From the Stage to the Audience: Propaganda on Reddit

Oana Denisa Balalau, Roxana Horincar

Abstract:

Political discussions revolve around ideologi-
cal conflicts that often split the audience into
two opposing parties. Both parties try to win
the argument by bringing forward information.
However, often this information is mislead-
ing, and its dissemination employs propaganda
techniques. In this work, we analyze the im-
pact of propaganda on six major political fo-
rums on Reddit that target a diverse audience
in two countries, the US and the UK. We focus
on three research questions: i) who is posting
propaganda? ii) how does propaganda differ
across the political spectrum? and iii) how is
propaganda received on political forums?