Facebook: Propagandists
like this.
How propaganda spreads like contagious disease
through internet social networks
Martin
H-E
B. Sc. Econ.
International Politics and Strategic Studies
11, 316 Words
Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University
2012
CITATION:
Horton-Eddison, M, 'Facebook likes this: How propaganda spreads like contagious disease through internet social networks', mhedissertation.blogspot.co.uk, Aberystwyth, 2012
NOTE:
The author of this study is currently looking for employment in any connected field and is open to offers.
If you are interested in hiring me, please contact via
Email:MartinHortonEdd@gmail.com
or Twitter: twitter.com/hortoneddison
Horton-Eddison, M, 'Facebook likes this: How propaganda spreads like contagious disease through internet social networks', mhedissertation.blogspot.co.uk, Aberystwyth, 2012
NOTE:
The author of this study is currently looking for employment in any connected field and is open to offers.
If you are interested in hiring me, please contact via
Email:MartinHortonEdd@gmail.com
or Twitter: twitter.com/hortoneddison
‘Facebook: Propagandists like
this.
How propaganda spreads like contagious disease through
social networks’
ABSTRACT
Background
In the past decade, Internet
Social Networks (ISNs) have emerged as socio-cultural phenomena. Web-based social networking tools such as
Facebook and Twitter have been hailed as revolutions in communication which are
capable of broadening horizons and promoting global democracy and
liberalisation agendas. For many, access
to ISNs serve as a benchmark by which the proliferation of ‘free’ internet
access can be gauged; internet access itself a benchmark for liberal democratic
values. However, although some doubts
have been expressed over the privacy of personal data shared over ISNs and the
potentialities for harm to the individual that such disclosure may create, few
(if any) scholars have thus far considered the spectre of mass persuasion
through ISNs. This study investigates
network theories, communication models, the epidemiology of infectious diseases
and propaganda techniques in order to address the research question of whether
ISNs such as Facebook represent a new epoch for the political propagandist.
Results
The study presents several key findings. Firstly, that mathematical theories of real
world social networks (RWSNs) such as those
forwarded by Milgram, Strogatz and Watts are generally also applicable to ISNs
with little modification. Secondly, that
traditional mass communication models, such as Shannon and Weaver’s 1949 model
of communication are inadequate to describe the multi-directional and interactive
flow of information in ISN spaces.
Thirdly, it was found that the ways in which infectious diseases are
communicated through RWSNs closely models the communication of information and
ideas in ISNs and that existing models of epidemiology can be successfully
modified to provide a theoretical framework for our understanding of the
passage of ‘viral’ communications through ISNs.
Finally, the unique disseminatory and legitimatory capabilities of ISNs
were found to be particularly well suited to propaganda techniques such as
Bernays’ opinion-leader model.
Conclusions
It was found that there were
significant structural similarities between Real World Social Networks (RWSNs)
and Internet Social Networks (ISNs) and that the spread of infectious disease
through RWSNs could be cross-modelled in order to understand the spread of
information or data through ISNs.
Further, that ISN communication technologies such as Facebook and
Twitter provide the essential multi-directional interface between networks of
connected users and the transmission of viral ideas. Finally, the study found
that because RWSNs and ISNs represent similar network structures and that ISN
communication technologies represent an adequate bridge through which large
numbers of small world networks could be interconnected, ideas spread through
ISNs in a similar yet more prodigious fashion than do diseases in RWSN
biological epidemics. In ISNs, new
ontologies can be created, communicated and legitimised through the networks of
users who comprise them; this makes ISNs the ideal tool for propagandists and so-called
‘viral’ marketers.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE -
INTRODUCTION
In simple terms, the object of this study is
to provide a framework for understanding the role that Internet Social Networks
(ISNs) play in the discipline of International Relations (IR), specifically in
the field of mass persuasion. Although the relevance to IR of a study of ISNs
in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ and ‘Kony 2012’ seems obvious, the reality is
that much of the theory required is scattered across various
disciplines; if it exists at all. This
paper represents a solid start towards a new inter-disciplinary understanding
of the power and function of Internet Social Networks (ISNs); in many ways a
small step for the discipline of IR, and a giant leap for an undergraduate
dissertation. However, it does not do so with a thorough engagement with
Foucault’s knowledge-power paradigm or with reference to critical security studies
as these would have each represented a dissertation-sized study of their
own. What follows is nevertheless an
attempt to weave together theories of networking, communication, mathematics,
epidemiology and mass persuasion.
The
process of collating relevant theoretical works for such a study was at every
step tinged with compromise. Milgram’s six degrees theory helped at least
explain the connections between human contacts, but only in a slightly clumsy
and awkwardly linear fashion. To make
progress towards crafting this linear representation into a multi-faceted
representative nodal structure of social networks meant a journey into deep mathematics
and ecological biology. Much work has
been conducted by mathematicians such as Erdӧs, Renyi and Draief on network
models; how various ‘nodes’ (individuals) are connected, patterns that these
connections form, and how these connections eventually compose both real world
and internet social networks.
Further,
it was found that the field of communication studies provided theories of inter-personal and
mass communication, which were helpful in bridging the gap between this paper’s
work on networks in general,
and how these networks related to mass persuasion specifically. However, communication scholarship seemed to
have atrophied around the time of the invention of peer to peer file sharing
networks and provides little theoretical work on modern visual ISNs such as
Facebook and Twitter. Consequently, this
paper was forced to rudiment its own diagrammatical and theoretical framework
for understanding the unavoidable message-modifying feedback loops that occur
in our age of mass interactive communication.
Once
this was achieved, it became necessary to apply this understanding of the
structure of networks and the function of interactive communication to theories
of mass persuasion; in short, to understand how communicative networks both
disseminate and legitimate propagandistic ideas. Whilst Bernays and Taylor provide a broad
conception of propaganda in general, neither are able to explain the actual
process of dissemination function i.e. the unconscious or conscious viral
contagion of ideas. Consequently, it was
found that viral epidemics were better represented by a foray into the field of
epidemiology; theories on the spread of disease which had been modelled in real
world animal populations more closely represent the ways in which ideas are
communicated through networks of individuals or nodes in human communicative social networks. In this sense, the word ‘viral’ as used in
viral marketing is found to be equally as applicable to modern political
communication. By considering political
ideas as viruses, and societies in terms of mathematically conceived nodal
social networks, this study shows how ‘viral ideas’ transcend the international
system through globalised communication networks of citizens, regardless of
national borders and regime types.
