Abstract
In the roughly half decade following the outing of online disinformation and its assumed role in the 2016 US presidential election, a rather large number of books have emerged related to computational propaganda and disinformation. So many in fact, that one wonders at times if a new publication in this period can really offer new perspectives. Varied approaches have been used - some data based (e.g. Network Propaganda, Benkler et al., 2018), some developmental/historical (e.g. Active Measures, Rid, 2020), some case study-oriented (e.g. Computational Propaganda, Wanless, 2018), not to mention the countless layperson-oriented popular texts that have appeared. Thus, the publishing of a new edited volume on disinformation comes as no surprise. However, the names of the editors – W. Lance Bennett and Steven Livingston – promise much, as does the list of distinguished scholars that contributed to this volume. The book, emerging from two workshops funded by the Social Science Research Council's Media and Democracy Program, is not an ordinary edited volume on many levels. Rather, it reminds us what edited volumes can truly achieve.
Did the current disinformation environment appear suddenly out of nowhere? Like often with scandals and disasters in the news, it seems it did. Discussions continue to rage about the cause, with some pointing to hostile governments, others to the dangers of social media, and some questioning the ability of the public to process information. Like with natural disasters, solutions are often touted before deeper discussions of the origins of the problem. In the case of disinformation these often range from media literacy, to sanctions, to regulating tech companies. In short, we do not know exactly where the disinformation epidemic came from, but the problem is fairly clear, and many qualified and less qualified people are working on offering solutions.
One of Lance Bennett’s most significant contributions to the area of news and politics has been to bring awareness to the problem of declining public trust in the news media, and the role of the news media in contributing to a confused and angry news public, distrustful of institutions as a result (Bennett, 2016). In The Disinformation Age, he and Steven Livingston bring together a wide variety of scholars to take ‘disruptive communication’ to task, and effectively reframe the problem by examining the “the origins, mechanisms, effects, and possible remedies for the spread of these forms of disruptive communication” (p. xv). By illustrating how the decline in institutional authority and organized disinformation systems have a deeper history, it becomes clear that a great deal of time is being spent on the obvious indicators, but not the roots or source of the problem. The authors locate and assess the origins of it in political influence networks, corporate interests, and government support for policies and programs promoted at the expense of the public interest, “drawing on a broader examination of decades of capture and erosion of governing institutions by wealthy interests and aligned political elites, unable to sell their actual agendas to the public without increasing levels of disinformation” (p. 8). Through studies of how disinformation is spread through distorted communications in legacy and social media via partisan political organizations, think tanks, corporate spin, and strategic political communication, an understanding of how the public loses trust in the media and institutions emerges.
The editors of this volume surely need no introduction. W. Lance Bennett, associated with the University of Washington, is the author of hundreds of articles and a dozen books, and the recipient of numerous awards for his examination of the role of the news media in politics and society. Steven Livingston is the Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics and Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, and focuses on the intersection of information technology and politics. We find the authors most recently meeting in an article that foreshadows this publication with 2018’s The Disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions (Bennett & Livingston, 2018).
The book is organized into five parts plus conclusion. In the first, “Disinformation in Political and Historical Context” - the only chapter in the opening section, Bennett and Livingston set the context for what is to follow in subsequent chapters by addressing what they term ‘conventional’ approaches to understanding disinformation. In effect, they are pointing to ‘contemporary’ or more recent attempts to explain the flood of disinformation of the last decade and a half, which, significantly, they characterize as being “the symptoms and not on the causes of contemporary communication disorders” (p.8). This is followed by a comprehensive, developmental framework which foreshadows the deeper analyses to follow in parts 2-5.
Part two, entitled ‘the Current Situation,’ focuses on fairly recent analyses. In Chapter two Yochai Benkler uses the major study his team conducted that formed the basis of the book Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics (2018) to explain how the extreme right in the United States is more involved in generating and disseminating misinformation than the left, and why this asymmetry was caused by political economy rather than technology. Chapter three sees Paul Starr, while referencing and continuing on from Benkler, Faris and Roberts’ work, eloquently connecting the dots of the political economy of news, big tech, and disinformation to show how the public became more susceptible to disinformation over time.
