(Thread) This new study concludes that disguised Russian propaganda likely did not influence US attitudes via social media. There is a long history of such findings but also of profound critique. I will let a book from the 1960s by Jacques Ellul explain some key problems: https://twitter.com/chris_bail/status/1199058772515262466

“One method has been used frequently by American researchers: its object being to determine whether some propaganda instrument could change the opinions or prejudices of a group.”

A group of people are "subjected to carefully prepared psychological manipulations via pamphlets, films, conferences, and so on. After the period of propaganda, an evaluation of opinion changes by ordinary methods was attempted”

“Generally, the conclusion has been that such propaganda had very little effect, that patterns and stereotypes were little changed, and that group opinion remained unchanged.”

“I claim that such results mean nothing because the method is totally inadequate. Its shortcomings are numerous. First, the question under experimentation is the experimenter's choice - it is not a burning, explosive question of immediate concern.”

“Second, such propaganda efforts [i.e. the tests of propaganda] always employ very modest means (some pamphlets, one or two films), have no real orchestration, and are of short and inadequate duration.”

“Evidently, we cannot expect to eradicate [for example] a race prejudice after a few days or weeks of propaganda, no matter how well made.”

Such research is "at best attempts at [studying] partial influence, and it is completely useless to draw conclusions from them about the efficacy of real propaganda”

“propaganda's effectiveness cannot be measured on the basis of results obtained in one… domain… To do so would be to be hasty and to misunderstand basic differences.”

“A second difficulty is the delay - not always of the same duration - between the moment when the propagandist acts and the one when certain effects begin to show”

“You cannot measure with any precision the effects of a film because you cannot dissociate it from current newspaper articles and radio broadcasts on the same subject.”

"There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or a radio program there, organizes a few meetings and lectures, writes a few slogans on walls; that is not propaganda."

I will give credit to the authors of the new study for acknowledging many limitations. I do think, however, think they should have mentioned the long history of profound critique of this type of study with many scholars arguing that such results are more or less useless

I think this is especially important now that journalists will start reporting on all of this, often omitting many of the profound limitations.

The book by Ellul is by the way called 'Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes