Book Review of Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda by Other Means, Megan Boler and Elizabeth Davis, 2021, New York: Routledge.

Abstract

This interdisciplinary collection of essays explores how digital media and technologies exploit and capitalize on emotions, particularly through social media, to exacerbate social conflicts surrounding issues such as racism, misogyny, and nationalism. The book examines the affective information economies and how emotions are being weaponized within mediatized political landscapes. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, including how clickbait, “fake news,” and right-wing actors deploy and weaponize emotion; new theoretical directions for understanding affect, algorithms, and public spheres; and how the wedding of big data and behavioural science enables new frontiers of propaganda, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal. The book features contributions from established and emerging scholars of communications, media studies, affect theory, journalism, policy studies, gender studies, and critical race studies to address questions of concern to scholars, journalists, and students in these fields and beyond.

References

Boler, M., & Davis, E. (Eds.). (2021). Affective politics of digital media: Propaganda by other means. Routledge.