Internet and Digital Propaganda: Social Media

Abstract

The development of modern digital communications, the Internet and the World Information Network at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century brought enormous development and progress in propaganda communications in all spheres of human society. Propaganda in digital media has been studied since the early days of the Internet and various digital platforms, which led to the emergence of completely new media specific to this area of ​​communication, and a completely new way of producing and disseminating various types of propaganda content. Based on a discussion of key concepts and terminology, this review paper describes how new ways of deception and source obfuscation are emerging and spreading in digital and social media environments, and how these developments complicate the understanding and impact of propaganda on modern human life. The paper concludes with the assertion that the modern challenges of detecting and countering covert propaganda can only be solved if all actors of social life in the public sphere of social media are considered responsible and provide the necessary support for checking published information.