Network Propaganda = Empirical Study by prof Benkler: recent USA Media Ecosystem

 

UPDATE December 17, 2018 The book is now published and it arrived today at our house in Holland.

The key message is that in the USA a vast right-wing media ecology (not only Internet, Facebook or Twitter)  has been in operation, and has since the 1970’s created a huge feedback loop in American conservative media, rendering it susceptible to foreign and domestic propaganda.

Recommended reading to all those concerned with “DEMOCRACY” and Fake-News.

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Prof. Yochai Benkler, well known scholar at the Harvard – [ Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Twitter: @BKCHarvard ] has announced the publication of an important new book, written with two colleagues, called “Network Propaganda – Manipulation, Misinformation, and Radicalisation in American Politics”. It will hit the book shelves later in Oktober – beginning November. ( Amazon.uk.co Nov ; Amazon.de Oct 15)

In this book they have done a very thorough tracing what happened in the USA society the years before and the American Presidential Election. What impressed me was that they have shown that crucial in the huge and unexpected shift in PUBLIC OPINION which are decisive for he outcome of the candidacy and elections, was not only profiling, cocooning and manipulation of the voters mindsets and preferences with social media and internet tools, but the huge and orchestrated US MEDIA bombardment of the population. Which caused the widening and deepening of The Split between Illiberals and Competents

Warning: this study applies to the situation as it was and is  in the USA, and may or may not be applicable to the political situation in other countries.

The best way to learn what the “Benkler Study” found is how it was presented at a session on September 28 at the Cato Institute in Boston (further info Twitter: @CatoInstitute)

You can stream the video of that session from: https://www.cato.org/events/network-propaganda-manipulation-disinformation-radicalization-american-politics

Cato Inst. Added the following comment to this video:

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Featuring the author Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies, Harvard Law School; with comments by Rebecca MacKinnon, Director, Ranking Digital Rights project, New America; moderated by Julian Sanchez, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute.

The internet and social media were supposed to radically democratize news and information—yet many observers now worry that they are undermining the preconditions for healthy democracies. Misinformation peddled by conspiracy theorists, unscrupulous clickbaiters, and even intelligence agencies spreads around the globe at the speed of light, while in the United States, citizens increasingly retreat into distinct media ecosystems so divergent as to be mutually unrecognizable. Can liberal democracy function in a world in which voters no longer inhabit the same universe of facts?We’ll take up these questions with renowned scholar Yochai Benkler, coauthor of the important new book-length study Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. We’ll take a close look at the dynamics of how propaganda, misinformation, and “fake news” propagate across modern information networks. Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, and Cato senior fellow Julian Sanchez provide commentary.

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Jaap van Till, TheConnectivist