Nationalism, Extremism, and Wartime Propaganda

I want to discuss this quote by Arthur Schopenhauer because I think it’s quite relevant. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably notice the massive uptick in nationalism rhetoric just about everywhere. Well, here is what Schopenhauer has to say about that:

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

Analysis of Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer is making a deliberately harsh distinction between pride in what you have personally earned or developed and pride in something you merely happen to belong to. At the core of the quote is this idea: The less someone has as an individual, the more tempted they may be to borrow dignity from a group.

Schopenhauer calls national pride “the cheapest sort of pride” because it costs the individual nothing. You do not create your nation, achieve your nationality, or prove merit by being born into it. It is accidental. So, in his view, taking deep pride in it is a weak substitute for pride based on character, intellect, talent, integrity, or accomplishment.

When he says that a man proud of his nation “has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud,” he is not just criticizing patriotism. He is suggesting that some people use collective identity as a crutch. Instead of saying, “I am admirable because I am wise, brave, disciplined, or kind,” they say, “I am admirable because my country is great.” That is secondhand self-worth.

His next point is subtler. He says that someone with “important personal qualities” will be more ready to see his own nation’s shortcomings. Why? Because a strong person does not need illusions for self-esteem. If your dignity rests on your own substance, you can afford honesty. You do not need to pretend your country is flawless in order to feel valuable. In fact, the more serious and thoughtful you are, the less likely you are to confuse loyalty with blindness.

That is why Schopenhauer contrasts the thoughtful person with “every miserable fool.” The insult is strong, but the argument is clear: a person with nothing inwardly developed clings to national identity as a “last resource.” It becomes compensation. He defends “all its faults and follies tooth and nail” because criticism of the nation feels like criticism of himself. Since his ego is fused with the group, he cannot tolerate honest judgment. So the quote is not only about nationalism. It is really about borrowed identity and ego-defense. A few key themes are running through it:

Accidental membership versus earned worth: Schopenhauer values what belongs to you as an individual: your mind, discipline, character, and achievements. Nationality is inherited, not earned. His complaint is that people often reverse the order and boast most about what required the least from them.
Group identity as compensation: He thinks insecure people often seek grandeur through association. “My nation is glorious” becomes a way of saying “therefore I matter,” without having to build a life of substance.
Honest criticism as a sign of strength: A genuinely confident person can love a country while seeing its defects clearly. Blind defense, for Schopenhauer, is not loyalty but weakness.
Pride can become tribal irrationality: Once pride attaches to a group, people begin defending obvious wrongs just because they are “ours.” That is one of the dangers he is warning about.

There is also a broader philosophical background here. Schopenhauer had a very low opinion of human vanity and self-deception. He often thought people use illusions to protect their ego. In this quote, national pride is one more illusion: a way of inflating oneself without deserving it. That said, his claim is intentionally exaggerated. It is powerful, but not completely fair if taken literally. There is a difference between national pride as chauvinism (“my country is superior, therefore so am I”) and patriotism as affection and responsibility (“this is my country, and I care about its well-being”)

Those are not the same. One can value a nation’s culture, history, language, institutions, or ideals without using them as a substitute for personal worth. One can also criticize one’s nation precisely because one cares about it. In that sense, Schopenhauer’s strongest point is not that all national feeling is empty, but that identity becomes corrupt when it replaces personal substance or blocks moral judgment. A modern restatement of his idea might be: People who lack individual achievement often hide inside collective pride, while people with real substance do not need to pretend their side is perfect. His quote is really a warning against any form of tribal ego: not just nation, but also party, religion, race, class, school, company, or fandom. Whenever someone says, in effect, “I am important because my group is important,” Schopenhauer would see that as counterfeit pride. Schopenhauers lesson is the healthier your sense of self, the less you need to derive status from belonging, and the more capable you are of loving something without lying about it.

Nationalism in Historical Context

When I was in high school, we learned an acronym called “MAIN”, that explained the context and proximate causes leading up to WW1. Each letter refers to a concept:Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. It is a useful teaching model because it shows that WWI was not caused by one assassination alone. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 was the spark, but Europe had already become dangerously unstable. MAIN helps explain why the system was so combustible.

Militarism meant the glorification of military power and preparedness. European states built huge armies and navies, and military thinking began to dominate politics. Alliances divided Europe into rival camps, especially the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. This meant that a conflict between two states could quickly draw in many others. Imperialism created competition for colonies, resources, prestige, and strategic advantage. European powers were constantly measuring themselves against each other. Nationalism intensified all of this by convincing people that the nation was sacred, superior, threatened, or destined for greatness. It turned rivalry into moral drama. These need not be independent factors; Nationalism often energized the other three.