Moreover, the work explains how modern interactive Internet Social
Networks (ISNs) serve as viral
super-conductors, facilitating the propagation of ideas around globally
interconnected social networks faster - and conferring far greater legitimacy -
than traditional mass communication devices have been able to achieve in the
previous communicative epoch.
Essentially
therefore, this study provides the theoretical basis required for understanding
the ways in which the globalisation of communication, as enabled by complex
super-national ISNs like Facebook and Twitter, have brought about a new era of mass
persuasion in International Relations.
Although
mass communication studies are numerous, all assume a one direction flow of
information and are suitable only in top-down models, such as those applied to
television and radio by Chomsky and other Gramscians. The reality is that the information age has
created a multi-directional flow of information and that this has not been
adequately modelled. The assumption that
interactive communication structures - where information can flow up as well as
down – are less controlling than its traditional predecessor is challenged. Further, although networks have been discussed
by mathematicians and sociologists for some time, they have not been done so in
such a way as to model the behaviour of ideas in social networks. Finally, this study shows a clear link
between the spread of infectious disease in RWSNs and the dissemination of
ideas in ISNs, before offering a conclusion which ought to go some way to
plugging the gap in the scholarly literature.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review follows a brief format which sites this study within the available literature. The study is very much in its own niche and consequently borrows from a wide variety of disciplines. Therefore, the literature review is broken down into the relevant subject areas.
Network Theory
Milgram’s
now famous Small-world problem paper
from 1967 which introduces the so-called six
degrees of separation theory is useful to this study as it highlights the
basic ideas about how networks of individuals relate to each-other in a real
world environment. Duncan Watts’ 2003
work ‘Six Degrees – the science of a
connected age’ discusses Milgram’s work but takes it to a higher level,
offering mathematical theories of networks including the Strogatz model which
is widely regarded as one of the most important evolutions of the small-world
problem. Draief & Massoulie’s 2010 work ‘Epidemics
and Rumours in Complex Networks’ provides advanced network modelling which
permits this study’s departure from mathematic network modelling towards
epidemiological networks, whereas Bailey’s 1975 ‘The Mathematical Theory of Infectious Diseases’ (2nd
Ed.) combines mathematical networks with biological ones.
It
must be said that although Watts makes an attempt at applying network theory to
Internet Social Networks (ISNs), he falls short of recognising the similarities
between ISNs and Real World Social Networks (RWSNs) of disease. Accordingly, the above works contribute a
theoretical grounding to our understanding of the chronology of network
theories, but fall short of applying this the ISN age in a way which is helpful
to this study.
Communication Theory
Jones
2003 work ‘Social Theory: conflict,
cohesion and consent’ provides adequate introductions to communications
theorists and social psychologists such as Jürgen Habermas and Schutz. This work is augmented by Steinberg’s
excellent, if sometimes a little off-topic 1995 work ‘Communication Studies’ which provides a critical chronology of the
field. Shannon and Weaver’s 1949 ‘The Mathematical Theory of Communication’
ties the mathematics of this study’s work on networks to communications
theory. Additionally, Shannon and
Weaver’s study offers the most influential diagrammatical model of
communication ever posited, which is both reproduced and amended by this study.
Biology and epidemiology
Duncan
Watt’s 2004 work ‘The “New” Science of
Networks’ first suggests that literature on mathematical epidemiology has
paid relatively little attention to
the structure of
the RWSNs which but fails to
develop this into a propaganda model.
However, it is useful as an introductory text which outlines the
concept. Once again, Draief & Massoulie’s
2010 work ‘Epidemics and Rumours in
Complex Networks’ is useful, this time in converting Watts’ ideas into
actual Biological science. Because of
the niche nature of this part of the study, literature is limited and this
presents an opportunity for this study to expand scholarship in this field.
Philosophy
This
study necessarily involves some discussion of ontology and reality. Mol’s 1999 ‘Ontological politics. A word and some questions’ provides a sound
précis of ontological questions and is referenced in this study’s work on
normative concepts and ‘truths’ in ISNs.
Psychology
P.M.
Taylor’s seminal ‘Munitions of the Mind’
(3rd Ed.) 2003 deftly
combines psychology with propaganda and provides a huge weight of scholarship
regarding psychologically founded propagandistic techniques. Jowett. G.S. & O’Donnel’s 1992 work, ‘Propaganda and Persuasion’ also makes a
solid contribution to the field. Further
scholarship, particularly in regard to cognitive schemas has been conducted by
Johnson-Cartee and Copeland in their
2004 ‘Strategic Political Communication:
Rethinking social influence, persuasion, and propaganda’. This work also
critically contrasts propaganda against persuasion. However, none of the literature provides any
model of, or scholarship of either persuasion or propaganda in the era of
ISNs. Consequently, this presents an
opportunity for this paper to further contribute to the field.
CHAPTER ONE
Six
degrees of Kevin Bacon and beyond: How do Internet Social Networks mimic Real World Social Networks?
To most people, the words ‘Social Network’
mean web-based internet social networking services, such as Facebook.[1]
However, ISNs like Facebook are nothing new, at least in terms of structure - they
simply represent a computerisation of the human networks that already exist in
society. The ways in which we interact
with those networks is enhanced, even inhibited sometimes, but always faster and
more efficiently than if ISNs didn’t exist. Social theorists like Stanley
Milgram have been working to understand the patterns and dynamics of RWSNs for
well over half a century.
Sociological Network Theories
Milgram’s
small world theory helps to at least
explain the basic connections between human contacts. In recent years, normative conceptions of the
term ‘social network’ have come to be understood as internet-based electronic
communication applications such as Facebook and Twitter. Animals including humans have been dealing in
and interacting through networks of social and familial groups since the dawn
of time. Understanding the ways in which
we as human beings interact with each-other, and the way those interactions
shape our relations with each-other in RWSNs, is the key to de-mystifying the
power of modern ISNs like Facebook.
Milgram outlines the idea that society is ordered around a certain
socio-mathematic structure[2] which
he suggests reveals a potential communication structure.[3] What has since become known as the six degrees of separation posits that
any given individual, anywhere in the world, is connected to any another
through a more-or-less linear median of five similarly connected intermediate
persons.[4] In
Milgram’s theory, each individual node represents small clusters, or networks,
which are each connected to the next by a solitary human connection. Celebrity activist for action against climate
change Kevin Bacon, after whom a University drinking game entitled ‘The Six Degrees
of Kavin Bacon’ was named, describes Milgram’s work as “the notion that we are
all connection in some kind of way; the notion that when something happens to
friends and neighbours down the block or our friends and neighbours and
brothers and sisters on the other side of the planet, that it affects us.”[5] The
small-world problem was tested in the
real world by means of a practical experiment that tasked individuals with
delivering a letter from themselves (source) to a destination individual
(destination) in as few steps as possible, using only individuals with whom
they were acquainted on first name terms.
What Milgram found was that the median number of individuals required to
connect source with target was six. This is widely considered as the first
empirical study of its type. However, despite
the usefulness of Milgram’s findings, the study was comparatively brief and
fails to explain how these linear connections form wider random networks of
networks, nor the spectre that one individual may connect several networks at
the same time.
Mathematical Network Theories
Much
work has been conducted by mathematicians such as Erdӧs, Renyi and Draief on
network models; how various groups of individual nodes are connected, patterns
that these connections form, and how these connections eventually compose
social networks. According to Watts, some
properties of social networks can be embodied by simple mathematical models that interpolate between order
and randomness.[6] Watts ostensibly agrees with Milgram,
declaring that ‘stripped to its bare bones, a network is nothing more than a
collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion.’[7]
However, it is the element of randomness, rather than order, which separates Watts’
theory from Milgram’s. Watts suggests that ‘in the past, networks have been
viewed as objects of pure structure
whose properties are fixed in time.’[8]
This accusation applies directly to the small world model. For Watts, social networks are in-fact
networks in which the vertices are people, or sometimes groups of people, and
the edges represent some form of social interaction between them.[9] Because the element of social interaction is
a malleable variable, the vertices are themselves malleable. Consequently, Watts’ model allows for a shift
away from Milgram’s assumptions of stasis in the model and permits random
chance and a less rigid structure, although otherwise maintaining much of
Milgram’s original concept (see Figure 2 below).
Between
them, Watts and Milgram’s conceptions of human networks provide the most basic
theoretical framework required to understand the interconnectedness of the human
condition. For mathematicians Draief and
Massoulie, the Milgram’s small world problem remains ‘highly relevant in many other settings, namely routing
with limited information in communication networks’.[10] Building on this, Draief reconstructing the
social world as a graph with edges that connect acquainted persons to
each-other and which permits any one
individual to relay messages and information to any other in a small amount of
‘hops’[11]thus
permitting short-cuts between networks where individuals exist in multiple SNs.
The length and type of these hops in RWSNs dictate the ways in which
individuals are connected to their network, and how their networks are
connected to each-other and are affected by outside factors such as
geographical location, shared history and familial groups among other factors.[12] In
ISNs, geography - and to a certain extent history - is reduced in effect by the virtual proximity
afforded by the internet. The length and type of Draiefian hop in an ISN is
fixed between users. So too is the time
that it takes to make that hop. That
said, Milgram found that social communication is sometimes restricted less by
physical distance than by social distance.[13]
Nevertheless, the fact is that Milgram’s experiment took days and even weeks to
accomplish but given the realities of modern ISNs such as Facebook and Twitter,
his experiment could have been concluded in a matter of minutes or even seconds
utilising Draeifian hops.
How RWSNs Apply to ISNs
In
essence there is no difference between virtual networks and RWSNs. That individuals ‘know’ and are able to
communicate with each-other is true of both.
Consequently, the structure of social network conceived by Milgram
nearly half a century ago is still, in essence at least, applicable today in
general and to ISNs in particular. Mathematical
theories allow us to model the type and structure of networks between human
contacts. It must be said that virtual
world networks, or ISNs mimic RWSNs in the way in which they can demonstrate
connections between individuals. Therefore, models built for RWSNs, like
Milgram’s and Watts’ can be easily adapted to help conceptualise how
interconnectedness works in ISNs.
Moreover, specific models built by mathematicians for ISNs, such as those
by Strogatz and Draief allow us to
understand the structure of social networks in terms of ‘hops’ between random contacts
according to reliable fixed hop lengths.
It is these hops which represent the opportunity for super-fast communications
through complex networks such as ISNs in which geographical separation is
evenly distributed[14]
and which constitute a very large number of very small groups, which in effect
leads to a spatially continuous distribution of population.[15]
In the next chapter, we contextualise this
chapter’s research on RWSN and ISNs with a study on communication models.
CHAPTER
TWO
How do Internet Social Networks communicate
ideas?
Introduction
According
to social philosopher Jürgen Habermas, it is through multi-dimensional communicative
interaction that social networks of individuals are bound together.[16]
Through mutual communications, individuals integrate symbolic ideas and beliefs
with the society around them. Habermas
insists that it is reciprocity and mutual understanding achieved through
multi-dimensional communication which is essential for establishing meaningful
social networks.[17] For Burton and Dimbleby, when social networks
are working cohesively, they develop group identities of their own, of which
the individual members are merely a part.[18]
Therefore, it is possible to see communication as a means to create and
maintain both RWSNs and ISNs.
Interpersonal
Communication Models
Writing
in 1995, Sheila Steinberg suggests that most individuals live in societies
where ‘being part of a group, or several groups, is not a matter of choice’[19]
but rather it is inescapable. Schutz
insists that rather than interpersonal communication arising as a result of
necessity or geography as suggested by Steinberg, that human beings in fact
crave or even need interpersonal interaction as part of a
group and with one another as a basic human requirement.[20]
Essentially, Schutz posits that ‘people need people.’[21] Shutz’s
theory of interpersonal needs provides
us with three sub-needs which are each gratified by interpersonal communication
in ISNs:
i)
Inclusion – the
need for inclusion reflects a desire for social contact[22]
ii)
Affection - the need for opportunities to show and
receive affection[23]
iii)
Control - the need to manage and successfully
influence the events and people which effect the individual[24]
Using
these three needs as a framework, the study will analyse the ability of ISNs as
opposed to RWSNs to meet these needs. Theorising
in 1959, American social psychologist George Homans suggested that social
interaction is comprised of reciprocal acts such as exchange or barter. In the most basic sense, the Facebook ISN provides
the opportunity for reciprocation within a user’s social network. The ‘Like’ function which enables users to
signal their approval of posted content to the content creator is a form of
Homansian reciprocation. In exchange for
posting content on the site for the benefit or amusement of friends, the user
receives a like from a network contact. Similarly, in exchange for consuming the
content, the consumer is expected to fulfil their side of the bargain, namely
liking the content.
This
is the first stage of the reciprocation exchange. It is important to note several points:
i)
Other users
witness this reciprocation and can interact with likes or comments of
their own.
ii)
Often, more than
one user is involved in the original interaction as the content, and multiple
user likes are transmitted through
the networks of each of the reciprocators.
iii)
That each user
involved in any of the stages of reciprocation is a member of their own unique
SN.
Because
of the highly public nature of the original reciprocation, other users in both
reciprocator’s ISNs are made aware of the exchange. This openness of the exchange helps to
satisfy the basic human needs of each user.
Within the Homansian sense, all users enjoy a fulfilling sense of
connectedness and relationship through the inherently reciprocal nature of the
exchange. Further, that according the
Schutz’s theoretical model of interpersonal needs the interactivity of the actions satisfy the users’ needs for
inclusion, affection and control; inclusion is represented by the association
of the users’ names on the content; affection is represented by the like function or further reciprocal comment interaction; control is
exercised by the ability to unlike likes,
post or delete comments or content
and adjusting privacy settings which
either limit or expand the network audience for each interaction.
Traditional
Communication Models
Traditional mass communication models deal in
terms of top-down or left-right one-directional communication. Messages are conveyed from the source through
transmission equipment to the destination, at which point it is received and
repeated through the medium of reception.
Examples of traditional mass media include Radio and Television services. ISNs clearly represent a departure from
traditional top-down mass communication.
The interactive nature of the medium, as highlighted above by the
so-called ‘like’ functionality on the ISN Facebook, means that previous
communication models may have to be adapted for ISNs in order to more
adequately reflect this.
Traditionally,
the ability of mass communication devices, such as the television or radio have
inhibited message continuity and dynamism because delays in responses and the
monitoring of those responses, and the resulting adaptations of the original message
based on those responses all take time[25]which
delays any feedback effect. Historical communication models such as Shannon and
Weaver’s (see Figure 3 below) persist in the literature and remain focussed on
mass communication as a purely linear activity, with information flow beginning
at the source and ending, after a
one-way journey at the destination. This
conception helps to illustrate Chomsky’s perception of communication
propagation, for example, as a top-down (or left-right) Gramscian hegemonic
communication model.
Figure 4 The Shannon & Weaver Model of
Communication (1949)
For
communication theorists, Shannon and Weaver’s model provides the significant
building block in the development of the discipline, and one which has led to
conceptions of mass communication as not only linear but an almost solely effects-orientated.[27] This view has persisted for decades
following its publication in 1949. It
has led to an understanding of mass communication as one-way traffic, with
information proliferating from a top-down or left-right fashion, with little or
no regard for the possibility of a back-flow of information.
Alternative
Communication Models
However,
Shannon and Weaver’s model does present a small window of opportunity for salvation
in the face of the ISN onslaught. The
concept of the noise source as labelled above, which in Shannon’s original
theory represented disruptive interference or ‘white noise’ in analogue radio or
television transmission, allows for some kind of additional input other than
from the sole information source. This
acknowledges that there can be alternative forms of unscripted, uncontrollable
input and is what Clausewitz might have described as ideational ‘friction’[28]. For
ISNs the source of friction can be considered in terms, not of white noise, but
instead the message receiver’s (destination) reactions to the original input
message. These reactions both distort and corrupt the input message in a
feedback loop which is inherent and organic in nature; this is called Dynamic Interpersonal Interaction and is
unique to this study. DII is simply the
ongoing process of signal modification which occurs in the myriad of
small-networks which comprise the broader ISN.
Thus, in the case of ISNs such as Facebook or Twitter, Shannon &
Weaver’s model can be modified as follows:
Figure 5 Author’s ‘DII Model of Communication’
(2012) in the Facebook ISN
Chapter Conclusion
In
ISNs, content creators (sources) such as governments or companies providing
products or services can create profiles of their own. These profiles can be electively added to
individuals’ social networks in much the same way that traditional mass communication
audiences electively watch or listen to particular television or radio channels
or programmes. However, in traditional
forms of mass communication, the transmitted content is consumed without
modification, hence there is no ‘interaction or feedback from the audience back
to the communicator because the audience members are unable to use the same
medium to reply to the communicator.’[29]
In
ISN communications, all content can be either directly modified by the user
audience or users can create content of their own which relates directly to
it. This interaction is called DII and
introduces a perpetual feedback loop to all mass communications, including
those which are transmitted through traditional media but about which users can
create or share content within their individual ISN. ISN’s therefore bridge the gap between the
free passage of massages that characterise face-to-face communication, which Steinberg
insists has thus far been lacking in mass communication.[30]
In
the next chapter, the study analyses the spectre of communicable diseases in
RWSNs through the lens of epidemiology in order to analyse whether the spread
of infectious pathogens can provide an adequate ideational dissemination model
for ISNs.
CHAPTER
THREE
How does message content spread through ISNs?
Introduction
The
previous chapter made clear that the age of mass communication has undergone
somewhat of a revolution. Old models,
such as Steinberg’s and those which illustrate mass communication as an almost
exclusively one-way process are clearly no longer wholly applicable. The boundary lines which delineate mass
communication from interpersonal communication have diverged through ISNs like Facebook;
the media for mass communication and the primary media for interpersonal
communication have become one and the same. Essentially, the transmitter and the receiver
of content have come to more closely interact with and resemble each-other than
ever before. Chapter Three builds on the
growing integration between message originators (infectives) and message
receivers (subjectives) which occur in ISNs. Existing models of RWSN infectious
disease are applied to ISNs in order to better understand the proliferation of
‘viral’ message content and ideas through ISNs. It is expected that this will
closely represent the communication of contagious diseases in RWSN populations.
How is infectious disease communicated through
RWSNs?
