Shuvaloy Majumdar is the Foreign Policy Director and Munk Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and this week he and Elizabeth tackle propaganda, government communication and mis/disinformation. They discuss the blurry line between government messaging and propaganda, and what they can look like in authoritarian versus democratic regimes. Shuvaloy also speaks to his experiences of government communications as a former policy director to foreign ministers.

Additional Resources 

• Elizabeth draws on this article by Aaron Hyzen for her definition of propaganda.
• Elizabeth mentions this episode from season one about the high choice media environment with Jane Lytvynenko 
• In this episode, which was recorded in early February, Shuvloy uses examples of propaganda from the Russian government. This CBC article discusses some examples of how disinformation and propaganda are being used in the context of the current invasion of Ukraine.
• Elizabeth discusses the concept of computational propaganda towards the end of the episode. This article from Woolley and Howard tackles how political communication is impacted by algorithms and automation.

Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French.

Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French.