Orchestrated disinformation and propaganda campaigns are often used to polarize online debates, radicalize public perception of sensitive topics and create moral panic. Disinformation encompasses false information, rumors, information with a sensationalist and/or distorted framing, and conspiracy theories that are intended to negatively influence public opinion. Therefore, understanding these strategies requires knowledge about the functioning of the media ecosystem behind the dissemination of harmful content, made up of large media outlets, alternative media, hyper-partisan media, junk news portals, online advertisements, media platforms social and chat apps.
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Using online platforms that society cannot audit, various campaigns take advantage of new technologies to drive narratives and influence public opinion, collective action and government policies. Thus, the characteristics and particularities of each platform are also relevant factors for understanding the political, social and economic objectives of these influence operations. Across different social media, trolls, bots, fake profiles, anonymous users and influencers take a cetral role in the production and sharing of biased information that benefits certain financial and political interests.
In this line of research, we carry out multiplatform analyses of communication and disinformation strategies in contexts such as political crises, attacks on democratic institutions and attempts to delegitimize traditional media. Diagnosing this informational phenomenon and its social and political consequences in Brazil in high on the NetLab agenda, as a problematic information environment can threaten public security, fracture social cohesion, reduce trust in institutions and threaten the Democratic Rule of Law.