Manufacturing Consensus

Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity

Winner of the 2024 Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Nancy Baym book award, which “seeks to recognize the best work in the field of Internet Studies.”

Order here

“A century ago, Walter Lippmann recognized that ‘manufacture of consent’ is a new art in the practice of democracy.  By now an outgrowth, ‘manufacturing consensus,’ has become a science, a way to ‘leverage computational propaganda to spin information flows over social media.’ We are introduced here to a dazzling array of systems of manufacturing consensus in the digital communication age, with an astonishing variety of actors — and ominous implications.” —Noam Chomsky, MIT

“This timely, well-written, and impactful book reintroduces the term propaganda to readers in a relatable and contemporary way. It is exceptionally modern in its approach, and places the term propaganda at center stage of any conversation on politics, democracy, and technology.”—Zizi Papacharissi, University of Illinois Chicago

“I always turn to Samuel Woolley’s work in order to understand computational propaganda. This lucid, eye-opening book illuminates the many (sometimes sinister) ways that bot-based influence campaigns operate in the digital world.”—Meredith Broussard, author of More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech

“This book is for anyone wanting to understand the complex landscape of online propaganda, including the role of states, algorithmic tools, and social media companies.”—Kate Crawford, author of Atlas of AI

“A thoughtful and often humorous primer on computational propaganda, drawing from cases that crisscross continents. If you want to learn about the intersection of politics and the internet, start here.”—Emerson Brooking, coauthor of Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media