Justifying an Invasion: When Is Disinformation Successful?

Conventional wisdom suggests that social media, especially when used by authoritarian powers with nefarious aims, leaves citizens of democratic countries vulnerable to psychological influence campaigns. But such concerns overlook predispositions among recipients of false claims to reject (or to endorse) conspiratorial narratives. Analyzing responses from a survey fielded in 19 countries, we find that it is a preexisting conspiracy outlook at the individual level, more so than media diets, which consistently predicts rating Russia's pretenses for the invasion as more accurate.

Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style: A New Perspective.

In this article, the introduction to a special () issue on populism, we articulate and define populism as a We provide an overview of populist political communication research and its current foci. We offer a framework for ongoing research and set the boundary conditions for a new generation of research on populist political communication, with an aim to push the research agendas and design toward a more interactive, systematic, and in particular, approach to the study of populist political communication.