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Top1. Introduction
Along with technological advances, social media has become an integral part of our lives. As per a recent report published by J. Clement*, in February 2020 approximately 2 billion internet users are using social networks. The number of users is still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction.
Once developed with the intent of communication and entertainment, social media has now become a breeding ground for a lot of misinformation, rumors, hatemongering, and propaganda. In recent times, all over the world, many incidents were evident that anti-social elements tactically use social media to manipulate public discontent, separate communities, and cause public violence. For many people, social media has become a primary source of their news and information. The factuality and sometimes intent behind this news or information remains questionable. Though the web provides a substantial amount of valuable information, it has also become the source of false claims and misinformation coming in many forms like erroneous quoting about politics, fake or made-up news about celebrities or politicians, factually wrong product reviews, etc. Along with fake news and claims, another emerging problem is the spread of digital propaganda.
The dictionary defines Propaganda as “information, ideas, opinions, or images that give one part of an argument, which are broadcast, published to influence people's opinions” which is frequently referred to in political context. The word propaganda first came to existence in 1622 when Pope Gregory XV established the ‘Congregation for propagating the faith’ for advancing Catholic missionary activity. It was not until the beginning 19th century that this word is used in the context of dubious accuracy as a method of advancing a cause.
According to Jacques Ellul, 1965 modern Propaganda operates with many kinds of truth, half-truth, limited truth, and truth out of context. In recent times propaganda has been used by terrorist organizations for recruitment, by political parties during elections, and even by marketing agencies.
In 1937, social scientists, opinion leaders, historians, educators, and journalists founded the organization called the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). This organization was established to spread awareness among American citizens about political propaganda. IPA defined propaganda as “Propaganda is an expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends.” In their work, the Institute of Propaganda Analysis also identified seven features indicating the use of propaganda as Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon.
Other than these seven techniques different authors have identified more propaganda techniques. Wikipedia has listed 69 of such techniques. Using several techniques propaganda is loaded with falsification and emotional appeals to spread misinformation. As propaganda can appear in the form of numerous techniques, it requires extensive and deeper analysis to be recognized. Propaganda is also very hard to detect without the complete landscape of information available on the topic. Identification of propaganda on social media poses an even bigger challenge due to the enormous and quick spread on social media. Also, digital propaganda is propagated using a combination of bots and human users which makes it further difficult to be discovered.
In recent years, new techniques, tools, and approaches are being proposed by researchers to address the problem of propaganda in social media. Several researchers have made efforts to identify propagandist techniques such as the use of social bots, emotional appeals, bias news, etc. The study presented in this paper aims to provide a systematic literature survey of the previous techniques by the researchers. This work provides a thorough analysis of new theories, features, research gaps, tools and techniques, and future directions of propaganda detection in social media.