Disinformation has transformed into a global issue and while it is seen as a growing concern to democracy today, autocrats have long used it as a part of their propaganda repertoire. Yet, no study has tested the effect of disinformation on regime stability and breakdown beyond country-specific studies. Drawing on novel measures from the Digital Society Project (DSP) estimating the levels of disinformation disseminated by governments across 148 countries between 2000-2022 and from the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we provide the first global comparative study of disinformation and survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes, respectively. The results show that in authoritarian regimes, disinformation helps rulers to stay in power as regimes with higher levels of disinformation are less likely to experience democratization episodes. In democracies, on the other hand, disinformation increases the probability of autocratization onsets. As such, this study is the first to provide comparative evidence on the negative effects of disinformation on democracy as well as on the prospects of democratization.

This article explores civilian responses to the British army\'s blood donor recruitment campaign in wartime Britain, revealing it to be an underexplored medium for the examination of the contribution of women to Britain\'s war effort. However, despite extensive gender-targeted propaganda, it reveals evidence of a significant disparity between levels of volunteering to donate and actual donation throughout the war. Wartime donor behaviour was influenced by perceptions of personal or familial risk, with donor recruitment propaganda emphasising kinship ties to those in military service and promoting blood donation as a mutual insurance policy. Ultimately, this article argues that evidence of donor behaviour further undermines the mythologised narrative of Britain\'s \'People\'s War\' and provides nuance to the understanding of blood donor motivation.

Eggs, which are often considered a complete food, have recently been scrutinized by the media as a potential cause of cardiovascular disease. However, the media hasn\'t shown the same enthusiasm for processed foods high in fructose, the consumption of refined cooking oil, seed oils, and carbohydrate-rich meals, the connection between these factors and metabolic diseases, or the potential long-term impacts on population comorbidities, as they have for criticizing egg yolks as a cause for cardiovascular disease in recent times. This review investigates the relationship between eggs and lipid levels, glucose levels, atherosclerosis, and antioxidant properties, as well as comparing them to cholesterol-free egg controls. We conducted the review in response to a recent trend of discarding nutritious and energy-rich egg yolks due to the belief propagated by the media that removing egg yolks from a normal diet is cardioprotective after the media started to blame egg yolks as the cause of the recent surge in heart attacks. However, the media fails to highlight the fact that eggs have been an integral part of the human diet since the domestication of hens. On the other hand, recent additions to the human diet a few decades ago, such as fructose-rich breakfast cereals, coffee beverages with sugar levels comparable to candy bars, protein supplements for diabetics that are notorious for raising blood glucose levels, and the heightened consumption of seed oil, which causes inflammation, have been responsible for the surge in cardiovascular events in recent times. Social media platforms often showcase visually appealing junk food products and sugary beverages as a sign of wealth, promoting unhealthy processed food and ultimately causing a decline in an individual\'s lifespan and overall health.

Several observers have in recent years discussed the prospects for advancing arms control and disarmament through determined efforts at delegitimizing nuclear weapons. But surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the question of how nuclear weapons are legitimized in the first place. And while there is widespread agreement that struggles for legitimacy make up a pervasive feature of political life generally and nuclear politics specifically, available typologies of legitimation invariably comprise only a subset of the varied ways in which actors struggle to build or retain a social license to operate. Drawing on scholarship on propaganda, marketing, and legitimacy-seeking, this article offers an investigation of the full range of actions nuclear-armed governments and defence contractors undertake to sustain acceptance for the continued development and deployment of nuclear arms. Four broad categories of legitimation are identified: discursive legitimation, institutional legitimation, behavioural legitimation, and legitimation through information control.

Augmentals, as a type of verbal rule, have been used in political speeches either for establishing beneficial cultural values for the populace (Leigland, 2005) or for publicizing political points of view to exert control on public opinion through propaganda (Rakos, 1993). The current study conducted a functional content analysis on two presidential speeches about climate change and global warming regarding whether the United States should enter or exit the Paris Climate Agreement. The purposes of the study were to (a) examine the effects of two types of augmentals (reinforcer-establishing augmentals and punisher-establishing augmentals) on behavior change in the populace, (b) explore the effects of the types of relational frames that formed augmentals, and (c) provide guidance to the public on discriminating propaganda in media sources. The results showed different patterns in the use of augmentals in Donald Trump\'s speech, which attempted to persuade the populace to support exiting the agreement, compared to Barack Obama\'s speech, which attempted to persuade the populace to support entering the agreement. Several implications of the study are discussed.

