Book contents
- Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I(Re)framing Persuasion
- IIPersuasion and (New) Contexts of Use
- IIIThe Dark Side of Persuasion
- IVPersuasion and Algorithms
- VDiscussion
- 14An Ecological Approach to Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Index
- References
14 - An Ecological Approach to Manipulation, Influence and Deception
from V - Discussion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2025
Book contents
- Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- I(Re)framing Persuasion
- IIPersuasion and (New) Contexts of Use
- IIIThe Dark Side of Persuasion
- IVPersuasion and Algorithms
- VDiscussion
- 14An Ecological Approach to Manipulation, Influence and Deception
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter provides a commentary on the studies published in this volume. It identifies a range of common themes across the different chapters, including the importance of context in shaping strategies of persuasion, the role of indirectness and implicature in persuasion and manipulation, and the importance of the affective and interpersonal dimensions of persuasion. At the same time, the commentary also points out some of the limitations of traditional tools of discourse analysis for understanding how persuasion and manipulation work in the complex networked context of digital media. To address these shortcomings, an ecological approach to manipulation, influence, and deception is proposed, drawing on recent work in sociology, media studies, science and technology studies, and ‘ecological pragmatics’. Three aspects of online discourse are discussed in light of this ecological perspective, namely: inter(con)textuality, iterability, and metadiscursivity. The chapter ends with a discussion of the implications of an ecological approach to persuasion, manipulation, and deception for teaching critical literacies.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Manipulation, Influence and DeceptionThe Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language, pp. 297 - 312Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Anderson, C. W., & Revers, M. (2018). From counter-power to counter-pepe: The vagaries of participatory epistemology in a digital age. Media and Communication, 6(4), 24–25. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v6i4.1492CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Androutsopoulos, J. (2011). From variation to heteroglossia in the study of computer-mediated discourse. In Thurlow, C. & Mroczek, K. (Eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 277–298). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.003.0013Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (Holquist, M., Ed.; C. Emerson, Trans.). University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. (2018). Network propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertolotti, T., & Magnani, L. (2014). An epistemological analysis of gossip and gossip-based knowledge. Synthèse, 191(17), 4037–4067. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229–014-0514-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2015). Meaning as a nonlinear effect: The birth of cool. AILA Review, 28, 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.28.01bloCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolander, B., & Locher, M. A. (2020). Beyond the online offline distinction: Entry points to digital discourse. Discourse, Context & Media, 35, 100383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2020.100383CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, J. (1990/2006). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.Google Scholar
Cowley, S. J. (2005). Languaging: How humans and bonobos lock on to human modes of life. International Journal of Computational Cognition, 3(1), 44–55.Google Scholar
Deschrijver, C. (2021). On the metapragmatics of ‘conspiracy theory’: Scepticism and epistemological debates in online conspiracy comments. Journal of Pragmatics, 182, 310–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.02.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donner, M. (2016). Thinking like a virus: Contagion, postmodernist epistemology, and the ethics of belief. In Nixon, K. & Servitje, L. (Eds.), Endemic (pp. 221–242). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52141-5_10CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Echterhoff, G., Groll, S., & Hirst, W. (2007). Tainted truth: Overcorrection for misinformation influence on eyewitness memory. Social Cognition, 25(3), 367–409. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2007.25.3.367CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floriani, A. (1993). Negotiating what counts: Roles and relationships, texts and contexts, content and meaning. Linguistics and Education, 5, 241–274. https://doi.org/10.1016/0898-5898(93)90002-RCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, C. L. E. (2023). Truth as social practice in a digital era: Iteration as persuasion. AI & Society, 38, 2009–2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146–021-01306-wCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, C. (2009). Making meanings, creating family: Intertextuality and framing in family interaction. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, C. (2023). Intertextuality 2.0: Metadiscourse and meaning-making in an online community. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habgood-Coote, J. (2019). Stop talking about fake news! Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 62(9–10), 1033–1065.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, K. R. (2022). Real fakes: The epistemology of online misinformation. Philosophy & Technology, 35(3), 83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347–022-00581-9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodges, B. (2009). Ecological pragmatics: Values, dialogical arrays, complexity, and caring. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(3), 628–652. https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.17.3.08hodCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodges, B. H. (2019). Resisting knowledge, realizing values, and reasoning in complex contexts: Ecological reflections. Theory & Psychology, 29(3), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354319852423CrossRefGoogle Scholar
John, N. A. (2013). The social logics of sharing. The Communication Review, 16(3), 113–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2013.807119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, R. H. (2009). Dancing, skating and sex: Action and text in the digital age. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(3), 283–302. https://dx.doi.org/10.1558/japl.v6i3.283Google Scholar
Kavanagh, J., & Rich, M. D. (2022). Truth decay: An initial exploration of the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life. RAND Corporation.Google Scholar
Kristeva, J. (1980). Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kvanvig, J. L. (2003). The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanham, R. A. (2007). The economics of attention: Style and substance in the age of information. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 20(Winter), 225–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A., & Marwick, A. (2017, 15–16 December). Taking the red pill: Ideological motivations for spreading online disinformation. Address at Understanding and Addressing the Disinformation Ecosystem, University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Lorusso, A. M. (2023). Fake news as discursive genre: Between hermetic semiosis and gossip. Social Epistemology, 37(2), 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2021.2001604CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marwick, A. E., & Caplan, R. (2018). Drinking male tears: Language, the manosphere, and networked harassment. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 543–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1450568CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonnell, T. E., Bail, C. A., & Tavory, I. (2017). A theory of resonance. Sociological Theory, 35(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275117692837CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merlan, A. (2020, 17 July). The conspiracy singularity has arrived. Vice News. www.vice.com/en/article/v7gz53/the-conspiracy-singularity-has-arrivedGoogle Scholar
Miani, A., Hills, T., & Bangerter, A. (2022). Interconnectedness and (in)coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews. Science Advances, 8(43), eabq3668. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq3668CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Munger, K. (2020). All the news that’s fit to click: The economics of clickbait media. Political Communication, 37(3), 376–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2019.1687626CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, C., & Weatherall, J. O. (2019). The misinformation age: How false beliefs spread. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Oddo, J. (2019). The discourse of propaganda: Case studies from the Persian Gulf War and the War on Terror. Penn State University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271082752CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Origgi, G. (2008). Trust, authority and epistemic responsibility. THEORIA, 23(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pepp, J., Michaelson, E., & Sterken, R. (2019). Why we should keep talking about fake news. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 65(4), 471–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2019.1685231CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, W., & Milner, R. M. (2021). You are here: A field guide for navigating polarized speech, conspiracy theories, and our polluted media landscape. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). The psychology of fake news. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(5), 388–402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.02.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peters, M. A., McLaren, P., & Jandrić, P. (2022). A viral theory of post-truth. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54(6), 698–706. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1750090CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (Eds.). (2008). Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, J. (2021). An epistemology of false beliefs: The role of truth, trust and technology in post-digital deception. In Mackenzie, A., Rose, J., & Bhatt, I. (Eds.), The epistemology of deceit in a postdigital era: Dupery by design (pp. 21–38). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scollon, R. (2008). Discourse itineraries: Nine processes of resemiotization. In Bhatia, V. K., Flowerdew, J., & Jones, R. H. (Eds.), Advances in discourse studies (pp. 233–244). Routledge.Google Scholar
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2004). Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging internet. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance: Communication and cognition (2nd ed.). Blackwell.Google Scholar
Snow, D. A. (2008). Elaborating the discursive contexts of framing: Discursive fields and spaces. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 30, 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterken, R. K. (2019). Linguistic interventions and transformative communicative disruption. In Cappelen, H., Plunkett, D., & Burgess, A. (Eds.), Conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics (pp. 417–434). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Takeda, Y. (2022). Facts are meaningless unless you care: Media literacy education on conspiracy theories. Philosophy of Education, 78(2), 153–166. https://doi.org/10.47925/78.2.153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wardle, C. (2020). Understanding information disorder. First Draft News. https://firstdraftnews.org/long-form-article/understanding-information-disorder/Google Scholar
Weaver, K., Garcia, S. M., Schwarz, N., & Miller, D. T. (2007). Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 821–833. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.821CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xing, C., & Feng, D. (2023). Multimodal intertextuality and persuasion in advertising discourse. Discourse & Communication, 17(5), 613–629. https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813231170579CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Accessibility standard: Inaccessible, or known limited accessibility
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
The HTML of this chapter is known to have missing or limited accessibility features. We may be reviewing its accessibility for future improvement, but final compliance is not yet assured and may be subject to legal exceptions. If you have any questions, please contact accessibility@cambridge.org.
Content Navigation
Table of contents navigation
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Index navigation
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Reading Order & Textual Equivalents
Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Visual Accessibility
Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
Use of high contrast between text and background colour
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.