2023/06/30 by Keith Raymond Harris · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Social Sciences · #Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10670-023-00710-6
openalex publication_date 2023/06/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view is doubly mistaken. First, while paradigmatic disinformation campaigns aim to produce false beliefs in an audience, disinformation may in some cases be intended only to prevent its audience from forming true beliefs. Second, purveyors of disinformation need not intend to have any effect at all on their audience’s beliefs, aiming instead to manipulate an audience’s behavior through alteration of sub-doxastic states. Ultimately, I argue that attention to such non-paradigmatic forms of disinformation is essential to understanding the threat disinformation poses and why this threat is so difficult to counter.