By Anya Schiffrin

In recent years, the study of mis- and disinformation has again become polarized, as in the 1930s when the world was turning to fascism after emerging from World War I. In the United States, Republicans have subpoenaed mis- and disinformation researchers, accused Democrats of partisan censorship efforts, and issued a 2023 report on the “weaponization of disinformation.” Funding for mis- and disinformation research has been cut, jeopardizing research at major universities including Stanford and Harvard.

With the re-election of Donald Trump as president, researchers are wondering what will come next. This question was touched on at a recent conference my partners at Columbia World Projects and I organized on Clyde R. Miller, who founded the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) at Columbia University in 1937, and the legacy of propaganda studies. The one-day gathering of more than 40 scholars from around the country, as well as from Germany and Mexico, turned out to be even more relevant than I had imagined when I began planning the meeting last year. 

During the November 15th conference, we assessed the trajectory, context, and legacy of Clyde Miller, and the IPA, one of the forerunners of today’s media literacy organizations, in light of renewed interest in the political economy consequences of online mis/disinformation and the targeting of researchers and the researchers who study it.

The period after World War I was the heyday of propaganda studies as scholars tried to grapple with the aftermath of the devastating war and the rise of fascism and communism. Thousands of articles were written about propaganda and its effects.Walter Lippmann, a prominent public intellectual, and Public Relations pioneer Edward Bernays were among the many who tried to understand the role of media and advertising in shaping public opinion. Journalist Clyde Miller, among others, believed the “American Way” was not to suppress free speech or counter propaganda with more propaganda but to teach people to think for themselves and understand propaganda messaging and their own reactions to it. 

With funding from Filene's department store owner-cum-philanthropist, Marshall Field, Miller and a group of scholars made Columbia University a leader in the field of media literacy, establishing the IPA at Columbia University Teachers College in 1937. The group broadened into anti-racist education and analysis of right-wing propaganda but after a promising start, the IPA was attacked by conservative groups and newspaper columnists.

Richard Parker, of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School, noted that Miller and IPA, along with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), personally and the New Deal itself—the stimulus package FDR enacted to help the U.S. recover from the Great Depression— were descendants of “the Social Gospel” movement that had been a mainstream Protestant movement in the U.S. since the 1870s. In many ways, the polar opposition of modern conservative white evangelicalism, Social Gospel leaders (in churches and nascent social science departments in universities) preached the idea that “science” could discern “the truth” in complex societal contexts, that such scientific knowledge was moreover beneficent--and democratically egalitarian and would be accepted as such by all.

Miller and the sociologists that he worked with believed that education was a powerful tool and essential for combatting racism as well as fascist propaganda. The IPA published newsletters for schools, books, and pamphlets that analyzed propaganda techniques and provided discussion questions for teachers. In its heyday, the IPA was praised for its efforts. At the conference, Elisabeth Fondren, Associate Professor at St. John’s University, described the IPA’s early days and the effective ways that the IPA used journalistic techniques to make its ideas clear and accessible to its audiences.

The conference also delved into the backlash against the IPA and what this portends for current efforts to counter online mis/disinformation as well as DEI efforts on campus.

After a strong start, Miller and his colleagues faced backlash from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which labeled the IPA a "Communist front organization" in 1947, and Miller was dismissed from Teachers College in 1948 amid accusations of being a "Red." Miller's dismissal, likely influenced by the animosity of media mogul William Randolph Hearst who complained about Miller to the college, serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of silencing voices that challenge the status quo.

In recent years, disinformation researchers have faced an onslaught of lawsuits, congressional inquiries, and online harassment from Republican lawmakers and conservative groups. These attacks have forced universities to hire lawyers to defend their faculty and distracted researchers from studying the spread of false information because they had to deal with legal threats.

The IPA lost funding and shut down in 1942. Miller eventually moved to Australia with his son but many of the IPA’s techniques for understanding propaganda and analyzing messaging have remained core to the media literacy movement. Renee Hobbs, who is one of the most prominent thinkers in the field, came to the conference, as did Professor Katherine G. Fry from Brooklyn College, and Brett Gary and Rodney Benson from NYU. Many of us mentioned J. Michael Sproule who pioneered the study of the IPA and interviewed some of its members.

I wrote a chapter on Clyde Miller in my PhD dissertation, with the research help of Chloe Oldham, a student at Barnard, and concluded that in a world of distrust and political polarization, media literacy efforts are simply not enough to combat the lies that circulate widely.

In her closing remarks at the November 15th conference, Efrat Nechushtai, a PhD graduate from Columbia Journalism School, agreed, noting that it’s time “to consider shifting our focus, from individual responsibility to acquire media literacy skills and process messages critically and rationally to systemic conditions, infrastructures, and incentives.” 

Dr. Anya Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She thanks Tom Asher, Anna Marchese, Laura Danikowski Mercado, Lei Zhu, Harrison Saunders, and Adali Frias Deniz for their help in organizing the conference.