Researching and conceptualizing the Influence Industry

This chapter considers methodologies for researching the digital Influence Industry, challenges frequently encountered by researchers, their consequences for building knowledge about industry actors, strategies and organization, and potential solutions or responses that could move the field forward. As this book has observed, the Influence Industry is often characterized by opaque operations and processes, raising considerable access issues. This is compounded by the problems of directly and accurately measuring influence on audiences. The methodological issues may be heightened by the digital context as well as risks and constraints threats facing researchers, leading to actors and motives being under-researched compared to other aspects of influence operations. The chapter suggests that potential solutions to researching the Influence Industry could include ‘sousveillant’ research methods (centering research around placing information in public hands using a variety of approaches and technologies); policy that enables greater access to information held by Tech companies; and frameworks to help researchers conceptualize and theorize different actors and their strategies, coordination and tactics.