Nationalism in the WW1 context means more than simple love for a country. Historians usually mean a political and emotional ideology built around ideas like my nation is a natural, unified community, the nation deserves loyalty above other loyalties, the nation has distinct interests, honor, and destiny, the nation is in competition with other nations, and the nation must be defended, expanded, or “fulfilled”. In 19th- and early-20th-century Europe, nationalism had several forms:

State nationalism: This was loyalty to an existing state such as France, Britain, Germany, or Russia. It encouraged citizens to identify deeply with the power, prestige, and survival of the state.
Ethnic or cultural nationalism: This defined the nation by language, ancestry, religion, or culture. It often drew lines between “real members” and outsiders.
Irredentist nationalism: This held that all people of a given nationality should be united in one state. That idea was explosive in places like the Balkans, where populations were mixed and borders were disputed.
Anti-imperial or separatist nationalism: Groups living inside empires, such as Serbs, Croats, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and others, sought autonomy or independence. This weakened the big multinational empires, especially Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

This is why nationalism mattered so much before WWI: it did not just unite people; it also divided, ranked, and mobilized them. Nationalism helped create the mental world in which war became easier to imagine and easier to justify. National honor became sacred; States increasingly framed disputes not as practical disagreements but as matters of honor, dignity, and survival. Once political issues are presented this way, compromise begins to look humiliating. Other nations became rivals by default; Nationalism encouraged comparison: whose army is stronger, whose culture is superior, whose empire is greater, whose people are more virile, disciplined, or civilized. Minority groups challenged empires. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire ruled over many ethnic groups. Nationalist movements within those empires destabilized them. Serbian nationalism, for example, directly threatened Austrian control in the Balkans. Nationalist culture made ordinary people more willing to accept sacrifice, military service, censorship, and war. Violence could be moralized. War could be presented not merely as strategy but as duty, purification, destiny, liberation, revenge, or defense of civilization. That is why nationalism is often treated as one of the deepest causes of WWI. It shaped how people felt, not just what governments did.

The clearest example of nationalism leading to WW1 is the balkans. It’s quite interesting too, that we have a phrase “balkanized”, when referring to radical division and tension. The Balkans were full of overlapping national claims. Serbia wanted to expand and unite South Slavs. Austria-Hungary feared that Serbian nationalism would encourage separatism among Slavs within its own empire. Russia supported Serbia in part because of Slavic solidarity and its own strategic ambitions. These pressures made the region extremely unstable. So when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist linked to radical circles, assassinated Franz Ferdinand, the act was not random. It came out of a nationalist environment in which imperial rule was seen as illegitimate and national unification was worth violence.

Nationalism mattered across every european country. Rulers used it, movements used it, newspapers spread it, schools taught it, and crowds absorbed it. This lead to the total consumption of society by nationalism. Nationalism “consumes” a society when national identity stops being one loyalty among many and becomes the master lens through which everything is judged. A society is consumed by nationalism when people begin to ask of every issue: Is this good for the nation? Does this insult the nation? Does this strengthen enemies? Are these people truly loyal? Once that happens, politics, culture, education, journalism, and even private morality begin to reorganize around national belonging. This follows a very predictable process:

Identity narrows: People begin to see themselves less as individuals, neighbors, workers, believers, or citizens of the world, and more as members of a nation in struggle. This can feel empowering because it offers belonging, meaning, and pride. But it also reduces complexity. The nation becomes the answer to everything.
The nation is idealized: A selective story develops. Our people are virtuous, our past is glorious, our suffering is unique, our enemies are aggressive or decadent, our mission is historic. This story does not need to be entirely false. It only needs to be one-sided.
Threat perception grows: Nationalism becomes especially powerful when people are told they are under threat, outsiders want to weaken them, traitors within are helping the enemies, and decline is coming unless we unite. Fear is crucial. A nation that feels merely proud is one thing; a nation that feels wounded, humiliated, or encircled is much more combustible.
Dissent becomes betrayal: Once the nation is sacred, critics are no longer just wrong. They are disloyal. This is one of the clearest signs that nationalism is consuming a society. A journalist, teacher, artist, or politician who questions policy can be accused of weakening the nation.
Complexity gives way to myth: Nuanced explanations lose ground. Nationalist narratives prefer simple moral binaries: us versus them, patriots versus traitors, strength versus weakness, and purity versus corruption.
Public emotion is militarized: Sacrifice, discipline, obedience, masculinity, honor, and revenge become glorified. The population becomes psychologically prepared for confrontation.
Institutions adapt: Schools, media, churches, parties, and cultural institutions start reproducing the same themes. Nationalism becomes normal, then expected, then enforced socially.

