Participatory Propaganda in Seven Simple Steps

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Coping with
Participatory
Propaganda.
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important role in liberal democracies and the
While your following might be easily persuaded,
participatory propaganda model, as a result. The
they are not slaves. If at any point they find that
business of “news” has changed considerably in
you are not continuing to address their needs, they
a Digital Age. 141 The need to be first to break a
can just as easily turn on you. As organised online
story or increase circulation via online views has
communities, the effect of such a turn should not
As participatory propaganda can threaten the
stability of liberal democracies something must be
done to counter its effects. As noted above, simply
applying the participatory propaganda model is not
likely to work if the aim of the campaign is to uphold
an established order that is liberal democracy.
Moreover, efforts from several segments of
society will be required to effectively address
the challenges posed by the use of participatory
propaganda. Below are some suggestions broken
out by sector:
GOVERNMENTS
Governments concerned about participatory
propaganda must invest in protecting citizens. This
includes funding education on digital literacy, not
just at the lower school levels, but for adults too.
Adults and youth alike are simply not prepared to
cope with the onslaught of persuasive information
enabled in a Digital Age. Such education will
also contribute a great deal to raising an overall
understanding of cyberspace, with its benefits and
perils, and prepare the population for the advent of
the Internet of Things, participation in the digital
economy and new opportunities associated with
the 4 th Industrial Revolution.
At the same time, a review of policies and laws
around the use of persuasive communications in
campaigning should be conducted and updated
for this changing reality.
MEDIA
As noted above, traditional media plays an
made traditional media much more vulnerable
to becoming a channel for laundering fake news
and clickbait. 142 Given the speed with which
information now spreads thanks to the internet, it
might be time to re-imagine what reliable media
is – and that might very well not be “news” at
all, but deeper, more insightful, and trustworthy
content. Indeed, the Digital Age might demand a
sort of reliability score ranking media outlets on
credibility. 143
POLITICAL PARTIES
As it is expected that the pursuit of power will be
more important to politicians than the dangers
to society of using a participatory propaganda
model in a campaign, I offer but this warning:
participatory propaganda actively engages people.
be underestimated. Like it or not, participatory
propaganda also has a way of democratising
persuasive communications.
ORGANISATIONS & BUSINESSES
As integral units of every modern society, nonprofits,
charities and businesses, employ many
people, and likely affect through their actions even
greater numbers. In all organisations, without
exceptions, staff or personnel constitute the most
valuable asset due to their skills and corporate
knowledge. As a result, it is in the direct benefit to
these organisations to consider information security
not only from the point of view of the physical
network or IT security but also from the point of
view of the psychological and cognitive wellbeing
of their personnel. From this point of view,