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Media manipulation
Techniques in which partisans create an image that favours their interests From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Media manipulation refers to orchestrated campaigns in which actors exploit the distinctive features of broadcasting mass communications or digital media platforms to mislead, misinform, or create a narrative that advances their interests and agendas.[1][2][3]
In practice, media manipulation tactics may include the use of rhetorical strategies, including logical fallacies, deceptive content like disinformation, and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding them out, by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or by simply diverting attention elsewhere. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, Jacques Ellul writes that public opinion can only express itself through channels which are provided by the mass media of communication, without which there could be no propaganda.[4]
According to Data and Society, Internet subcultures it benefit from the present media ecosystem and it is used for those three things to manipulate news frame, as well to set agendas and to propagate ideas. In Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online it says "The Media's dependence on social media, analytics, and metrics, sensationalism, novelty over newsworthiness and clickbait makes them vulnerable to such media manipulation," by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis.
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Contexts
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Advertising
Advertising is a form of promotion that seeks to persuade a specific audience to purchase a good or service. As one of the first types of marketing, it aims to influence its target market to either buy, sell, or carry out a particular action.[5]
These advertisements are not only done by businesses but can also be done by other groups. Non-commercial advertisers are those who spend money on advertising in the hope of raising awareness for a cause or promoting specific ideas.[6]
Hoaxing
A hoax is something intended to deceive or defraud. Misleading public stunts, scientific frauds, false bomb threats and business scams are examples of hoaxes.[7]
Propagandizing
Propagandizing is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument. Propaganda is commonly created by governments, but some forms of mass communication created by other influential organizations can be considered propaganda. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes. While the term propaganda has justifiably acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples (e.g. Nazi propaganda used to justify the Holocaust), propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to the police, among others.[8]
Propaganda uses societal norms and myths that people hear and believe. Because people respond to, understand and remember more simple ideas, this is what is used to influence people's beliefs, attitudes and values.[9]
In the article Data & Society — What's Propaganda Got To Do With It? the author Caroline Jack says, "People are turning to propaganda as a media epithet because it helps to express discomfort with media — and the "fake news" controversy is just one part of this discomfort." [10]
Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare is a term used to denote actions taken by governments with the aim evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people.[11]
This tactic has been used in multiple wars throughout history. During World War II, the western Allies, expected that the Soviet Union would drop leaflets on the US and England. During the conflict with Iraq, American and English forces dropped leaflets, with many of the leaflets telling the people how to surrender. In the Korean War both sides would use loud speakers from the front lines.[12] In 2009 people in Israel in the Gaza war received text messages on their cell phones threatening them with rocket attacks. The Palestinian people were getting phone calls and leaflets warning them that they were going to drop rockets on them. These phone calls and leaflets were not always accurate.[13]
In the article of U.S. military air strikes and air power: Research review and lessons from recent history - The Journalist's Resource it says that "The Obama administration has used drones in active theater of war, such as Afghanistan, but it has also dramatically increased the number of dromes launched by the CIA in other countries, such as Pakistan Yemen and Somalia," says John Wihbey.[14]
Public relations
Public relations (PR) is the management of the flow of information between an individual or an organization and the public.[15]
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Techniques
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Means of influence include, but are not limited to, the methods outlined in Influence: Science and Practice, which include appealing to authority and making the person aware of the scarcity of an offer.[16]
Internet manipulation
According to Pew Research Center South Korea and Thailand is the most country percentage with major concerns as both of them are at 92% U.S.A checks in at 87%. Furthermore, Made-up news seen as a widespread problem globally | Pew Research Center it says "Many people around the world have major concerns about made-up news and information. A median of more than eight in ten adults across countries surveyed say is a big problem in their country including 59% who see it as a very big problem," says Jacob Poushter, Maria Smerkovich, Maria Fagan and Andrew Prozorovsky.[17]
Deepfakes
Deepfakes are photos, videos, or audio that are changed or completely created using artificial intelligence to look and sound real.[18] Because they can be very convincing, it's often hard to tell them apart from real content. The word "deepfake" comes from "deep learning," the type of AI used, and "fake," meaning the content is not real.[19]
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is when there is an intent and attempt to create the illusion of support for a particular cause, person, or stance. While this is mainly connected to and seen on the internet, it has also happened in newspapers during times of political elections.[20] Corporations and political parties try to imitate grassroots movements in order to sway the public into believing something that is not true.[21]
In the article The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online | Pew Research Center it says "The internet supports a global ecosystem of social interactions. Modern life revolves around the network, with its status updates, news feed, comment chains, political advocacy, omnipresent reviews, rankings and ratings," says Lee Raine, Janna Anderson and Johnathan Albright.[22]
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Clickbait
Clickbait refers to headlines of online news articles that are sensationalized or sometimes wholly fake. It uses people's natural curiosity to get people to click. In some cases, clickbait is used to generate income; more clicks mean more money is made with advertisers.[23] But these headlines and articles can also be used to influence a group of people on social media. In some cases, they are constructed to appeal to the interest group's pre-existing biases and thus to be shared within filter bubbles.[24]