That is what it means for nationalism to consume a society: it becomes not just a belief but an atmosphere. And crucially, that atmosphere is cultivated by the media ecosystem. Media is one of the main engines of nationalism because it turns abstract identity into repeated emotional experience. Throughout europe prior to WW1, this included forms like newspapers, speeches, novels, school textbooks, and patriotic songs (among many other forms). Within each media type exists different substance common among all nationalist rhetoric:

Repetition of symbols: Flags, maps, uniforms, anthems, heroic leaders, martyrs, and historical anniversaries appear constantly. Repetition makes the nation feel natural and sacred.
Emotional storytelling: Media rarely spreads nationalism through dry argument alone. It uses stories; things like heroic soldiers, violated borders, historical humiliation, innocent victims, glorious ancestors, or national rebirth. Emotion works better than analysis.
Enemy construction: Nationalistic media often creates a vivid enemy: foreign powers, neighboring nations, immigrants, internal minorities, cosmopolitan elites, or “traitors”. The enemy may be shown as brutal, sneaky, decadent, parasitic, or existentially dangerous.
Selective memory: Media highlights victories, grievances, and sacrifices that reinforce national unity while minimizing crimes, failures, or internal divisions. This is one of the most powerful tools: controlling what is remembered.
Simplification: Complicated geopolitical issues are reduced to narratives ordinary people can quickly absorb: they insulted us, they fear our strength, we are only defending ourselves, or history is on our side.
Moral framing: Nationalistic propaganda rarely says, “We want power.” It says: we want justice, we want security, we defend civilization, we protect our people, or we reclaim what is ours. Aggression is recoded as righteousness.
Saturation: The same messages come from many directions at once: newspapers, speeches, schools, ceremonies, art, clergy, and entertainment. When every institution echoes the same themes, people stop experiencing them as ideology and start experiencing them as common sense.
Peer reinforcement: Media also works socially. People repeat slogans, shame doubters, and reward visible patriotism. This can create conformity even among those who are privately skeptical.

In practice, nationalistic media tends to rely on recurring patterns. It emphasizes a golden age, lost greatness, heroic ancestors, or sacred founding moments, the mythic past. It reminds people of defeats, injustices, betrayals, occupied lands, or disrespect from rivals, the humiliation and grievance elements. It suggests the nation has an authentic essence that must be protected from dilution or corruption, the purity/belonging aspect. It praises soldiers, mothers, workers, and youth as contributors to national destiny, the heroism aspect. It insists that the nation is at a turning point, under siege, or facing decline. Constant emergency state. And It defines who belongs and who does not. National unity is often built by naming internal outsiders. This is the boundary making aspect. This is why propaganda is not just about falsehood. It is often about organizing emotion.

There are many causes of nationalism; factors, historical forces, enabling conditions etc. I am not aware of a necessary or sufficient set; I imagine for a complex ideological movement like this, we would be looking for INUS conditions. But there are quite a few obvious ones we can consider. For example, industrialization and rapid social change uproots old identities. When people are displaced by urbanization, class conflict, or modernization, nationalism can offer stability and belonging. Nationalism often serves as a reaction to these changes. Another example, In post WW1 germany, you had a sense of humiliation and perceived decline following because of the loss. Humiliated societies are often especially receptive to nationalism because it promises a restoration of dignity. Also, Economic insecurity tends to always precede nationalist backlash. Periods of inequality, stagnation, or disruption can make people receptive to narratives that blame foreigners, minorities, or global forces. We can also point to psychological needs. Nationalism satisfies deep human desires like belonging, meaning, pride, order, identity, and moral certainty. This is why it can be so powerful. It is not just doctrine; it is emotional shelter.

Nationalism is not automatically violent. It can unify people, support independence movements, and inspire civic duty. But it becomes dangerous when it shifts into forms like:

chauvinism: belief in national superiority
exclusion: narrowing who counts as part of the nation
resentment politics: organizing identity around grievance
sacralization: treating the nation as beyond criticism
militarization: tying citizenship to struggle and sacrifice
mythic politics: replacing reality with emotionally useful stories

Patriotism usually means affection for one’s country, its people, or its institutions. Nationalism often means making the nation the highest political value, especially in competitive or exclusionary ways. In the pre-1914 world, these features made Europe more brittle and more war-prone. In the MAIN framework, nationalism is not just “people liked their countries.” It is the process by which national identity becomes emotionally absolute and politically explosive. Before WW1, nationalism deepened rivalries between states, destablized empires within, turned disputes into moral tests of national honor, made propaganda more effective, and prepared ordinary people to accept war. And more broadly, nationalism consumes a society when it transforms the nation into a sacred identity, trains people to view politics as a struggle between loyal insiders and dangerous outsiders, and uses media, memory, grievance, and fear to make that worldview feel natural.

