# Computational Propaganda *Full title: Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media. Edited by Samuel C. Woolley and Philip N. Howard, published November 2018 by Oxford University Press in the Oxford Studies in Digital Politics series.* ## The argument The book names and defines "computational propaganda" — the use of algorithms, automation (bots), and human curation to deliberately distribute misleading information across social-media networks, learning from and mimicking real users in order to manipulate public opinion at scale. It frames this as a distinct new mode of political communication, different in kind from older broadcast propaganda because it is automated, networked, and adaptive. Drawing on the work of the Oxford Internet Institute's Computational Propaganda Project, the volume presents country case studies — Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Poland, Taiwan, Brazil, Germany, the United States, and China — spanning democratic and authoritarian systems and a range of political processes (elections, referenda, and crises). Together they document bot armies, astroturfing, and platform manipulation as a global phenomenon rather than a single-country aberration. ## KB significance Computational Propaganda is a foundational reference for the mechanics behind the KB's [[Disinformation]] and influence-operations material. Where [[Network Propaganda]] maps the structural asymmetry of the American media ecosystem, this volume supplies the cross-national, methods-level account of *how* automated manipulation actually works — the toolkit deployed by operations such as troll farms and state influence campaigns. Samuel Woolley directs research on propaganda and emerging technology; Philip N. Howard directs the Oxford Internet Institute. ## See Also - [[Network Propaganda]] - [[Disinformation]] - [[Propaganda]]