The
term ‘communicable disease’ is often used in place of more appropriate medical
terms such as contagious or infectious.[31]
The idea that disease can be communicated through RWSNs rather than simply
spread or caught is a simple one, yet it is incredibly important for this
study. For centuries, mathematicians and
biologists have worked together to form theoretical models of how diseases
proliferate through RWSNs. The notion of
their being communicated rather than
simply caught allows us to adapt
mathematical theories of epidemics to theories of communicative social
networking as discussed in Chapter One and
theories of communication as discussed in Chapter Two. The concept of a product or idea ‘going
viral’ on the internet is a widely accepted truth, yet the mechanics of
contagion are little understood by scholars.
This next section undertakes to outline how the mathematical principals
of infectious diseases in RWSNs can be adapted to the proliferation of ‘viral’
ideas through ISNs. Crucially, how the spread
of ideas and information passes through ISNs in a manner which mimics the
communication of infectious diseases through RWSNs.
Bailey
considers that the use of mathematical theory in the attempt to describe,
understand, and control epidemic disease requires no special justification.[32]
The characteristics of infectious diseases are: ‘a tendency for cases to occur
in [social] groups; and the possibility of tracing most cases to a contact with
a previous case [an infective].’[33]
This already sounds familiar to some of the ideas forwarded in Chapter One,
namely nodes of small social groups connected together by key individuals to
form wider social networks as described by Milgram and Watts. Epidemiological models
of infection represents
an obvious area
of application for the science
of RWSN theory in general, and for ISNs
in particular. Watts suggests that the
literature on mathematical epidemiology has paid relatively little attention
to the structure
of the RWSNs whether sexual, friendship or community through which
infectious diseases manifestly
spread.[34]However,
Bailey has conducted some solid work in this field, as have Draief and
Massoulie who contend that RWSNs leverage network structures in order to enable
fast propagation of information and disease.[35]
In many diseases, a certain proportion of
infected individuals never show sufficiently marked symptoms to be recognized
as actual sufferers of disease. They are unwitting. Nevertheless, according to
Bailey, such individuals may well be infectious and so contribute to the spread
of the epidemic.[36]
These symptomless carriers of the disease are capable of transmitting their
infection to others within the RWSN.[37] Because carriers do not appear to be ill or
obviously infected with the disease, they are not themselves usually recognised
as cases by other members of the RWSN.[38] Consequently, their power to infect is
actually increased as a direct correlation of how unlikely to be infected that they
appear. Since the primary ingredient of any epidemic process is provided by the
transfer of infection[39]
the carriers are consequently the most responsible for the spread of infection
as a direct consequence of their covert nature.
How is this applicable to the communication of
content and ideas through ISNs?
In
ISNs, the message content represents the RWSN disease. The content creator (message source) or
so-called ‘infective’ introduces the message into the population of all the
ISNs of which the content creator is a member.
Because the roles of transmitter and receiver of content are related
more closely than ever before, message receivers immediately become potential
transmitters of it. In epidemiological
terms, the message receivers are now themselves carriers, or infectives, but
also continue to appear as if subjectives. The growing integration between message
infectives and message subjectives coupled with reliable ‘short hops’ discussed
in Chapter One means that messages are
disseminated much more rapidly through ISNs than in RWSNs. This means that ISN
users act as consumers and couriers
of modified messages and ideas (see Chapter Two), themselves acting as
temporary unconscious legitimacy providers for these ideas before onwards
transmission (infection) to multiple other users in the ISN and so-on. The
infection spreads by contact between members of a SN in which there is no
removal from circulation by death, recovery or isolation.[40]
Ultimately, therefore, all subjectives become infected[41]
and thus become infectives in each of their own unique SNs. Draief and Massoulie suggest that ‘carefully
choosing such nodes could trigger a cascade of infections that will result in a
large number of ultimately infected individuals’[42]
the aim of which would be to intentionally maximise the reach of an message in
the ISN by leveraging the initial source of contaminations. In this way, Draief and Massoulie describe
the concept of message transmission in ISNs.
Draief and Massoulie further contend that consumers’ purchasing
decisions are strongly influenced by referrals from their neighbours in RWSN
models.[43] Consequently, the manner in which messages
percolate through both RWSNs and ISNs is directly linked to our understanding
of how epidemics – ideological or biological – spread to infect vast networks
of individuals in a viral manner.
Chapter Conclusion
Essentially,
the communication of content through ISNs closely mimics the proliferation of
disease in RWSNs. Once introduced by the
message content creator, humorous, grisly or inspiring message content is
passed from infective users to subjective users inside particular small-world
ISNs until it breaches the outer-wall of the small world network and enters
neighbouring networks through common users.
As each network acts as an infection node, we can see how the
epidemiology of disease matches the network theories discuss in Chapter One. Further, the very fact that trusted contacts
are those who communicate the content means that subjective users are more
likely to engage with it as part of the reciprocation agreement discussed in
interpersonal needs theory in Chapter Two.
Finally, as each subjective user shares the content, further users in
the ISN become infected and also share the content, in a way which accurately
mimics the communication of infectious disease in RWSNs as discussed in this
chapter.
CHAPTER
FOUR
How propagandists introduce infectious
content and ideas to ISNs
Introduction
Chapter
Three established how the communication of content through ISNs closely mimics
the proliferation of disease in RWSNs.
In this chapter, the notion of propaganda itself is clarified and
directly compared against mass persuasion.
Additionally, Bernays’ opinion-leader model is applied to the arena of
ISNs and analysed in terms of how opinion leaders might legitimate and
therefore help propagate viral ideas as introductory sources. Finally, the biological theory of synchrony,
as forwarded by Watts is introduced in order to explain how opinion leaders can
be strategically utilised in order to construct or amend accepted social norms
through ISNs.
