This brief introduction to the history of uses of the term, disinformation, was authored by Vera Tolz and Stephen Hutchings. It appeared on the LSE Politics Blog (Media@LSE Blog) on 10 August, 2021. It is available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2021/10/08/performing-disinformation-a-muddled-history-and-its-consequences/
Publications
With the rise and rise of social media, today’s communication practices are significantly different from those of even the recent past. A key change has been a shift to very small units, exemplified by Twitter and its strict 280-character limit on individual posts. Consequently, highly fragmented communication has become the norm in many contexts. In his book Neil Sadler sets out to explore the production and reception of fragmentary stories, analysing the Twitter-based narrative practices of Donald Trump, the Spanish political movement Podemos, and Egyptian activists writing in the context of the 2013 military intervention in Egypt. Sadler draws on narrative theory and hermeneutics to argue that narrative remains a vital means for understanding, allowing fragmentary content to be grasped together as part of significant wholes.
For further details see: https://www.routledge.com/Fragmented-Narrative-Telling-and-Interpreting-Stories-in-the-Twitter-Age/Sadler/p/book/9781032036762