Chapter 2 Further Reading: Annotated Bibliography

The History of Misinformation — From Rumor to the Internet Age

Primary Historical Sources

1. Bernays, Edward. Propaganda. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928. Reprint edition: IG Publishing, 2005

Bernays' own account of the theory and practice of public opinion management — remarkable for its candor. Bernays argues explicitly that the "engineering of consent" is both inevitable and beneficial in mass democracies, and explains the techniques (third-party validation, staged events, media placement, front organizations) he developed over a career that included service on the U.S. Committee on Public Information during World War I. Reading Bernays is disturbing partly because he makes manipulative techniques sound reasonable — which is itself an important lesson. Essential for understanding the institutional infrastructure of misinformation in democratic societies.

2. Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. Translated by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965.

The most rigorous theoretical account of modern propaganda, by a French philosopher, sociologist, and theologian. Ellul distinguishes between "political propaganda" (direct messaging) and "sociological propaganda" (the diffuse, ambient propagandistic effects of a culture's media, entertainment, and social norms) — and argues the latter may be more powerful and pervasive. He analyzes why propaganda is effective against intellectuals as well as ordinary people, and why Western democracies are not immune to propagandistic influence despite their formal freedoms. Dense but extraordinarily rewarding. More relevant to contemporary social media analysis than most contemporary media studies texts.

3. Goebbels, Joseph. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels [The Goebbels Diaries]. Edited by Elke Fröhlich. Munich: K.G. Saur, 1987–2006. [Selected translations available in English.]*

The diaries of the Nazi propaganda minister provide primary source insight into how totalitarian propaganda was conceived, planned, and executed. Goebbels was a sophisticated practitioner who thought carefully about audience psychology, media effectiveness, and the relationship between truth and persuasion. Reading the diaries produces unease: the person responsible for the cultural environment that enabled the Holocaust was not a crude monster but an intelligent, self-aware practitioner who was ruthlessly strategic about information management. The diaries illuminate what the chapter discusses abstractly about Nazi propaganda technique.

4. Cohn, Norman. Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1967.

The definitive scholarly analysis of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and its role in generating anti-Semitic violence. Cohn traces the document's origins, its textual debt to Joly's Dialogue, its various editions and translations, and the relationship between the Protocols myth and the Holocaust. He contextualizes the Protocols within the longer history of European anti-Semitism and the specific modern tradition of conspiracy-theory thinking. Essential reading for anyone studying dangerous misinformation and its long-term cultural consequences.

Media History and Journalism

5. Starr, Paul. The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

A comprehensive history of American media institutions from the colonial era through the early twentieth century, focusing on the political decisions — about postal rates, copyright, broadcast licensing — that shaped the media environment. Starr demonstrates that media structures are not simply technological outcomes but are politically constructed. His analysis of how cheap postage rates enabled the penny press and how broadcast regulation shaped radio's development are essential context for understanding why media environments look the way they do. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2005.

6. Wu, Tim. The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.

A sweeping narrative history of the "attention economy" from 19th-century advertising through contemporary social media, tracing how various media industries have developed techniques for capturing human attention and selling it to advertisers. Wu's central argument — that the advertising-supported media model has systematically prioritized emotional engagement over accuracy and depth — is essential context for understanding why misinformation has structural advantages in attention-economy media environments. Extremely well-written and accessible.

7. Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.

The essential account of manufactured doubt as a deliberate political and corporate strategy. Oreskes and Conway trace the same network of scientists and PR organizations from the tobacco industry's campaign against smoking-cancer links through climate change denial, with stops at leaded gasoline, asbestos, and ozone depletion. The book demonstrates that the playbook is consistent across industries and issues, that the goal is to delay regulatory action rather than achieve scientific truth, and that a small number of individuals have had disproportionate influence on public understanding of major scientific issues. Should be required reading in any misinformation course.

8. Cantril, Hadley. The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940. Reprint: Transaction Publishers, 2005

The foundational (and significantly flawed) study of the War of the Worlds broadcast's audience effects. Read alongside the revisionist scholarship of Pooley and Socolow, Cantril's study illustrates how early academic research on media effects shaped public understanding of media's power in ways that were themselves partly shaped by the panic narrative's appeal. Essential for understanding both what the War of the Worlds case actually shows and the sociology of academic knowledge production about media.