Propaganda, a critical perspective
The
word ‘propagate’ means different things to different people; it is an
essentially contested concept. For a
horticulturalist, propagation has positive connotations; it is part of the
essential cultivation process designed to promote growth. For critical scholars
the propagate is the etymological root of propaganda; a word which carries
distinctly negative connotations. Indeed, sociologist and communications
theorist P.M. Taylor considers that ‘from the perspective of our modern
information and communications age, the word ‘propaganda’ continues to imply
something evil. For some it is the cause
of wars; for others it is an evil greater evil than war.’[44]
In effect the word ‘propaganda’ has itself been propagandised, and it is now
seen to represent a disease which it is feared, in some mysterious way, has the
power to unconsciously afflict our individual and collective capacity to make
up our own minds about what is happening in the world around us.[45]
However, critically deconstructed and stripped of its infused negativity,
propaganda is in-fact closer to the green-fingered definition than it is to the
Orwellian conception prevalent in the popular discourse. Propaganda represents
merely a process of persuasion that forms part of everyday life[46]
which is not necessarily a negative application. How you consider the term is ‘ultimately
about sides. Whether or not something is branded as propaganda depends on which
side you are on.’[47]In
essence, propaganda is simply the process of spreading message content as far
and as wide as possible given the tools available.
Mass persuasion versus propaganda
Rather
than simply the dissemination of message content, persuasion is concerned with
‘craft[ing] messages designed to exert influence on individuals through the tapping of psychological
mechanisms, that is, affect personality, cognitive schema[s], and so on.’[48]Consequently,
persuasion is traditionally considered to be best suited to interpersonal
environs, such as direct peer to peer communications. Cartee and Copeland consider that persuasion
is more effective than propaganda at the interpersonal level because it
provides the opportunity for direct interaction between the source and the
destination. This interaction further accommodates adjusted responses by the
message giver in accordance with the perceived needs and reactions of the
message recipient[49]either
through RWSN human contact or ISN virtual contact. Miller and Rologg similarly agree and define
persuasion as situations where attempts are made to modify behaviour by
symbolic transactions that appeal to the reason and emotions of the intended
persuade.[50]
ISNs therefore present the perfect media for mass persuasion. Each
reciprocal exchange between users provides the deeply personal ‘symbolic
transaction’ that Miller and Rologg suggest is necessary for persuasion to be
effective; each communication permits the interaction between message giver and
message recipient as suggested by Johnson-Cartee and Copeland. ISNs provide interpersonal persuasion
opportunities on a mass scale, and thus blur the boundaries between mass persuasion
and propaganda in such a way as to benefit the propagandist.
Jacques
Ellul defines propaganda as a form of mass communication ‘employed by an
organised group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation
in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through
psychological manipulation and incorporated in an organisation.’[51]
Where persuasion techniques are traditionally interpersonal in nature,
propaganda sources craft messages designed to exert influence on group members through the tapping of sociological mechanisms; that is,
group-shared normative configurations.[52]
Due to the nature of ISNs, propagandees (subjectives) who are members of large
social networks may be propagandised either interpersonally or through mass
communication. ISNs combine mass
communication with interpersonal relations and are therefore strategically
interesting to propagandists (infectives) who seek to exert mass influence
whilst maintaining interpersonal legitimacy as described in Chaper Three.
How is the opinion leader model applicable to
this?
To
view ISNs as self-adjusting, self-perpetuating
evolutionary systems of
knowledge allows us to draw parallels with Foucault’s conceptions that accepted
knowledge and cultural norms perpetuate, virtually unquestioned, through
multiple generations. ISNs have the ability to both propagate messages and
amend socio-cultural norms at the same time; a propagandist’s dream . Since
Foucault, it is generally accepted that discourses control and restrain what
people say and how they think and that accordingly, discourses are closely
related to patterns of social power.[53]
The functional and social ability of ISNs to control the discourse is
incredibly powerful.
When
President Coolidge invited the great and good of Hollywood to dine with him in
full glare of the world’s press, he did so because he recognised that film
audiences were a large group of people who could be won over by association
with opinion leaders[54]in
Western society today, opinion leaders are more often than not ‘celebrities’. Coolidge had hit upon the opinion-leader
model; the concept that recognised and trusted faces can be co-opted for
political means whilst maintaining the audience legitimacy obtained through
familiarity and idolisation. Most ordinary people are ‘largely uninterested
in politics, and their interest in the issues of the campaign must be secured
by coordinating it with their personal interests.’[55]
Through ISNs, users are connected either directly or through Milgram’s six
degrees to celebrities and opinion leaders who have by design achieved such a
position by representing the social hegemony.
Legitimacy and deliberate infection
Intelligent
minorities make use of propaganda continuously and systematically because it is
through the active energy of the intelligent few that the public at large can become
aware of and act upon normative construction and ideas.[56] Individuals are largely influenced ‘on the
basis of his group prejudice or
desires[57]and
these can be manipulated by strategic utilisation of opinion leaders. As discussed in Chapter Two’s study of
Homansian theory and subsequently agreed here by Jones, both RWSNs and ISNs
depend on trust and reciprocity, cooperation and commitment.[58] In order to satisfy these basic needs, all
social systems such as ISNs rest in consensus; on which basis social systems
are integrated and persistent.[59]
Gramsci asserts that consensus is essential to the concept of rulership in his
theory of hegemony.[60]Compliance
ties all three together. Habermas
conceptualises knowledge in terms of emerging from a consensus theory of truth.[61]The
legitimising effect of receiving content from within a subjective user’s own - and
thus trusted - ISN means that consensus which perpetuates the hegemonic status
quo can be achieved with ease through the opinion leader model.
How the opinion leader model alters the social
norms in ISNs; Synchrony
The
biological theory of ‘Synchrony’ asserts
that under certain conditions a given population of oscillators will harmonise and begin to oscillate in synchrony.[62]
An oscillator is an organism which unconsciously contributes to the natural
resonance – or synchrony - of the SN in which it exists. A cricket for example, is both effected by -
and contributes to - the resonance of evening cacophony of its own RWSN. The conditions for synchrony are obtained
when the ‘distribution of intrinsic frequencies’[63]
(individual strength of opinion) and the ‘coupling strength’[64] (how much attention individuals pay to
each-other’s position on a given issue) are sufficiently harmonised. Synchrony is used in biology to understand systems as wide ranging as
pacemakers cells in the human heart to fireflies flashing;[65]neither
of which have the power of conscious thought but become and remain synchronised
in their mutual oscillations. According
to Strogatz and Watts, RWSN or ISNs simply represent populations of individual
components – or oscillators in biological terms - that are actually doing something. This may be generating power, sending data,
or making decisions.[66]
To the propagandist, synchrony offers a possibility to alter the resonance of
individual oscillators which in turn retune the frequency of the networks
themselves, which consequently evolve and change in time, driven by the
activities or decisions[67]of
oscillators in the network which contribute towards a modified - but still
synchronised - state of resonance. It is
through synchrony that phenomena that may have seemed absurd a short time
previously can very quickly become an accepted concept. It is therefore possible to conceive that the
interaction between a topic which is ‘trending’ on the ISN Twitter, and the
contribution/reaction of users to that topic is an example of synchrony; the
fact that a topic is ‘trending’ adjusts the reaction of the network of users
who respond-to and embrace the trend and further perpetuate it. Opinion leaders have armies of followers on both
the Facebook and the Twitter ISN, and consequently have the ability to
introduce trends smoothly and efficiently which then proliferate from user to
user in a manner which mimics infection as discussed in Chapter Three. At a point where an alternative topic
achieves greater synchrony, the resonance of the original trend decreases and
eventually loses synchrony before disappearing altogether. Accordingly, the propagation of an idea in
this environment requires only an understanding of ontological perspectivism
and the legitimising power of synchrony as discussed in this. Of course, the propagandist must first get
his message noticed by the community before it can alter perspectives or adjust
resonant frequencies, and this can be best achieved using the opinion leader
model.
