Resisting Deceptive Propaganda

6. Civic Knowledge and Skills

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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June 25, 2026

Propaganda is not simply persuasion, advocacy, or strong political argument. Democratic politics depends on people trying to convince one another. Deceptive propaganda is different because it tries to manipulate people while hiding what it is really doing. It may use half-truths, emotionally charged images, misleading statistics, fake experts, conspiracy stories, or repeated accusations that are never fairly tested. Its purpose is not to help citizens make wise decisions. Its purpose is to get them to think, feel, vote, buy, hate, or fear in ways that serve someone else’s interests.

Modern information systems make propaganda much more powerful than it used to be. Messages can be micro-targeted to particular groups, amplified by bots, spread through influencers, and disguised as ordinary conversation. Artificial intelligence can now generate persuasive text, images, audio, and video at enormous scale. The RAND Corporation’s work on the “firehose of falsehood” shows how propaganda can succeed through speed, volume, repetition, and indifference to consistency. In such an environment, citizens cannot protect themselves simply by “following the news.” They need active habits of verification.

Resisting deceptive propaganda begins with slowing down. Propaganda often works by triggering anger, fear, contempt, or moral outrage before people have time to think. A good first question is, “Why does someone want me to feel this way right now?” Citizens should then ask who produced the message, what evidence supports it, what important context may be missing, and whether credible sources outside the original message confirm the claim. The Civic Online Reasoning curriculum stresses the value of “lateral reading,” which means leaving the original site or post to see what other reliable sources say about the source and the claim. The News Literacy Project similarly warns that false and misleading content often exploits our emotions and biases in order to bypass careful judgment.

Individual vigilance is necessary, but it is not enough. Societies also need stronger media literacy education, better platform transparency, professional journalism, trustworthy fact-checking, and public officials who refuse to benefit from lies. UNESCO describes media and information literacy as a first line of defense against disinformation because it helps people become more critical users and producers of information. These skills should be taught not as a partisan project, but as a democratic survival skill. People across the political spectrum can be manipulated, especially when a message flatters their side and demonizes the other.

For constructive conflict, resisting deceptive propaganda is crucial because propaganda turns disagreement into hostility and confusion. It encourages citizens to see opponents as monsters, institutions as hopelessly corrupt, and compromise as betrayal. It also rewards bad-faith actors who profit from fear and distrust.

Democratic citizens therefore need to develop a disciplined skepticism that does not collapse into cynicism. They should doubt claims that are unsupported, but not assume that all claims are equally false. They should listen to criticism, but not confuse criticism with manipulation. The goal is not to eliminate passionate advocacy. It is to build enough shared reality that democratic societies can argue fiercely without being deceived into destroying themselves.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.