In this generation everyone being online on social media now this days we have found out that many american get their news on social media however it is not accurate according to What Americans like and dislike about getting news on social media | Pew Research Center "some social media news consumers also express concerns about news there being in accurate, low quality and politically biased. The share who say inaccuracy is the aspect they dislike most has increased from 31% to 40% in the past five years," said Wang and Forman- Katz. That is a nine percent increase furthermore 20 % social media news consumer like convince and speed of getting news.[25]
Information laundering
Information laundering is a method of using a less trusted or less popular platform to publish a story of dubious origin or veracity for the purposes of reporting on that report rather than the story itself. This technique serves to insulate the secondary, more established media from having to issue a retraction if the report is false. Generally, secondary reports will report that the original report is reporting without verifying or making the report themselves.[26]
Search engine marketing
In search engine marketing, websites use market research from past searches and other sources to increase their visibility in search engine results pages. This allows them to guide search results along the lines they desire, thereby influencing searchers.[27]
Businesses have many tactics to entice customers to their websites to generate revenue, such as banner ads, search engine optimization and pay-per-click marketing tools. They all serve different purposes and use different tools that appeal to multiple types of users. Banner ads appear on sites in an attempt to attract visitors to a linked website. Search engine optimization is a technique in which a website is optimized to receive a higher ranking from the search engine, causing it to be returned more often in searches.[28][29]
In the article it talks about the concerns focuses on the growing power that is held by the technology companies. According to the reading Worries about life in 2025 | Pew Research Center "some argued that the spread of lies via social media and other digital platforms will damage social, political and economic system," says Anderson, Raine and Vogels.[30]
Distraction
Distraction by major events
Commonly known as "smoke screen", this technique consists of making the public focus its attention on a topic that is more convenient for the propagandist. This particular type of media manipulation has been referenced in popular culture. For example, the movie Wag the Dog (1997) illustrates how the public can be deceitfully distracted from an important topic by presenting another whose only quality is that of being more attractive.
Politicians might distract the public from domestic issues by diverting attention to global issues in order to reduce pressure domestically.[31]
Distracting the public
This is a variation of the traditional arguments known in logic as ad hominem and ad populum, but applied to countries instead of individuals. This technique consists of refuting arguments by appealing to nationalism or by inspiring fear and hate toward a foreign country or all foreigners. It has the potential to be important since it gives the propagandists the power to discredit any information coming from other countries.[32]
On 2023 it was the 10th year anniversary of #BlackLivesMatter and in that article it talks about how new generation that we are currently living. How people are using the social movement linked to social media. Social Media, Online Activism and 10 Years of #BlackLivesMatter | Pew Research Center "The enduring power of the hashtag itself is clear more than 44 million #BlackLivesMatter tweets from nearly 10 million distinct users currently exist on Twitter today," this shows how important this is to the public as people they are distracted of what ever they are doing and just focusing on #BlackLivesMatter.[33]
Straw man fallacy
An informal fallacy. The "straw man" consists of appearing to refute the opponent's argument while attacking another topic. For it to work correctly, the topic that was refuted and the one that should have been refuted need to be similar.
Voice replication
Voice replication is an artificially generated audio created by artificial intelligence (AI) to create a realistic replication of someone's voice. AI uses machine learning models and can replicate the specific characteristics of a target voice, such as pitch, tone, and cadence. It is commonly used to deceive and cause disruption.[34]
In the article Data & Society — Deepfakes and Cheap Fakes It says "A deepfake" is a video that has been altered through some form of machine learning to "hybridize or generate human bodies and faces"[35]
Photo manipulation
Visual media can be transformed through photo manipulation, commonly called "photoshopping." This can make a product, person, or idea seem more appealing. Specific product features are highlighted to attract and persuade the public, and specific editing tools are used to enhance the photo. Some techniques include cropping, resizing, airbrushing, color-enhancing, and removing or adding subjects from the original image. The motivation for photo manipulation may be for pure artistic creativity or more nefarious reasons to deceive. Photo manipulation is used extensively in the advertising and fashion industry and has been the subject of controversy for its part in false advertising and promoting unrealistic images of beauty.[36]
Video manipulation
Video manipulation is a variant of media manipulation that targets digital video using a combination of traditional video processing and video editing techniques and auxiliary methods from artificial intelligence like face recognition. In typical video manipulation, the facial structure, body movements, and voice of the subject are replicated in order to create a fabricated recording of the subject. The applications of these methods range from educational videos to videos aimed at (mass) manipulation and propaganda, a straightforward extension of the long-standing possibilities of photo manipulation. This form of computer-generated misinformation has contributed to fake news, and there have been instances when this technology was used during political campaigns in an attempt to influence the outcome.[37]
According to the article Expert essays on the expected impact of digital change by 2035 | Pew Research Center says that "In a second question they were asked about the most harmful or menacing change they foresee, thus most of these essays open first with perceived benefits and conclude with perceived harms. Because 79% of the experts in this survey said they are "more concerned than excited" or are "equally concerned and excited" about the evolution of humans' uses of digital tools and systems, many of these essays focus primarily on harms" by Anderson and Rainie.[38]
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Manipulation in Social Media
Social media has changed how manipulation works. In the past, major news outlets would twist information, but today's age anyone can use social media to spread misleading content which makes it harder to protect accurate information.[39]
Because news spreads faster online, reporters feel pressure to publish quickly, sometimes before checking facts. Whoever posts something first online regarding any form of information can influence how people view an event, even if the information is wrong.[40] Cases like the 2016 "Pizzagate" conspiracy show how false claims online can lead to real-world harm. Social media algorithms also make the problem worse by pushing exciting or emotional posts, which helps misinformation spread quickly and repeatedly within like-minded groups[41]
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