Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media

The Oxford Internet Institute's Computational Propaganda Project — the most comprehensive academic research programme on automated political manipulation ever conducted — produced this edited volume as its definitive comparative study. Woolley and Howard bring together researchers who examined the use of political bots, automated accounts, and coordinated inauthentic behaviour across nine countries: the US, UK, Germany, Canada, France, Poland, Taiwan, Russia, and Ukraine. The result is the most empirically rigorous cross-national account of computational propaganda available.

The value for practitioners is both methodological and substantive. Methodologically, the comparative framework allows for analysis of how computational propaganda adapts to different political systems, media environments, and regulatory contexts — essential for anyone doing threat assessment beyond the US context. Substantively, the case studies document the specific techniques used in each country, the actors involved, and the measurable effects on political discourse. The finding that emerges consistently across contexts — that computational propaganda is most effective not at changing minds but at distorting the perceived consensus of public opinion — has direct implications for how resilience interventions should be designed.