Participatory propaganda and the intentional (re)production of disinformation around international conflict

Abstract

This essay explores the changing role of the public in persuasion. I focus on participatory propaganda—which I define as the involvement of publics in the (re)production of persuasive, manipulative, or false content through social networks. Specifically, I draw attention to two underexplored areas: participatory propaganda in international rather than domestic politics, and motivations for publics to knowingly, rather than unwittingly, share propagandistic content. The discussion is illustrated with brief insights from a large-scale study of online narrative battles between the Armenian and Azerbaijani diasporas during the 2020 Karabakh war.