78 JUNE 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Propaganda and American News, co-authors Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay offer a groundbreaking analysis of how and why Russian disinformation has penetrated American media and political discourse in the last decade. Using an innovative diagnostic model, the authors also reveal the extent to which Russian disinformation and propaganda, amplified by domestic actors, have “colonized,” weakened, and compromised U.S. media outlets. Oates and Ramsay provide an especially insightful analysis of the erosion of traditional media institutions in the digital age and how the transformation of the information ecosystem has increased our vulnerability to propaganda. They identify the extent to which the unregulated social media environment, algorithm-dominated news distribution models, and the demise of traditional commercial funding mechanisms have each undermined the production of high-quality journalism in the public interest. They then provide ample evidence that the “strong tradition of free speech” has itself become “susceptible to manipulation” in this decentralized and fragmented information space. Seeing Red also provides an essential primer on the spread of foreign propaganda in American political discourse. Using a set of analytical tools designed to track the presence of Russian-based narratives in U.S. news, Oates and Ramsay demonstrate that Russian and far right domestic narratives use the same key words and phrases to undermine the credibility of American political institutions. Because these narratives essentially sound and feel alike, it is difficult to distinguish between them—or recognize who is behind them. By demonstrating how these narratives influence and reinforce one another, the authors show how Russian propaganda has not only penetrated the U.S. media ecosystem but reverberates in the anti-democratic discourse of the far right. As Oates and Ramsay write, Seeing Red is a “how dunnit” rather than a “who dunnit.” Instead of merely focusing on identifying and exposing specific propaganda outlets or actors, this book offers an evidence-based analytical framework to track how propaganda moves across the media landscape. The “scourge” of propaganda cannot be eliminated; but, as Oates and Ramsay show us, a clear-eyed assessment of its attributes can go a long way in building resistance to its effects. Evidence-based analysis is one way to combat disinformation effects. Historical example is another. In How to Win an Information War, prominent disinformation expert Peter Pomerantsev tells the story of Sefton Delmer, the head of Special Operations for the British Political Warfare Executive during World War II, whose unorthodox countermeasures undermined the propaganda of the Third Reich. A stylish blend of history, biography, memoir, and sociology, How to Win an Information War is, like its hero, a bit subversive and altogether compelling. Drawing on the philosopher Jacques Ellul’s insight that “propaganda is the true remedy for loneliness,” Pomerantsev argues that the real power of propaganda is not to “convince” or “confuse” (as most contemporary definitions have it) but BOOKS The Propaganda Apocalypse Seeing Red: Russian Propaganda and American News Sarah Oates and Gordon Neil Ramsay, Oxford University Press, 2024, $27.95/ paperback, e-book available, 216 pages. How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler Peter Pomerantsev, Public Affairs, 2024, $30.00/hardcover, e-book available, 304 pages. Propaganda and Persuasion Nancy Snow, Garth S. Jowett, and Victoria J. O’Donnell, Sage Publications, 2024, $156.00/paperback, e-book available, 512 pages. Reviewed by Vivian S. Walker Propaganda and its threat to democratic institutions in the digital age has emerged as a central problem of our time. Concern about the consequences of targeted information manipulation and influence operations now dominates contemporary political discourse. In fact, we can’t stop talking about it. Nearly a decade after RAND’s landmark study of the Russian “firehose of propaganda” model, the firehose of alarmist commentary on propaganda, disinformation, and fake news has all but overwhelmed attempts to make sense of their effects. Fortunately, three new books drawing from a range of scholarly disciplines offer balanced, detailed, and accessible analyses of the nature of propaganda and how to confront it. In Seeing Red: Russian
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