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Can large language models, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), generate persuasive propaganda? We conducted a preregistered survey experiment of US respondents to investigate the persuasiveness of news articles written by foreign propagandists compared to content generated by GPT-3 davinci (a large language model). We found that GPT-3 can create highly persuasive text as measured by participants\' agreement with propaganda theses. We further investigated whether a person fluent in English could improve propaganda persuasiveness. Editing the prompt fed to GPT-3 and/or curating GPT-3\'s output made GPT-3 even more persuasive, and, under certain conditions, as persuasive as the original propaganda. Our findings suggest that propagandists could use AI to create convincing content with limited effort.

Propaganda and manipulation have long been employed to influence and shape individuals\' thoughts and identities. In the advent of the digital era, these techniques have become more sophisticated and invasive, and are utilized to further various causes. This article investigates the extent to which international human rights law affords protection against manipulation techniques such as microtargeting and behavioral reading, which can negatively impact individuals\' mental health and autonomy by threatening their right to construct their own identity. The right to freedom of thought in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 18), and the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 9) offers absolute protection to individuals\' inner selves and covers the protection against manipulation on paper. However, in practice, the right has not received much attention and has not reached its full potential due to its abstract and ambiguous nature. This Article analyzes the preparatory works of these human rights law instruments, with a particular focus on the right to freedom of thought, to clarify its origins and the intention behind its creation. The Article contends that the historical origins of the right do not provide sufficient answers to the current issue and contribute to the ineffective application of the right against emerging manipulative practices. The Article also proposes potential ways to clarify and strengthen the legal framework related to the right to freedom of thought.

There is a growing body of scholarly evidence that media convergence blurs the boundary between media production and media consumption and obscures the lines between institutions and individuals. Media convergence in the context of China has garnered attention in communication studies and in cultural studies. However, there is a scarcity of research on convergence culture from a linguistic perspective. Recent research has generated initial evidence that state media appropriates a pop-cultural social address for clickbait and information management in China\'s digital media space. However, the patterns and perceptual reality of linguistic convergence remain unexplored. This study investigates popular and party uses of xiaojiejie \'little older sister\', a familiar expression of fictive kinship reborn as a viral personal reference and social address in China\'s convergence culture. Analysis of the Target Group Index in the Baidu search engine suggests xiaojiejie is gaining ground over its predecessor among young Chinese. Trends analysis of its usage in WeChat public accounts showed that the term has spread from popular media to state media, which employs the viral address to drive clickbait and disguise propaganda. An online survey of young Chinese WeChat users (N=330) on their perception of xiaojiejie headlines from WeChat public accounts showed that respondents could not tell state media uses from popular uses, providing perceptual evidence of the blurry boundaries between popular and state media uses of the viral address. The findings demonstrate the reality of linguistic convergence driven by participatory performance and its perceptual consequences in China\'s convergence culture.

[Purpose] Trust among patients and clinical suppliers is the foundation for achieving appropriate treatment. This double-blind randomized control trial aimed to determine whether providing patients a pre-treatment physical therapists\' introductions and positive appraisal can enhance the trust of patients in therapists. [Participants and Methods] This study included patients diagnosed with lumbar spine spondylosis or non-acute lower back muscle strain who were divided into intervention and control groups. The previously recorded video informed the intervention group patients that they were assigned to our best therapist because of their participation. The primary outcome was evaluated twice, once before and once after the treatment, and the secondary outcome was measured using the second time pain inventory evaluation. [Results] A total of 32 patients participated in this study. No significant difference was found in patients\' trust in therapists between the two groups, and a lower successful treatment rate with a higher pain influence level to daily life was noted in the intervention group. [Conclusion] Doctors who offer introductions with a positive assessment of physical therapists cannot change the trust of patients on therapists. Furthermore, this action may risk worse treatment outcomes.