Political Communication and Propaganda

9. Bernstein, Herman. The Truth About "The Protocols of Zion": A Complete Exposure. New York: Covici Friede, 1935.

An early and comprehensive debunking of The Protocols, drawing on Graves' 1921 Times exposé and additional research. Read as a primary document in the history of misinformation correction: it demonstrates that comprehensive, credible debunking of a dangerous forgery can be publicly available for decades without eliminating the forgery's influence.

10. Lasswell, Harold D. Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York: Peter Smith, 1927. Reprint: MIT Press, 1971

The first major academic study of World War I propaganda techniques, by one of the founders of political communication research. Lasswell analyzes how the British, American, French, German, and other governments used propaganda to mobilize populations, demoralize enemies, and win neutral opinion. He provides a typology of propaganda techniques that remains useful. His analysis of the conditions under which propaganda is effective — credibility, repetition, emotional resonance, suppression of alternatives — anticipates much of the later psychology of persuasion literature.

11. Chomsky, Noam, and Edward Herman. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.

Herman and Chomsky's "propaganda model" of the mass media argues that American corporate media systematically filters news in ways that serve elite political and economic interests, through structural mechanisms (advertising dependence, corporate ownership, sourcing from government officials, "flak" from powerful interests) rather than through conspiracy or direct censorship. Controversial and one-sided in places, but the structural analysis of how media incentives shape coverage is genuinely important. Pair with Oreskes and Conway for a complementary account of manufactured doubt as the media's co-optation from outside.

Internet and Social Media Era

12. Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. "The Spread of True and False News Online." Science 359, no. 6380 (2018): 1146–1151.

The most widely cited empirical study of misinformation spread on social media. Analyzing 126,000 Twitter "news cascades" from 2006 to 2017, the authors find that false news spreads faster, farther, and to more people than true news, primarily due to human behavior rather than automated bots. The mechanism: false news is more novel and emotionally arousing. This paper is essential reading for anyone studying contemporary misinformation, though read the authors' own discussion of limitations and subsequent critiques.

13. Wardle, Claire, and Hossein Derakhshan. "Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making." Council of Europe Report DGI(2017)09, 2017. Available free online at the Council of Europe

The foundational policy document introducing the standard typology: misinformation (false, not intentional), disinformation (false, intentional), malinformation (true, harmful intent). Wardle and Derakhshan provide a systematic framework for analyzing information disorder, covering the agents, messages, and interpreters involved. An indispensable reference document for policy analysis. Read alongside critical perspectives noting that the framework's focus on false content may underemphasize the role of selective truth and omission in public misinformation.

14. Roberts, Andrew, and Colin Shindler, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

A comprehensive academic reference covering propaganda from antiquity to the digital age, with chapters by specialists in different historical periods, media forms, and analytical approaches. Useful as a reference for specific historical episodes, as an introduction to diverse theoretical frameworks, and as a guide to the research literature. The chapter on digital propaganda and social media is particularly relevant for connecting historical analysis to contemporary challenges.

15. Pooley, Jefferson, and Michael Socolow. "The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic." Slate, October 28, 2013. (Available free online.)

The most accessible summary of the revisionist scholarship on the War of the Worlds broadcast's actual audience effects, written for a general audience. Pooley and Socolow demonstrate that the panic myth was substantially constructed by newspapers in the days following the broadcast, for competitive reasons. Essential reading alongside Cantril's original study for understanding both the case itself and the broader lesson about how historical narratives about media can be shaped by media interests. Freely available online and should be read rather than just cited.

Note on Primary Sources

For original primary source engagement: - Goebbels' diaries: The Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich holds the complete archives; translated selections are available in published editions. - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Full text is available through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with contextual analysis. Read with critical awareness — the document itself is a forgery and dangerous anti-Semitic propaganda. - War of the Worlds broadcast: The full audio recording is in the public domain and widely available online. Listen before reading Cantril's account. - Bernays' Propaganda: Full text is available through Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive. - Soviet active measures documentation: Declassified documents on Operation INFEKTION are available through the National Security Archive at George Washington University.