Modern Nationalism

In modern times, nationalism is less often a single doctrine and more often a recurring political grammar: a way of telling people who “we” are, what threatens “us,” and what must be defended, restored, or purified. Across countries, ideologies, and media systems, the specifics change, but the structure repeats. Scholars of nationalism and media note that media has long been central to nationalism, while newer digital systems have changed its speed, scale, and style rather than replacing the core mechanisms. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

The first recurring pattern is boundary-making. Nationalism draws a line between insiders and outsiders. Sometimes that boundary is civic, based on citizenship and institutions. Sometimes it is ethnic, religious, linguistic, or civilizational. But in every case, nationalism answers the same question: who really belongs? Once that line is drawn, politics becomes easier to moralize. Policy disagreements start to look like struggles over the survival or dignity of the nation. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

The second pattern is mythic storytelling. Nationalism usually depends on a simplified story about the past: a golden age, a humiliation, a betrayal, a struggle, a rebirth. Modern nationalist movements often weaponize memory, taking selected historical episodes and turning them into identity scripts for the present. That does not require inventing history from scratch; it usually works by selecting, dramatizing, and repeating the parts of history that make grievance and solidarity feel emotionally obvious. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

The third pattern is threat inflation. Nationalism grows stronger when people are told that the nation is endangered — by migration, foreign influence, cultural dilution, economic decline, border insecurity, elite betrayal, demographic change, moral decay, or hostile media. The threat can be real, exaggerated, or partly imagined; politically, what matters is whether it becomes a shared emotional frame. OECD and UNESCO both describe today’s information environment as one where polarization, distrust, and disinformation can intensify exactly these threat perceptions. (OECD)

The fourth pattern is fusion of identity and politics. In a healthy civic order, a government can be criticized without rejecting the nation itself. Under stronger nationalist conditions, criticism of leaders, state policy, military action, or dominant cultural narratives is recoded as disloyalty. This is one reason nationalist politics often sits comfortably beside attacks on journalists, fact-checkers, universities, minorities, or independent institutions. Freedom House has documented direct attacks on fact-checkers and researchers in multiple countries, showing how information control becomes part of political identity struggles. (Freedom House)

The fifth pattern is compensation through belonging. Nationalism can be especially potent in periods of rapid change. When people feel atomized, economically insecure, culturally disoriented, or socially displaced, national identity offers certainty, meaning, and dignity. That is why nationalism often surges during modernization shocks, crises of trust, perceived status loss, and periods when people feel elites no longer represent them. OECD explicitly links declining trust, polarization, and disinformation pressures to contemporary democratic strain. (OECD)

Nationalism usually does not arrive all at once. It often unfolds in stages. First, there is a sense of dislocation: economic change, migration, war, austerity, elite failure, corruption, geopolitical humiliation, or rapid cultural transformation. Then comes a story that explains the discomfort in national terms: we were strong, now we are weakened; we were respected, now we are mocked; we were unified, now we are divided. Then comes identification of causes: outsiders, internal enemies, global institutions, decadent elites, disloyal minorities, cosmopolitans, hostile media. Then comes mobilization: symbols, slogans, rituals, policy demands, and pressure for conformity. Finally, if the process deepens, the national frame becomes ambient: people start judging journalism, art, schools, laws, business, and even private morality by whether they serve “the nation.” The result is not just patriotism but an environment in which national belonging becomes the dominant measure of legitimacy. This identity-centered mobilization is close to what political scientists describe as “identity propaganda,” in which elites alter group identity to shape behavior. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

What changes in the present is not the core logic but the form nationalism takes.

One major form is ethnonationalism. This defines the nation in terms of ancestry, religion, bloodline, or civilizational inheritance. It is usually concerned with purity, demographic change, border anxiety, and the idea that the “real nation” is being replaced or diluted. Contemporary research on extreme-right digital propaganda shows how this form now thrives in multimodal online spaces using video, memes, music, and visual identity performance. (Taylor & Francis Online)

Another form is civic nationalism. This defines the nation around laws, institutions, constitutional values, language of citizenship, and shared public norms. In its healthier forms, civic nationalism is more inclusive. In its harsher forms, it can still become exclusionary by insisting that dissenters, migrants, or minorities fail to embody national values. The difference is that the boundary is framed as moral and political rather than biological or ancestral. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

A third form is populist nationalism. Here the nation is equated with “the real people,” while elites, judges, journalists, academics, and transnational institutions are cast as corrupt or alien. This is especially common today. It ties nationalism to anti-elitism and portrays the leader or movement as the authentic voice of the nation. Recent scholarship on digital populism emphasizes how social media allows “the people” to be continuously staged, visualized, and performed online rather than represented only through parties or newspapers. (SAGE Journals)

A fourth form is diaspora or long-distance nationalism. Digital platforms allow people living outside a country to participate intensely in homeland politics, grievances, symbolism, and conflict narratives. This can intensify nationalist politics because distant participants often experience identity at a high emotional pitch and a lower personal cost.

A fifth form is state-managed digital nationalism. In some systems, governments actively steer or tolerate online nationalist outrage, patriotic amplification, and enemy framing as part of state persuasion. Recent commentary on China, for example, describes a digitally networked nationalism shaped by both user expression and state influence. Freedom House’s reporting across countries also shows how online information spaces can be distorted by coordinated pro-government narratives and political manipulation. (SAGE Journals)

A sixth form is defensive or anti-imperial nationalism. Not all nationalism today is majoritarian or exclusionary. In some places it is tied to sovereignty, decolonization, self-rule, or resistance to foreign domination. Even here, though, the same dynamics can appear: selective memory, emotional mobilization, pressure for conformity, and suspicion of internal dissent.

