Propaganda and Polarisation

What is propaganda?

Propaganda is the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

There are 4 key steps to creating propaganda:

Step 1: Create and ideology

Propaganda often consists of six types of arguments and beliefs:

1. Identification of injustice & critique: this activates feelings of frustration and moral outrage
2. Identification of a collective enemy that is responsible: this transfers responsibility related to attacks
3. Configuration of a stereotype that devalues / dehumanises the enemy: this inhibits empathy and activates feelings of hatred / desire for revenge
4. Description of a positive social identity: this creates identification with the interests and values of their community
5. Definition of collective goals and potentially violence as the only effective method: this legitimises violence and forces people to act
6. Prediction of a future state / a reached goal through violence: this increases expectations associated with violent activity

Step 2: Build a binary world view

Propaganda is powerful because it is very simple. It uses ‘message’ rather than true, verified stories. The message is comforting and offers a simplification of the world and shows ‘good vs. evil’, ‘bad vs. good’. This bipolar worldview is the starting point for radicalisation because it creates an ‘us vs. them’-divide. It creates a fear for the other.

Step 3: Play on emotion

Propaganda is powerful because it is emotional. It incites hatred and fear, building segregation whilst promoting empowerment and superiority. Propaganda includes the reinforcement of societal myths and stereotypes that are so deeply embedded within a culture that it is often difficult to recognize the message as propaganda.

Step 4: Disorientate your audience

​The logic follows that if you tell the same lie 7 times, people stop denying it and begin to believe it. Fire hosing does two things: it creates so much content that people spend a lot of time decoding and deconstructing it and miss the real story or reason. The second is that it attempts to pass an idea off as the truth. ​

The Firehose of Falsehood
• High Volume of propaganda: Lies repeated by different sources
• Rapid, Continuous, Repetitive 
• No Commitment to objective reality: Completely false or kernel of truth
• No Commitment to Consistency 

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What is polarisation?

Source: Dare to be Grey

Polarisation is a process of increasing ‘us-versus-them’ divisions in society. It can be found in almost every place and time, it is not rare or alien. It is a process that can happen due to a number of causes, which don’t have to necessarily be negative or have an evil occurrence. However, it will always come with a certain risk of escalation that often can involve violence.

Core to the process of polarisation is the development of a specific language of absolutes, where both sides of a certain argument consider themselves to be the ‘good’ side, while they consider their opponent to be the ‘evil’ side.

Narratives are not necessarily about factual information, but about emotion and identity, and that can become really problematic.

The role of internet

The rise in internet access and social media usage over the last ten to fifteen years has culminated in the new phenomenon of online polarisation. There are four factors that make online polarisation a revolutionary, new dimension of polarisation:

1. Echo Chambers & Selective Exposure
2. Filter Bubbles & Algorithms
3. Disinformation
4. Downsides of accessibility

Echo chambers provide a space in which we constantly hear our own convictions being bounced back to us on repeat, without any form of thought-provoking criticism. This is not an online phenomenon exclusively, but they have grown rapidly since the introduction of the internet and social media.

By isolating oneself in an echo chamber, either consciously or subconsciously, we can bring about selective exposure. Generally speaking, we like to surround ourselves with like-minded people, as that makes us feel safe and part of a tribe. Someone who selectively exposes themselves tends to avoid content that is of a different perspective or challenges their own position, and they only focus on media that aligns with their views.

Effectively, selective exposure arises as a result of the individual’s actions, whether they are aware they are doing so or not. This, in turn, can feed into the further growth of echo chambers. So the two of them are feeding into each other in a constant circle.

Building on this, echo chambers are exacerbated by the algorithms used on social media channels, which are known to cause filter bubbles. Filter bubbles differ from echo chambers as they specifically involve algorithms, whereas echo chambers do not necessarily have to. 

The algorithms used in the architecture of social media are what make us believe that we are in groups of like-minded people. This creates a feedback loop and can push polarisation even further. Breaking these bubbles is not easy to do, as social media companies play on the human instinct that attributes one’s identity.

Another role of the internet is the spread of disinformation. The internet has given a platform to almost everyone, enabling every imaginable opinion and piece of information to be found somewhere online.

There are also downsides to this accessibility.  The ability to create anonymous user profiles has made it quite easy to post harsh opinions on the internet, with little to no repercussions, This can lead to people being much more extreme online than they may be offline.

Another downside is that we see our overall attention span decreasing, especially with the rise in smartphone using. This has caused a shrinking willingness to engage in longer debates that would allow people to be confronted with more nuanced perspectives. Social media is actually designed to play on triggering short attention spans from people, exploiting these specific human instincts.

The three key aspects to polarisation

• A process of growing, social division, where the diversity of people and of their thoughts move towards two distinct groups, in-groups and out-groups.
• The narrative and the language, which play on the emotions and identity formation of groups and individuals. Narratives usually follow the same binary logic, using phrases such as ‘good and evil’ and ‘us-versus-them’.
• The downward spiral of escalation, which continues to snowball as the narratives that drive the processes of division turn more absolute and hostile.

The MAPI Spiral

Polarisation is driven by the growing attention and legitimisation of us-versus-them narratives. To understand how a society polarises, we need to understand how these narratives spread. The media, the audience, politics and the internet are four actors that push for polarisation, both consciously and unconsciously, in an interconnected loop of interactions. What can these actors do to stop polarisation?

Media

1. Don’t treat everything as a yes-vs-no debate
2. Framing is important
3. Go against the hype
4. Verify your information
5. Take social media with a pinch of salt

Audience

1. Look beyond the sensations of the day
2. Consider paying for quality journalism
3. Speak out
4. Step out of your bubble
5. Do your own research

Politics

1. Think beyond electoral gains
2. Try to unify
3. Set the tone
4. Trust others

Internet

1. Be transparent & build ethical algorithms
2. Curb the spread of disinformation
3. Reduce online hate

For more information on the MAPI spiral, click here.

Bad News Game

How good are you at spreading disinformation? Time to play the game!

In Bad News, you take on the role of fake news-monger. Drop all pretense of ethics and choose a path that builds your persona as an unscrupulous media magnate. But keep an eye on your ‘followers’ and ‘credibility’ meters. Your task is to get as many followers as you can while slowly building up fake credibility as a news site. But watch out: you lose if you tell obvious lies or disappoint your supporters!