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A review by emilesnyder
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics by Hal Roberts, Robert Farris, Yochai Benkler
This was both a horrible book to take in as an audiobook and desperately needed a more ruthless editor. The combination made it a struggle for me to finish.
I think some of the takeaways are sound: they way that extreme right wing partisan media has gone in the US is different in kind from what exists on the left, the split has been gestating at least since Regan, and is not really the result of the existence of the internet, neither purely monetarily motivated nor politically motivated bot/sockpuppet attempts to manipulate the 2016 election were likely to have had a statistically significant effect.
I wish it had spent more time engaging with the psychological factors for individuals caught in the "propaganda feedback loop", as well as engaging more seriously with the line between the (aggressive) critique of mainstream media from the left and the right wing propaganda network's "critique" of mainstream media.
I think some of the takeaways are sound: they way that extreme right wing partisan media has gone in the US is different in kind from what exists on the left, the split has been gestating at least since Regan, and is not really the result of the existence of the internet, neither purely monetarily motivated nor politically motivated bot/sockpuppet attempts to manipulate the 2016 election were likely to have had a statistically significant effect.
I wish it had spent more time engaging with the psychological factors for individuals caught in the "propaganda feedback loop", as well as engaging more seriously with the line between the (aggressive) critique of mainstream media from the left and the right wing propaganda network's "critique" of mainstream media.