A seventh form is platform nationalism. This is newer. It is not just nationalism expressed on platforms; it is nationalism shaped by the incentives of platforms — short-form outrage, virality, visual identity performance, algorithmic amplification, and networked swarming. In this form, the nation is not only narrated; it is constantly performed by users through flags, hashtags, clips, symbols, irony, and participatory antagonism. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

Across all these variations, the same deep patterns recur:

Nationalism simplifies. It reduces social complexity into moral clarity.
Nationalism personalizes politics. Public issues become identity wounds.
Nationalism sacralizes symbols. Flags, borders, language, military sacrifice, and historical memory acquire moral intensity beyond ordinary policy debate.
Nationalism thrives on comparison. It asks whether “our” nation is respected, declining, invaded, mocked, replaced, humiliated, or rising again.
Nationalism often needs an enemy. That enemy may be external, internal, or both.

And nationalism is strongest when it feels less like an ideology than like common sense — when people no longer hear a narrative as a narrative, but as reality itself. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

How nationalism is propagated in modern media

This is where the biggest shift has happened. Older forms of nationalist propagation were more centralized. Newspapers, radio, schools, official ceremonies, monuments, posters, patriotic songs, film newsreels, and state broadcasters pushed national narratives in a mostly one-to-many direction. Elites, editors, clergy, and officials were the gatekeepers. Messages traveled more slowly, and audiences were more passive. The classic media role in nationalism was to help strangers imagine themselves as one people through repeated symbols, maps, stories, and rituals. That basic role has not disappeared. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment) Modern media keeps those functions, but changes the mechanics in five major ways.

From broadcast to participation

Old propaganda mostly asked people to receive, repeat, and obey. Modern media asks them to perform nationalism. People do not merely consume patriotic content; they remix it, meme it, duet it, clip it, quote-post it, and weaponize it in comment sections. That makes nationalist messaging feel organic even when elites seed it. Research on visual self-mediation shows how digital infrastructures let “the people” stage themselves visibly and collectively, not just be represented from above. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
From periodic messaging to constant ambient messaging

Older media had rhythms: the morning paper, the speech, the broadcast bulletin, the holiday ceremony. Digital platforms create continuous exposure. Identity cues, outrage clips, symbolic imagery, and grievance narratives appear throughout the day. Nationalism no longer needs to wait for a rally; it lives in feeds, recommendations, shorts, streams, and group chats. OECD and UNESCO both stress how today’s digital environment intensifies exposure to mis- and disinformation through pervasive online systems. (OECD)
From gatekeeping to algorithmic amplification

Old media filtered messages through editors and institutions. Modern platforms rank content by engagement signals, which often rewards anger, conflict, novelty, and emotionally charged identity frames. That does not mean algorithms “create” nationalism by themselves, but they can advantage the kinds of content nationalism uses best: us-versus-them conflict, humiliation stories, enemy identification, visual symbolism, and moralized outrage. Current research increasingly examines these platform dynamics and their role in politicized visibility. (SAGE Journals)
From centralized propaganda to hybrid ecosystems

In the past, nationalist messaging often came from the state, party newspapers, or formal organizations. Today it moves through hybrid networks: influencers, anonymous accounts, partisan outlets, alt-tech communities, encrypted chats, diaspora networks, troll farms, clipped television segments, and official accounts. A state may not need to control every message if sympathetic ecosystems will circulate it. Research on alternative social platforms and authoritarian persuasion points to these more diffuse systems of influence. (SAGE Journals)
From text-heavy persuasion to multimodal persuasion

Modern nationalist messaging is far more visual, affective, and memetic. It travels through short video, music, memes, livestreams, image macros, symbolic merchandise, ironic jokes, historical edits, and emotionally loaded clips. This matters because images and short videos can convey threat, pride, disgust, or solidarity faster than argument can. Recent work on multimodal extreme-right propaganda and visual populism underscores that contemporary nationalist communication is increasingly image-centered and performative. (Taylor & Francis Online)

In contemporary media, nationalism is often spread less through one grand manifesto and more through repeated micro-techniques.

