- (2024, free) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4860527
- (2021, pay walled) https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/54/4/54/119024/Killing-Politics-SoftlyUnconvincing-Propaganda-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext
I don’t have a background in science, I learned of the 2021 study as a footnote in a book I’m reading.
I’m curious to see what more attention this will get over the coming years.
Interesting explanation. Democracy can’t really work unless people have a trusted source of truth and those seem hard to come by these days with the struggles of for-profit news orgs (mostly owned by the same few giant media conglomerates). Would make sense that an effective angle of propaganda is to exacerbate that in any way possible.
Long ago, I read an article of how propoganda was used heavily in WW2 by Germany against its citizens to help unify the country behind an authoritarian regieme and how the rise of a national trusted news source, decouoled from government and private interests was created to reduce polarization.
Archived, non paywall version: https://web.archive.org/web/20210810211957/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/what-germany-can-teach-america-about-polarization/619582/