The third part of the volume turns to the historical roots of disinformation. Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, and Charlie Tyson offer a case study of a classic propaganda campaign in chapter four to provide evidence of historical foundations of corporate propaganda related to the present day. Nancy MacLean takes on the Koch network in chapter five, exposing the tactics behind Charles Koch's decades-long network of far right donors, associated groups, and academic grantees, and its links to omnipresent, strategic misinformation in American politics.
In part four’s “Policy Problem” the discussion moves to legislative elements. Chapter six sees Dave Karpf tracing the transformation of online disinformation (“…fake news in the 1990s was a hobby. Today it is an industry,” p.158). Information manipulation takes the form of historical patterns in chapter seven, as Heidi Tworek contributes a framework to understand how these patterns can influence current Internet policymaking. Ben Epstein carries on from this cue in chapter eight, by offering a discussion on the challenges of regulating online disinformation, and examining roadblocks on the route to regulation, while suggesting standards for disinformation regulation.
Part five considers the possible role public broadcasting could play in the disinformation matrix. In chapter nine Patricia Aufderheide neatly knits together preceding chapters to introduce ways forward in exploring the history and health of American public broadcasting, and whether or not it could serve as a “bulwark” against disinformation. Victor Pickard argues in chapter 10 that contemporary problems require structural interventions, and the frame should shift from looking at the audience side of problems, to the supply side, and seeking ways to fund a new public media system.
In the concluding part, entitled “Defending Democracy in the Disinformation Age,” a final chapter sees Bennett and Livingstone return to underline the “seeds of our current epistemological crisis” (p. 266), but in doing so, contribute far more than a summary of arguments. Reviewing the history of assaults on public institutions, the authors examine why many of the political groups responsible for eroding confidence in the media are treated as charitable organizations and given tax-exempt status to continue to inflict damage.
Of the many positive attributes of this volume, arguably the greatest is, in a word, contextualization. This is not a volume of edited essays, it is a collaboration of outstanding scholars, virtually seamless in the way the chapters flow together. They relate to, cite from, and most importantly, build upon each other. This is far too often the main problem and criticism targeted at edited volumes, and the prevailing stereotype: a number of disjointed chapters thrown together, somewhat artificially presented as a collective view by the editors in introductory and concluding chapters. This book does what an edited volume should: diverse viewpoints, but bound together, with authors keenly aware of what precedes their contribution. This was assumably the original aim of edited volumes, and Bennet and Livingston succeed masterfully in achieving this.
Another major positive of this volume is the way it takes the discussion of misinformation and computational propaganda out of the ditch it seems to be stuck in. As mentioned earlier, this was the editor’s stated overall aim – not to address the symptoms, but the problems. In doing so, it brings together off-the-radar or under-emphasized paths to understanding the disinformation epidemic, and presents them lucidly and comprehensively, with pertinent historical context. Evidence of this can be found in the solution-oriented section on public broadcasting. At a time when attacks on public broadcasting in countries with long traditions of public service seem to have no end in sight, an optimistic American perspective can be for some as surprising as it is thought-provoking. This is a book looking for answers, and it invites readers along to pursue them.
It is impossible not to mention the cost factor. The book is open source, with free access via the Cambridge University Press web page. To state the obvious, this means a great deal for access, with professors not having to be sensitive to student budgets, difficult to underestimate at many institutions, or for an interested citizen who might not ordinarily invest in such a title.
One is hard pressed to find points of contention with The Disinformation Age. Perhaps the only thing that comes to mind is a faint feeling of fatigue and perhaps defeat in the tone of the editors in the final chapter. Having exhaustively and methodically watched over the reassessment of the disinformation debate in the pages up to that point, reading the words “it may simply be too late” (p. 282) transforms the volume from a blueprint for reframing the disinformation problem to pessimism in a very short space. Of course, this isn’t an ordinary theme for reproach in a review, but perhaps can serve as a reflection on the great value of this volume.
Rarely does one have a case of déjà vu instigated by sense of touch alone in the opening of a new book. But picking up a physical copy of this one immediately evoked a strong sense of familiarity - the paper, the size, and the texture in general. Seconds later it dawned on me: physical similarity to another Bennett edited volume, Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy, with Robert Entman, also published by Cambridge University Press (Bennett & Entman, 2001). Two decades later, Lance Bennet and his esteemed colleague have brought us another classic, destined to resonate for some time with a generation of students, and hopefully members of the public, that will not be forced to prioritize other titles due to the cost.
