Francesca Bolla Tripodi, “The Propagandists’ Playbook”

MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing

The Propagandists’ Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy peels back the layers of the right-wing media manipulation machine to reveal why its strategies are so effective and pervasive, while also humanizing the people whose worldviews and media practices conservatism embodies. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations of two Republican groups over the course of the 2018 Virginia gubernatorial race-including the author’s firsthand experience of the 2017 Unite the Right rally, the book considers how Google algorithms, YouTube playlists, pundits, and politicians can manipulate audiences, reaffirm beliefs, and expose audiences to more extremist ideas, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Francesca Bolla Tripodi is an assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a a research affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute.