Description
Disinformation has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges in contemporary international politics. The problem has been further complicated by the increasing adoption of social media in everyday life and platformization of communications. Organized manipulation of emotions in the attention economy with the help of micro-targeting has become so sophisticated that it has facilitated the growth of a Digital Influence Industry. Against this backdrop, emotions can be a key to unravelling the complex dynamics of disinformation. The nexus between the economic imperative of the business model of platforms and political actors is conducive to the growth of a nefarious political economy of emotions. This paper maps the latest theoretical developments in the field of emotions research in International Relations(IR). It also takes stock of the methodological challenges associated with it. Special attention is paid to the role of affect theories and associated post-truth scholarship. The hitherto scholarly inquiry into disinformation as well as emotions has been conducted in a preponderantly western context. This paper endeavours to sketch out the disinformation landscape in the Global South. The key puzzle here is how collective emotions are manipulated at the community level for political ends by the Digital Influence industry. The central argument is that politically consequential emotions are felt, made sense of and acted upon collectively with reference to the pre-existing social norms, prejudices and biases. Building on that, a new research agenda of comparative disinformation studies is delineated. The broad claim is that a comparative disinformation studies research program with the theoretical apparatus of emotions grounded in a context-sensitive social setting can contribute a new perspective to the cause of disinformation studies. In the end, the theoretical consequences of this line of reasoning in IR theorising would be deliberated.
