Fake news softens trust in sources before status-based propaganda replaces persuasion

Evidence

The question lingers of whether fake news is just propaganda. If fake news is created just to get money from you, it seems more like fraud. But even if it is intended to mislead you into believing a falsehood, one might argue that this is not yet full-blown propaganda. As Stanley argues, the goal of propaganda is not to fool you, but to assert political dominance. Deception can be an effective means of doing this, but it is not the only way. True authoritarians do not need your consent. If post-truth really is pre-fascism, maybe fake news is merely an early tactic, whose purpose is to soften us up for what comes later. Fake news confuses us and makes us doubt whether any source can be trusted. Once we don’t know what to believe anymore, this can be exploited. Perhaps true propaganda comes later—once it doesn’t matter whether we believe it—because we already know who is in charge. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 229

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs with the general literature on epistemic mistrust and propaganda (Stanley’s How Propaganda Works), plus the reader’s prior material on how disinformation erodes trust infrastructure. — connects to: Multi-platform exposure could mean daily fake news contact for average voters — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 526; Fake news is better countered by flooding with real news than censorship. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 233; News aggregators strip away the visual and contextual cues that once signaled reliability — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 193 (+2 more)