volitional deviation from the truth. If I do not know the fact of a given matter, I can tell neither lies nor truths. However, I could bullshit about it, pretending that I know the facts when I actually do not; pretending to be something that I am not—all the while making an impression on the listener.”
Fridman, O., Kabernick V. & Pearce, J. (2019) Hybrid conflicts and information warfare: new labels, old politics. Available in print
What is hybrid warfare? And what role does information play in today's conflicts? In the context of the technological/information revolution of the last two decades--which has greatly amplified the danger posed by nonmilitary means of political struggle--Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare addresses these questions from the perspectives of both Western and Russian experts. Incorporating both theory and contemporary realities, including the case of the Islamic State, the authors offer a unique dialogue on the current nature of conflict.
Greenberg, Nathaniel. (2019) How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring: The Politics of Narrative in Tunisia and Egypt. Available in print
On 28 January 2011 WikiLeaks released documents from a cache of US State Department cables stolen the previous year. The Daily Telegraph in London published one of the memos with an article headlined 'Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising'. The effect of the revelation was immediate, helping set in motion an aggressive counter-narrative to the nascent story of the Arab Spring. The article featured a cluster of virulent commentators all pushing the same story: the CIA, George Soros and Hillary Clinton were attempting to take over Egypt. Many of these commentators were trolls, some of whom reappeared in 2016 to help elect Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. This book tells the story of how a proxy-communications war ignited and hijacked the Arab uprisings and how individuals on the ground, on air and online worked to shape history.
Herpen, Marcel Van. (2015) Putin's propaganda machine: soft power and Russian foreign policy. Available in print
This book examines Russia's 'information war,' one of the most striking features of its intervention in Ukraine. The author argues that the Kremlin's propaganda offensive is a carefully prepared strategy, implemented and tested over the last decade. It’s a multifaceted strategy including mimicking Western public diplomacy initiatives, hiring Western public-relations firms, setting up front organizations, buying Western media outlets, financing political parties, organizing a worldwide propaganda offensive through the Kremlin's cable network RT, and publishing paid supplements in leading Western newspapers. the Kremlin's propaganda machine plays not only a central role in its 'hybrid war' in Ukraine, but that it also has broader international objectives, targeting in particular Europe's two leading countries--France and Germany--with the goal of forming a geopolitical triangle, consisting of a Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis, intended to roll back the influence of NATO and the United States in Europe.
King, David. (2014) The Commissar vanishes: the falsification of photographs and art in Stalin's Russia : photographs and graphics from the David King collection. Available in print
This visual history is a unique and brilliant study into the doctoring and propagandizing of Soviet photographs by Stalin's regime and offers a chilling look at how Stalin manipulated the science of photography to advance his own political career and to erase the memory of his victims. Rivals were airbrushed from group portraits, and crowd scenes were altered to depict even greater legions of the faithful. For example, a 1919 photograph showing a large crowd of Bolsheviks clustered around Lenin, became, with the aid of the retoucher, an intimate portrait of Lenin and Stalin sitting alone, and then, in a later version, of Stalin by himself.
Kubiak, Jeffrey & Herrmann, Jon. (2017) Weaponized Narrative: The New Battlespace. Available online
Scholars from ASU's Center on the Future of War examine the phenomenon they call "weaponized narrative." Weaponized narrative is an attack that seeks to undermine an opponent’s civilization, identity, and will. By generating confusion, complexity, and political and social schisms, it confounds response on the part of the defender. The contributions seek to not only define the phenomenon, but also provide some insights into possible responses to weaponized narrative attacks.
Poindexter, Dennis. (2018) The Chinese information war: espionage, cyberwar, communications control and related threats to United States interests. Available in print
This new type of war, says the author, is China's effort at bending another country's will to its own. It is clever, broadly applied, successful, and aimed directly at the United States. This war is neither conventional nor accidental. The U.S. military is at a disadvantage because it is part of a system of government that is democratic, decentralized and mostly separated from American businesses. This system has served the country well but is not a path that China sees as worth following. This book is not a "how to" book of strategies that might be developed to fight a cyberwar. It is a way to grasp and categorize what the Chinese are already doing, to make sense of it. Until the U.S. sees itself as in a war, it cannot begin to effectively prosecute it.
Rid, Thomas (2020) Active measures: the secret history of disinformation and political warfare. Available in print
More than four months before the 2016 election, the author warned that Russian military intelligence was attempting to disrupt the democratic process. Here he tells the story of modern disinformation, beginning with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, revealing for the first time some of the century's most significant operations and also sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous 'troll farm' in St. Petersburg.
light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous 'troll farm' in St. Petersburg.
Schmitt, Carolyn E. (2020) Tracing the disinformation campaign on mail-in voter fraud: Research shows elites, mass media play important role in spreading voting misinformation. Harvard Law Today. Available online
A new report from Harvard Law School Professor Yochai Benkler ’94 and a team of researchers from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society shows that this disinformation campaign — intentionally spreading false information in order to deceive — is largely led by political elites and the mass media. The report also shows that President Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee, Republican officials, and other public figures are central to fueling the dissemination of and attention to voter fraud claims online.
Stanley, Jason. (2015) How propaganda works. Available in eBook
Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us—not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. The author demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy—particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality—and how it has damaged democracies of the past.
Stanley, Jason. (2018) How fascism works: the politics of us and them. Available in print
The author explains the ten pillars of fascist politics--the language and beliefs that separate people into an 'us' and a 'them.' He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations. He makes clear the cumulative power of these tactics, which include exploiting a mythic version of a nation's past; propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves; anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts; law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals; and fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare.
Tashev, B. Purcell, M. & McLaughlin, B. (2019) Russia’s Information Warfare: Exploring the Cognitive Dimension. Available online
The U.S. military increasingly invests in capabilities to meet challenges from the growth of strategic competition in the information environment, which is aimed at influencing and disrupting adversaries and other groups. By analyzing Russia’s approach to information warfare, this article adds to the current understanding of the Russian modus operandi in the information environment. The article argues that the success of competitive strategies in this domain requires not only investment in its technical and informational dimensions but also deep knowledge of its most important: the cognitive dimension. The article concludes with recommendations to incorporate cognitive dimension considerations in Marine Corps operations in the information environment.
Velychenko, Stephen. (2019) Propaganda in revolutionary Ukraine: leaflets, pamphlets, and cartoons, 1917-1922. Available in print
This book is a survey of domestic governmental and party printed propaganda in revolutionary Ukraine. It is based on an illustrative sample of leaflets, pamphlets, and cartoons published by different parties under the Central Rada, the left-wings of the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Ukrainian Social Democratic and Labour Party, Ukraine's Bolsheviks, and anti-Bolshevik warlords. The book includes over 300 reproductions and describes the infrastructure that underlay the production and dissemination of printed texts. It summarizes the messages in printed text propaganda and argues that in the war of words neither Ukrainian failure nor Bolshevik success should be exaggerated. Each side managed to sway opinion in its favor in specific places at specific times.
Vokelz, COL Glenn J. (2015) The Rise of iWar: Identity, Information, and the Individualization of Modern Warfare. Available online
During a decade of global counterterrorism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns, the United States was confronted with a new kind of adversary. Without uniforms, flags, and formations, the task of identifying and targeting these combatants represented an unprecedented operational challenge for which Cold War era doctrinal methods were largely unsuited. This monograph examines the doctrinal, technical, and bureaucratic innovations that evolved in response to these new operational challenges.