A digital ménage à trois: strategic leaks, propaganda and journalism

This chapter introduces readers to scholarly and popular debates regarding strategic leaking, propaganda and journalistic reporting. It focuses on political, governmental and whistle-blowing disclosures affecting the US and analyses how key actors attempt to manage and exploit leaks in the case studies of the 2016 US presidential election and the ‘Panama Papers’. The chapter discusses the role of leaks in shaping public perceptions within democracies, ultimately questioning how such disclosures are used by whom and why. Technological investments and developments in the communicative environment to embed monitoring and persuasion environments masquerading as innocuous tools for consumers are a deliberate part of the propaganda process. Covert sources play a legitimate, necessary and long-established role in investigative journalism, particularly in foreign policy and security. The interplay with audiences, alongside the practice of astroturfing, makes propaganda much more insidious as the distinction between fake and real users blurs.