Adjusting social norms
Kecskemeti
forwards that propaganda must take into account the commonly held sympathies of
the recipient body or audience. For
Kecskemeti, propaganda is best viewed as ‘streams of instrumentally manipulated
communications from a remote source that seeks to establish resonance with an
audience’s predispositions for the purpose of persuading it to a new view that
the propagandist prefers.’[68]
Kecskemeti’s ideas of information sources
can be traced back to the model of communication as forwarded by Shannon and
Weaver’s 1949 model of mass communication (See chapter two) and the resonance in
the theory of synchrony forwarded earlier in this chapter. On the whole, he neatly describes the
feedback loop presented in the DII model in Chapter Two. The consequential divergence is important to
the study of ISNs. Kecskemeti’s
definition makes a progression, albeit subtle, from the traditional view of
propaganda as one-way traffic propagated without feedback from the propagandee
(source), towards an understanding that propaganda must appeal to the
audience’s existing normative position and achieve synchrony. In this way, Kecskemeti permits the
possibility of propaganda as a two-way street which operates with a feed-back
loop as discussed previously in this paper.
Thus, he continues that ‘to be persuasive, the propaganda theme has to
be perceived as coming from within [the SN].
The propagandist’s ideal role in relation to the propangandee is that of alter ego, someone giving expression of the
recipient’s own concerns, tensions, aspirations, and hopes’.[69]
This dovetails with Chapter Three’s concept of ISN users as subjectives who
both trust, and become, infectives and helps to explain the success of the
opinion leader model. Consequently, the
process of propaganda is gradual, taking incremental steps which build on a
minutia of accepted normative social adjustments, constructs and reactions to
propaganda inputs. The role of the ISN
propagandist is a perpetual one, which involves constant revision and adaption
of communicated messages to the audience according to – and in light of – the
audience’s response to earlier propagandist messages.[70]/[71]
Constructing new ontologies and social norms
Noam
Chomsky’s model of consent as an ontological reality which can be
‘manufactured’ sees the world as a top-down conspiracy in which society is
propagandised in a coordinated and deliberate way.[72]This
is a view which utilises the left-right source-destination model offered by
Shannon and Weaver in Chapter Two.
Chomsky identifies that dominant ideologies are happy to use
propagandistic methods[73]
in order to maintain their hegemonic position.
Propaganda therefore, is simply the process of propagation of messages
with the intent to grow an opinion in the minds of the receiver. These messages can range from marketing
imperatives to ideological ideas, or in Chomsky’s mind, both in symbiosis.
Hence,
we can conceive propaganda as the method by which ideas are disseminated in
order to construct new realities in the minds of the recipients. Although this sounds negative in principal,
it is possible that public health messages for example, have a role to play in
constructing new socio- normative realities, such as propagating revised
thinking about smoking and health which benefit the recipient. Consequently, it is important that ideas
about the construction of reality must be investigated if propaganda can be
fully understood. Mol’s contention that where ‘reality is historically,
culturally and materially located’[74]
has now been questioned by scholars who counter that reality is in fact a
construction of those elements, not the core of them. The consequence of this
revision, is that new plural ontologies are created by acts of locating them in
a multiplicity of locations.[75] Accordingly, to create new ontological
realities is possible where it is possible to position ideas or opinions as
facts within given historical, cultural or material settings. Further, just as it is possible to create new
realities, it is also possible to create new versions of histories, cultures or
materialism. In short, that it is
possible to manufacture a fabric of historiographical ‘truth’ from a tissue of
equally fabricated ontologies. Accordingly, for perspectivists for example, a
world viewed from different standpoints,[76]
actually creates a different world, not just a different perception of the same
world, because each individual standpoint is created by each individual’s own
unique historiography of ontology.
Propaganda adjusts the standpoint and thus the individual’s view of the
world by the introduction of infectious ideas through trusted sources which
then rapidly propagate through ISNs, adjusting social norms by minute degrees as
the ideas passes through each user. This
basic extension of pluralism allows us to understand the world as affected by
whole communities in terms of the power of influencing the individuals that
comprise those communities. Effective
propaganda not only influences an individual’s perspective, but this
perspective shift itself adjusts the ontological basis of accepted social
realities. Accordingly, the axis of reality, and the social norms which assume
that reality is a fixed position, are imperceptively altered through effective
use of propaganda over time.
To
view a social network as an integral part of a continuously evolving and
self-constituting eco-system of ontology is a truly original aspect to our
understanding of networks. To conceive of the network as a self perpetuating
evolutionary system in this way
allows us to draw parallels with Foucault’s conceptions that accepted knowledge
and cultural norms perpetuate, virtually unquestioned, through multiple
generations.
DISCUSSION
Chapter
One showed that in essence there is no difference between virtual networks and
RWSNs. That individuals ‘know’ and are
able to communicate with each-other is true of both and the in essence of
Milgram’s original SN structure remains applicable today. Mathematical theories allow us to model the
type and structure of networks between human contacts. It must be said that virtual world networks,
or ISNs mimic RWSNs in the way in which they can demonstrate connections between
individuals. Therefore, models built for
RWSNs, like Milgram’s and Watts’ can be easily adapted to help conceptualise
how interconnectedness works in ISNs.
