Manufacturing Consensus: Re-Thinking Disinfo and Propaganda in the Digital Age

There is a growing body of work exploring how social media and emerging technologies are used in attempts to manipulate public opinion. But how is this “computational propaganda” changing? What can democracies do to fight back? This talk explores the rise of “geo-propaganda” and “encrypted-propaganda”—new ways in which powerful political actors are leveraging digital geo-location tools and encrypted messaging apps, respectively, as mechanisms for new types of digital politicking. Who is using these tools and how? What policies exist to combat such uses and where is new regulation needed? 

Samuel Woolley, researcher at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University and project director for Propaganda Research at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas, will access ongoing research from the Propaganda Research Team to address these, and other, pressing questions. The session will be moderated by Carme Colomina, researcher at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs), and introduced by Adam Lenert, Press Attache and Spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, and Pol Morillas, director at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). 

>> The session will be streamed live at CIDOB’s Youtube channel.