symbol flooding: constant use of flags, maps, military clips, border footage, historic monuments, and patriotic music.
grievance looping: resurfacing the same humiliations, crimes, slights, migration incidents, or elite statements until they become a stable narrative of injury.
identity shorthand: phrases like “real citizens,” “our people,” “traditional values,” “national dignity,” or “civilizational survival” that condense a worldview into emotionally recognizable code.
enemy personalization: attaching abstract fears to vivid targets — migrants, minorities, activists, journalists, supranational organizations, neighboring states, “globalists,” or traitorous elites.
conspiracy adaptation: blending nationalism with rumors and conspiratorial claims so that ordinary policy disputes become existential plots. Recent political science work on rumors, propaganda, and conspiracies links these to democratic backsliding and illiberal politics. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)
networked harassment and policing: users enforce nationalist norms on one another through dogpiling, doxing, ridicule, and accusations of betrayal. Freedom House’s country reporting documents how online harassment and coordinated disinformation campaigns can target journalists, civil society, refugees, and researchers. (Freedom House)
pseudo-authenticity: content framed as “just ordinary people speaking truth” rather than propaganda. This is powerful because modern audiences distrust formal propaganda. Nationalist messages therefore often appear as jokes, eyewitness clips, influencer commentary, lifestyle content, or “uncensored” takes rather than official doctrine.

The older model was strong at uniformity. The newer model is strong at immersion. Digital media can target narrow audiences, adapt messages quickly, test what triggers engagement, and blur the line between organic speech and coordinated persuasion. AI further lowers the cost of manipulation by making disinformation, voice cloning, and synthetic imagery easier and faster to produce. Freedom House has warned that AI can amplify censorship, surveillance, and disinformation by making these tools cheaper and more effective. (Freedom House)

Modern media is also better at creating the feeling that a nationalist mood is universal. Trending topics, viral clips, visible swarms of agreement, and endless reposting can make a position seem socially dominant even when it is not. This perceived majority effect matters because nationalism gains strength from the impression that “the people” are awakening together.

But modern media does not make nationalism inevitable It is important not to overstate technological determinism. The same systems that spread nationalist propaganda can also support fact-checking, pluralism, satire, cross-border solidarity, civic education, and resistance to manipulative narratives. OECD emphasizes media literacy and information integrity as key democratic responses, while Freedom House highlights the role of civil society and counter-disinformation efforts in some countries. (OECD)

So the real change is not that old propaganda disappeared and new propaganda replaced it. It is that the contemporary information environment makes nationalist politics more participatory, personalized, visual, persistent, and rapidly scalable.

In older media systems, nationalism was often something authorities broadcast. In modern media systems, nationalism is something authorities, movements, influencers, and ordinary users can co-produce. That is the major shift. The recurring structure remains familiar — belonging, grievance, threat, memory, purity, sacrifice, enemy-making — but the delivery system is now faster, more intimate, more visual, more interactive, and more adaptive than it was in the age of newspapers and posters. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

Wartime Propaganda Evaluation Resources

Below is a beginner to advanced annotated bibliography focused on wartime propaganda, disinformation, media participation, and how to navigate wartime information ecosystems without being manipulated. It’s biased toward resources that help anyone build not just detection skills, but also assessment, evaluation, decision-making, and response habits. Contemporary scholarship treats wartime disinformation as part of a broader media ecosystem that includes strategic narratives, platform amplification, emotional manipulation, and harms to civilians’ ability to make informed safety decisions. (SAGE Journals) A good progression is:

learn the basic mechanics of wartime propaganda and verification,
then learn the psychology and network dynamics of manipulation,
then move into case-specific and research-heavy work on conflict propaganda, hybrid warfare, and information harms. RAND’s “firehose of falsehood” model, UNESCO’s handbook, Data & Society’s media-manipulation work, and inoculation/prebunking research form an especially strong core. (RAND Corporation)

These are the best starting resources for a person who wants practical defenses against wartime propaganda.

Cherilyn Ireton and Julie Posetti (eds.), Journalism, “Fake News” & Disinformation: Handbook for Journalism Education and Training (UNESCO, 2018).

This gives a grounded vocabulary for misinformation, disinformation, verification, source evaluation, and responsible news consumption. It is not war-only, but it is extremely useful for conflict contexts because it teaches how manipulated information moves through media systems and how to assess claims before reacting to them. (UNESCO Digital Library) You learn terminology, verification basics, source evaluation, and how journalism should work under information disorder. This is used for building a first mental checklist before consuming war coverage.
Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model (RAND, 2016).

This is one of the clearest short explanations of modern propaganda tactics in conflict and near-conflict settings. RAND describes a model characterized by high volume, multichannel dissemination, rapid repetition, and indifference to consistency. RAND also warns that simple fact-by-fact rebuttal is often not enough once falsehoods have spread. (RAND Corporation) In this, you learn why wartime propaganda can feel overwhelming, contradictory, and still persuasive. Use it for recognizing manipulation by volume, speed, repetition, and emotional saturation.
Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online (Data & Society, 2017).

This is essential for understanding how manipulators exploit journalists, influencers, algorithmic ranking, and attention incentives. Data & Society explicitly describes tactics such as coordinated amplification, gaming trends, and social engineering of journalists and public figures. (Data & Society) This teaches you that propaganda succeeds not only because of the message, but because actors know how media systems behave. Use this for assessing whether a claim is being pushed because it is true, or because it is strategically amplifiable.
First Draft, Too Much Information: A Public Guide to Navigating the Infodemic.

