Discomfort with Disinformation: Assessing U.S. Aversion to Sustained Counter Disinformation Efforts
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- A series of crises during the 2010s brought disinformation and propaganda to the forefront of the foreign policy agenda, ranging from ISIS jihadist propaganda to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns interfering with the 2016 presidential election. While scholars and policymakers began to focus on the effect 21st century social media would have on international affairs, there has been less attention given to the willingness of the United States government to engage in “information wars.” Since World War I, U.S. counter disinformation organizations have undergone a cycle of rapid formation and decay. They are built during times of crisis, and after a short duration, they are dismantled. This pattern is puzzling because scholars of organizations have found government bureaucracies to be notoriously enduring. This thesis examines why counter disinformation organizations (CDO) are an exception and what are the underlying forces contributing to their short life spans. Drawing on presidential speeches and strategic documents, academic and journalistic reporting, internal memos, and interviews of key bureaucratic actors, I test four hypotheses that affect CDO tenure in a series of case studies: the legal mechanisms through which the CDO was created, the sense of urgency that propelled policymakers to create the organization in the first place, executive and congressional policymakers’ attention in the counter disinformation mission, and bureaucratic tension with peer and host organizations. My results indicate that a disinclination for strategic communications and information work exists within the U.S. national security apparatus that requires high level executive support to overcome. This support tends to be tied to a crisis that happens to have informational elements. These findings illuminate institutional habits within the U.S. national security bureaucracy that will help determine what government’s role should be in future information conflicts as the country moves towards a “whole-of-society” approach to combating disinformation and propaganda in a digital age.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date modified | December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | June 3, 2022; June 2, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Thompson, Samantha |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor | Zegart, Amy |
| Thesis advisor | Lin, Herbert |
Subjects
| Subject | Disinformation |
|---|---|
| Subject | Propaganda |
| Subject | Organizational behavior |
| Subject | Organizational culture |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Thompson, S. (2022). Discomfort with Disinformation: Assessing U.S. Aversion to Sustained Counter Disinformation Efforts. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/gy748qd0379
Collection
Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses
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