[EL] research on foreign disinformation and influence campaigns

[Hess, Doug]

If somebody told me a short time ago that understanding propaganda campaigns directed at US citizens by foreign governments would be important to the study of US elections, I would have been fairly dismissive. 

Now, however, it seems clear that these topics need to be on the research agenda for US election studies. Perhaps they have been, and I'm certain various social scientists and think tank fellows are studying these events, but I'm not aware how it does or might fit in with the other election research and research community that has grown since the Florida 2000 debacle. 

This new election sciences research has largely come from political science Americanists, legal scholars, practitioners, and policy analysts. Perhaps research that could fit into that milieu would be done in a way analogous to political science research on topics like the effects on voters and election outcomes of candidate campaigns, negative advertising, campaign financing, the media, etc. 

On the other hand, research from more interpretive, historical, or qualitative approaches could also be important.  And, on the third hand (?), it could be valuable to hear from scholars and analysts from international relations, intelligence, foreign policy, and law enforcement. 

My questions:

I'm wondering, first, if anybody is aware of such research being done or recently done. In fact, is there any precedent or research on this? I'm aware influence campaigns have existed for some time (see campaign finance controversies involving China and Al Gore). But has there been serious research on this general topic in modern US elections?

Second, I'm wondering if an upcoming conference or other event could pull together a roundtable of scholars and practitioners from different subfields (that I suspect rarely overlap) to discuss these phenomena. I've little time to pull this together myself, but would be interested in helping if there are others who think this would be valuable and are interested. 

Douglas R Hess
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Grinnell College
1210 Park Street, Carnegie Hall #309
Grinnell, IA 50112 
phone: 641-269-4383

http://www.douglasrhess.com