This gives habits for slowing down, checking context, and dealing with emotionally charged claims in fast-moving information crises. (First Draft) You learn everyday techniques for not becoming an unwitting relay for manipulative content.
Mike Caulfield, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers and SIFT.

SIFT teaches four moves—stop, investigate the source, find better coverage, trace claims/media to original context. Caulfield’s approach is especially useful in wartime ecosystems because many false or misleading claims are not outright fabrications; they are decontextualized, recycled, or source-washed. (Hapgood) This resource shows you how to evaluate claims laterally instead of staring at one post and trying to “feel out” whether it is true.
Bellingcat, A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Verification

War propaganda often relies on photos and videos stripped of time, place, or source. Bellingcat’s beginner guide explains how to approach visual verification without needing advanced tools. (bellingcat) This source shows you how to ask whether a video is authentic, current, and correctly attributed. It’s used for checking viral clips before sharing or drawing conclusions.
Bellingcat, First Steps to Getting Started in Open Source Research

This source gives a novice pathway into disciplined, evidence-based monitoring of conflict information. (bellingcat) You learn how to observe, document, and verify rather than react impulsively.

By the end of this section, you should be able to ask:

Who is the source?
What is the original context?
Is this being amplified strategically?
What would count as independent corroboration?
What decision should I postpone until I have stronger evidence?

Those questions are the foundation of self-protection in wartime media environments. UNESCO, Caulfield, First Draft, and Bellingcat all converge on slowing down, tracing provenance, and seeking corroboration rather than relying on intuition. (UNESCO Digital Library)

These next works help you understand why propaganda works psychologically and structurally, and how to develop stronger resistance.

Sander van der Linden et al., work on inoculation theory and prebunking.

A good entry point is Cambridge’s overview, plus the SDM Lab publication list and the “Bad News” research. The core idea is that exposing people to weakened examples of manipulation tactics in advance can build resistance to later misinformation. Cambridge and SDM Lab report evidence that prebunking interventions can reduce susceptibility across contexts. (University of Cambridge) You learn resilience can be trained before exposure, not only after falsehoods spread. This gives you an understanding for how to build a personal “mental immune system.”
Bad News game and associated research.

This is one of the best learning tools for recognizing common manipulation tactics from the inside. The associated research finds measurable improvements in resistance to misleading content after gameplay. (Bad News) You learn about impersonation, emotional provocation, conspiracy framing, polarization, trolling, and manufactured credibility.
Sander van der Linden and Stephan Lewandowsky, research on countering misinformation and prebunking.

The SDM Lab lists review articles showing that prebunking and psychological inoculation are among the more promising approaches to countering misinformation, especially where corrections arrive too late or are poorly remembered. (sdmlab.psychol.cam.ac.uk) You learn why corrections fail, when they work, and why response strategy matters. Use it for developing response mechanisms beyond “just fact-check it.”
NATO StratCom COE, Social Media as a Tool of Hybrid Warfare

This report directly addresses how social media serves as fertile ground for propaganda, disinformation, perception management, and panic generation in hybrid conflict. (StratCom Centre of Excellence) You learn wartime information operations are not just about lies; they use trust networks, social engineering, and identity signaling. Use it for mapping how conflict narratives move through platforms.
NATO StratCom COE, Strategic Communications Hybrid Threats Toolkit

This is useful for identifying ecosystem features such as front organizations, pseudo-civil actors, influence channels, and media coverage as tools within hybrid threats. (StratCom Centre of Excellence) You learn how seemingly independent actors can function inside larger influence architectures. Use it for assessing whether “grassroots” messaging is authentic or strategically cultivated.
Reuters Institute, Fake News, Propaganda, and Influence Operations – a guide to journalism in a new, and more chaotic media environment

This is a bridge between academic ideas and newsroom practice. Especially useful for people who want norms for not amplifying dubious war claims. (Reuters Institute) You learn practical standards for evidence, skepticism, and framing. Use it for deciding when not to repeat or amplify uncertain claims.
Bellingcat geolocation and verification guides.

Start with A Beginner’s Guide to Geolocating Videos, then Searching the Earth: Essential Geolocation Tools for Verification, and later shadow-based or map-search tools. These methods help determine whether conflict footage was recorded where and when it claims. (bellingcat) You learn how to move from “this looks real” to “this is independently supported.” Use it for assessment of visual evidence, not just detection of fakes.
First Draft, Understanding and Addressing the Disinformation Ecosystem

This is useful for thinking beyond single false posts toward the broader ecosystem of actors, incentives, platforms, and media uptake. (First Draft) You learn that disinformation is usually an ecosystem problem, not an isolated content problem. Use it for evaluating how a claim fits into wider narrative operations.