Moreover, specific models built by mathematicians for ISNs allow us to understand the structure of social
networks in terms of ‘hops’ between random contacts according to reliable fixed
hop lengths. It is these hops which
represent the opportunity for super-fast communications through complex
networks such as ISNs in which geographical separation is evenly distributed[77]
and which constitute a very large number of very small groups, which in effect
leads to a spatially continuous distribution of population.[78]
Chapter Two showed that in ISNs, content creators (sources) such as governments or companies create profiles of their own and these can be electively added to individuals’ social networks in much the same way that traditional mass communication audiences electively watch or listen to particular television or radio channels or programmes. In ISN communications, all such content can be either directly modified by the user audience or users can create content of their own which relates directly to it. This interaction is called DII and introduces a perpetual feedback loop to all mass communications, including those which are transmitted through traditional media but about which users can create or share content within their individual ISN. ISN’s therefore bridge the gap between the free passage of massages that characterise face-to-face communication, which Steinberg insists has thus far been lacking in mass communication.[79]
Chapter Three introduced the concept the communication of content through ISNs closely mimics the proliferation of disease in RWSNs. Once introduced by the message content creator content is passed from infective users to subjective users inside particular small-world ISNs until they breach the outer-wall of the small world network and enter neighbouring networks through common users. As each network acts as an infection node, we can see how the epidemiology of disease matches the network theories discuss in Chapter One. Further, the very fact that trusted contacts are those who communicate the content means that subjective users are more likely to engage with it as part of the reciprocation agreement discussed in interpersonal needs theory in Chapter Two. Finally, as each subjective user shares content, further users in the ISN become infected and also share the content, in a way which accurately mimics the communication of infectious disease in RWSNs.
In Chapter Four it was found that there were significant structural similarities between Real World Social Networks (RWSNs) and Internet Social Networks (ISNs) and that the spread of infectious disease through RWSNs could be cross-modelled in order to understand the spread of information or data through ISNs. Further, that ISN communication technologies such as Facebook and Twitter provide the essential multi-directional interface between networks of connected users and the transmission of viral ideas. Finally, the study found that because RWSNs and ISNs represent similar network structures and that ISN communication technologies represent an adequate bridge through which large numbers of small world networks could be interconnected, ideas spread through ISNs in a similar yet more prodigious fashion than do diseases in RWSN biological epidemics. In ISNs, new ontologies can be created, communicated and legitimised through the networks of users who comprise them; this makes ISNs the ideal tool for propagandists and so-called ‘viral’ marketers.
This study set out to indentify whether ISNs like Facebook and Twitter represent the dawn of a new epoch for propagandists. It has set out to identify how social networks, both in the real world and the virtual, operate to connect members in a graph-based mathematical structure within which communications pass by means of ‘hops’ between connected individuals. Beyond this, time has been spent devising a new model for interactive mass communication, as well as citing that communication within the accepted literature on mass persuasion and communication. Further, connections between biological and ideational epidemics have been given praxis by epidimological models and discussed in terms of infection being introduced via deliberately infected opinion-leader ‘carriers’. Finally, the ontologies of truths, and the ways in which these can be adjusted were discussed in relation to propagandistic intent in the ISN arena.
That
we can make connections between disease and ideas uncovers some uncomfortable
truths. More often than not, the
receivers of disease play host to it, allowing it to exist in a parasitic
fashion in the host body. Ideas pass
between ISN users in a similar way, hosted and legitimised by users who then,
often unconsciously and sometimes for reasons of self gratification, pass that
infection on to those who trust the user most.
That RWSNs and ISNs are a basic requirement of the human condition makes
this a frightening prospect; how are we to disentangle the messages being
perpetuation by those closest to us from the genuine connections we need to
survive as sane, social human beings?
EPILOGUE
In the 1920s, Edward Bernays suggested that politicians in democracies seek to reflect
‘the mind of the people, and that the mind of the people is made up for it by
the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand [how
to] manipulate public opinion.’[80]
In 2011, according to Facebook’s own chief of
‘Data Science’ Cameron Marlowe “Facebook depends on its connectedness, and the
fact that users are connected to each other and users are connected to brands,
enables the diffusion of important messages, a big part of which is our
advertising [revenue] platform."[81]
In ISNs, Marlowe’s ‘important messages’ and
Bernays’ ‘manipulation of public opinion’ have converged to become one and the
same and both spread like contagious disease through Facebook. The election of Barak Obama in 2008 and the
removal of dictatorial regimes during the ‘Arab Spring’ all have their roots in
the propagandistic power of social networks.
McQuail
reminds us that ‘media elites are inclined to reinforce rather than weaken the
established social order and reigning consensus’ although not necessarily out
of ‘cynical self-interest or subservience to [the] ruling class’ as Chomsky or
Gramsci might believe.[82]McQail
furthers that several studies emphasize that news is a manufactured version of
reality, a view that also permeates much work on news content.’[83]As
this stuy highlighted in Chapter Four, reality as reported by the media and
propagated through ISNs differs from objective versions of reality. This distortion means that the media
functions as a form of social control, interacting with and perpetuating
stereo-types and norms – occasionally, but not always - deliberately.[84]
The last word goes Karl Marx:
“Unmask the interests behind supposedly
technical imperatives; show that capitalist technology is uniquely suited to an
alienated society controlled from above.”[85]
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
FACEBOOK: Internet Social Network tool launched in 2004. It is an ISN which is based on the
connections that users make in their RWSNs.
Recent estimates valued the company at around $100 Billion (US)
according to Bloomberg (April 2012). The
ISN has around 900 Million unique users according to Facebook’s own statistics
(April 2012).
TWITTER: Internet Social Network tool launched in 2006. It is an
ISN which is based on microblogging where users find and share with other users
of similar interests. Recent estimates
valued the company at around $8 Billion (US) according to socialmediaweek.org
(April 2012). The ISN has around 500
Million unique users according to Nextweb.com (April 2012).
LIST OF ACRONYMS
DII: Dynamic Inter-personal Interaction
ISN: Internet Social Network.
The online representation of an individual’s network of contacts or a
technological tool such as Facebook or Twitter.
RWSN: Real World Social Network.
The network of contacts that each person has in the physical world. The physical representation of an
individual’s online network of contacts.
SN: Social Network.
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