Trolling and the Trolled

Underground Black Propaganda Campaigns in the Philippines to Influence Online Opinions

Abstract

Black propaganda campaigns continuously thrive through online political trolling that remains largely hidden from mainstream media to victimize the public and disrupt digital political discourses. In the Philippines, political trolling was even used as a strategy to win the 2016 election. Six years later, similar practices were reportedly observed during the 2022 Philippine election. This article aims to provide recent findings after analyzing underground political troll activities on social media to influence public opinion during the 2022 Philippine election and identify the social media users’ awareness level. Guided primarily by Harold Lasswell’s Theory of Political Propaganda, the study’s framework explains how political trolling activities can corrupt public opinion within digital spaces. Employing a mixed method with an exploratory sequential design, the study utilized two approaches: (1) content analysis of identified political troll campaigns and (2) survey questionnaires administered to one hundred social media users. The results have revealed that political trolls deployed varying narratives and emotional appeals depending on the campaign type: (1) creating artificial engagements to glorify political biases, (2) smearing political opponents to condemn them, and 3) starting online propaganda wars mixing both practices to execute an “us versus them” strategy. The survey findings have indicated that the respondents were familiar with political trolls but possessed only a basic understanding of political trolling. Overall, the results illustrate the end- to-end relationship between political trolling activities and public awareness regarding underground black propaganda campaigns.