Media manipulation

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.

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.

"Internet subcultures take advantage of the current media ecosystem to manipulate news frame, set agendas and propagate ideas," according to Data & Society, an independent nonprofit research and policy institute that released a publication titled Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. The piece was written by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis, and chapters covered topics such as who is manipulating the media, what motivates media manipulators and techniques that media manipulators use. "The media's dependence on social media, analytics, metrics, sensationalism, novelty over newsworthiness and clickbait makes them vulnerable to such media manipulation," the document's executive summary said.