At this stage, you should stop asking only “is this true?” and start asking:

What tactic is being used on me?
Why this claim, now?
Who benefits if I become uncertain, enraged, panicked, or tribal?
Is the goal persuasion, confusion, demoralization, or social fragmentation?

That shift is crucial because conflict propaganda often aims less at convincing you of one thing than at eroding trust, exhausting attention, and degrading judgment. RAND, NATO StratCom, Data & Society, and inoculation research all point in that direction. (RAND Corporation)

These are more research-heavy works for someone who wants deep analytical tools and case-based expertise.

Jon Roozenbeek, Propaganda and Ideology in the Russian–Ukrainian War (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

This is one of the most directly relevant recent academic books for your topic. It focuses specifically on propaganda and ideology in a major contemporary war. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment) You learn how historical narratives, identity, ideology, and propaganda interact in a live conflict.
Media, War & Conflict (journal).

This is one of the best journals for scholarship on wartime disinformation, propaganda strategies, strategic narratives, media systems, and conflict communication. Its anniversary issue notes that wartime disinformation and propaganda have become part of mainstream political communication. (SAGE Journals) This resource shows you current debates, newer cases, and methodological diversity. Use it for literature review building.
Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, Network Propaganda

Not war-only, but one of the strongest books for understanding how media ecosystems legitimize, circulate, and entrench false or strategic narratives. (Data & Society) You learn that propaganda is shaped by network structure, institutional incentives, and asymmetric media ecosystems. Use it for analyzing not just content, but the architecture of credibility.
Samuel Woolley, Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity

This is useful for computational propaganda, automation, anonymity, and networked amplification. (Data & Society) You learn how digital infrastructures and covert amplification shape public perception. Use it for connecting wartime propaganda to bots, sockpuppets, and platform manipulation.
NATO StratCom COE, Social Media’s Role in “Hybrid Strategies”

This goes deeper into fronts, agents of influence, pseudo-civil actors, and the mixing of media, civil society, cyber, and political techniques. (StratCom Centre of Excellence) You learn that conflict propaganda is often embedded in broader strategic action, not separable from it. Use it for mapping influence infrastructures.
ICRC work on harmful information in armed conflict.

The ICRC argues that harmful information can create serious protection risks for civilians, intensify distress, aggravate persecution, and undermine people’s ability to make informed decisions about safety and well-being in conflict. (International Review of the Red Cross) You learn that misinformation in war is not only epistemic; it is also humanitarian and protective. Use it for linking media analysis to civilian harm and ethical response.
Bellingcat’s higher-level conflict-monitoring and methodology pieces.

Two especially useful items are A Guide to Monitoring Conflict Amidst a Sea of Misinformation and OSHIT: Seven Deadly Sins of Bad Open Source Research. These teach not just tools, but failure modes: overconfidence, confirmation bias, premature conclusions, and bad evidentiary practice. (bellingcat) You learn advanced evaluation requires disciplined humility, not just technical skill. Use it for research design and evidentiary standards.

For explicit skill-building, these are especially strong:

Read: UNESCO handbook + RAND firehose + Data & Society report. (UNESCO Digital Library) Practice: Bad News game + SIFT + Bellingcat beginner verification. (Bad News) Deepen: NATO StratCom + ICRC + Media, War & Conflict + Roozenbeek’s book. (StratCom Centre of Excellence)

This is the practical layer the readings support.

Slow the tempo of judgment: Propaganda in wartime often exploits urgency, outrage, and fear. If a post seems designed to force immediate moral or political reaction, treat that as evidence about the post’s intent, not just its content. RAND’s model emphasizes speed and repetition; inoculation research suggests resilience improves when people recognize tactics before reacting. (RAND Corporation)
Evaluate claims laterally, not vertically: Do not stare at a single post and ask whether it “feels credible.” Leave it. Check who is saying it, whether multiple independent outlets corroborate it, and whether the media is old, recycled, or decontextualized. That is the core logic of SIFT and Bellingcat-style verification. (Hapgood)
Distinguish content truth from strategic function: Even true information can be selectively framed or timed to inflame, demoralize, polarize, or misdirect. Data & Society and NATO StratCom are especially useful on this point. (Data & Society)
Ask what the manipulation is trying to do to your decision-making: Wartime propaganda often aims at one of five effects: panic, hatred, fatalism, tribal certainty, or total cynicism. If you can name the intended effect, you regain some control over your response. ICRC’s recent work underscores that harmful information can impair people’s ability to make informed safety decisions. (International Review of the Red Cross)
Prefer “not enough evidence yet” over premature certainty: Advanced verification culture treats uncertainty as disciplined judgment, not weakness. Bellingcat’s work on bad OSINT practice is very good on this. (bellingcat)
Do not become part of the propaganda supply chain: Avoid quote-tweeting, rage-sharing, or “just asking questions” amplification when evidence is thin. Reuters Institute and First Draft are especially helpful here. (Reuters Institute)

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