Studying Propaganda as a Social Process

In recent scholarship on propaganda, no aspect has attracted more attention than the digitally mediated propagation of disinformation. In this intervention, we argue that focusing narrowly on disinformation risks missing the forest for all the trees: Only by considering disinformation’s embedding within broader propaganda strategies and processes, we can understand falsehoods’ distinctive rhetorical functions alongside other forms of (normative, motivational, etc.) propaganda messaging, comprehend their persuasive appeal, and theorize their capacity to gain discursive power within contemporary high-choice information environments. Advancing an approach that foregrounds propaganda’s inherent anti-democratic ambition over its manipulative means, we sketch a research agenda suitable to studying propaganda as a social process.