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Propaganda and dehumanizing narratives spread during conflicts through a combination of strategic messaging, communication technology and local conditions. Governments, armed groups and other political actors may design information operations for strategic purposes; broadcasters, social platforms and messaging applications can then move the material quickly across large networks. Conflict history, discrimination, polarization, distrust, restricted information spaces and weak moderation influence who encounters a claim, whether it is believed and what happens next.
That process is not a mechanical line from one post to one violent act. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) treats dehumanizing rhetoric as one possible mechanism in a wider information environment, not a complete explanation. The same words can have different effects in different places, and evidence of circulation is not automatically evidence of causation.
What “propaganda” and “dehumanization” mean in a conflict
In ordinary conversation, propaganda can mean any biased or persuasive message. In an armed conflict, the more useful question is what the message is intended to do and how it functions in an information environment. An information operation may be organized by a state or a non-state actor to shape perceptions, demoralize an opponent, mobilize supporters, justify policy or military action, or confuse civilians. Its material can be false, misleading, selectively true, hateful or otherwise harmful. A government announcement, a viral video, a coordinated set of accounts and a rumor passed through a messaging group can all be part of the same wider contest over information, but they are not automatically equivalent.
Dehumanization is a narrative mechanism within that contest. It depicts a population as less worthy of protection, outside the normal moral community, or inherently threatening. Such framing can make discrimination, exclusion or violence appear acceptable to an audience that already has grievances or fears. It does not operate in isolation: earlier discrimination, intergroup relations, political incentives and the availability of credible information all affect its force.
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Conflict propaganda is also older than the internet. Newspapers, radio, public meetings, posters, religious institutions and speeches have carried wartime narratives for generations. Digital communications change the speed, scale and reach of circulation; they do not replace the institutions, relationships and power structures that determine how a message is interpreted.
The layered pathway from a message to possible harm
The ICRC’s 2024 analysis presents examples in which harmful information and later risks appear connected. The authors use open-source reporting and infer some connections from timing and content relevance. Some examples have additional supporting evidence, but the typology is illustrative and is not designed to prove that a particular item of content caused a particular act. A careful account therefore separates the stages below.
1. A strategic purpose is established
An actor may seek to rally a constituency, weaken an adversary’s legitimacy, frighten civilians, conceal abuses or make a policy seem inevitable. Establishing purpose requires evidence about the actor, the audience and the surrounding operation. A post that looks inflammatory is not, by itself, proof of an organized campaign or of who authored it.
2. A narrative gives events a moral frame
Information operations select facts, omit context and assign blame. Dehumanizing narratives are especially consequential when they turn a diverse population into a single enemy category, portray coexistence as impossible or present ordinary safeguards as betrayal. The frame can be repeated in many formats: a speech, a headline, an edited clip, a meme or a voice note.
3. Distribution systems carry and reshape the material
Social networks can make a message visible to people far beyond the original audience. Messaging applications can move it through private or semi-private groups, where forwarding may be difficult to observe. Broadcast and print outlets can give a claim institutional authority, while face-to-face networks can supply trust. Every transfer may add a translation, caption, edit or new allegation, so the version that produces a reaction may differ from the first version.
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4. Local conditions determine reception
People do not encounter a narrative on a blank slate. They interpret it through memories of earlier violence, existing discrimination, political polarization, fear and trust in institutions. If reliable reporting is scarce, censored or disrupted, a vivid claim may fill an information gap. If moderation is limited or inconsistent, harmful material may remain available long enough to be copied and normalized.
5. Exposure may contribute to a range of outcomes
Possible outcomes include fear, withdrawal, exclusion from services, reputational damage, harassment or physical attacks. The presence of a narrative can be one contributing factor without being the sole cause. Analysts should record what is documented—exposure, a subsequent event, a plausible connection or demonstrated causation—rather than collapsing those categories.
| Stage | Question to ask | What the evidence does not establish on its own |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Who appears to be communicating, to whom and for what strategic objective? | That an anonymous or inflammatory item was centrally coordinated. |
| Frame | What group is blamed, threatened or excluded, and what context is omitted? | That every person repeating the frame shares the originator’s purpose. |
| Circulation | Which broadcast, social, messaging or offline networks carried the material? | That high reach produced a behavioral change. |
| Reception | What grievances, information gaps, trust levels and moderation conditions shape interpretation? | That an audience reacted uniformly. |
| Outcome | Is there evidence of distress, exclusion, a harmful act or a documented causal link? | That timing and thematic similarity prove causation. |
Conditions that can make harmful narratives more influential
Conflict history and unresolved grievances
Past displacement, discrimination, civilian casualties or broken agreements can make a new allegation feel consistent with lived experience. A message may therefore gain credibility from history even when its specific claim is false. The history also determines which words or images carry symbolic weight.
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Polarized politics reduce the number of facts that opponents accept in common. When legal, social or economic discrimination already marks a group as suspect, dehumanizing rhetoric can reinforce an existing hierarchy rather than create one from nothing. This is why treating a single post as a sufficient explanation is misleading.
Restricted, distorted or unsafe information spaces
Shutdowns, censorship, attacks on journalists, displacement and the loss of local media can leave civilians with fewer ways to verify claims. In that setting, a rumor can travel because it is the only available account, because it arrives through a trusted contact or because correcting information cannot reach the same audience.
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Distrust in authorities and media
Low confidence in governments, international organizations or news outlets can make official corrections ineffective. The reverse can also occur: a trusted institution may lend authority to a misleading narrative. Trust is therefore a contextual variable, not a fixed property of one platform or one population.
Information operations and targeting
Strategic actors may target civilians, armed forces, a minority community, an international audience or several groups with different messages. The same operation can combine public persuasion with private intimidation. Claims about authorship and intent should be made only when the underlying reporting establishes them.
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Moderation and platform design
Limited content moderation is identified in the ICRC analysis as a risk factor. Rules, enforcement capacity, language coverage and the use of private groups differ across services and over time. A platform’s potential to amplify a message should not be presented as proof that it caused a specific reaction, and no single moderation policy works identically in every conflict.
How different channels change speed and reach
| Channel | Distinctive contribution | Key limitation when assessing impact |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast and print | Can confer an appearance of institutional authority and reach audiences with limited internet access. | Audience size or repetition does not show that listeners accepted the claim or acted on it. |
| Social platforms | Public posts, recommendation systems and reposting can expose material to large and geographically dispersed audiences quickly. | Visible engagement is not the same as belief; automated or coordinated activity may distort apparent popularity. |
| Messaging applications | Forwarding and trusted personal networks can move content through private or semi-private groups, including during service disruptions. | Researchers may not see the full chain, and the message can be altered between forwards. |
| Offline networks | Family, neighborhood, religious and political relationships can supply trust and local interpretation. | Circulation may leave little record, making reach and timing difficult to reconstruct. |
| Mixed information systems | A claim can move from a speech or broadcast into online groups and back into public debate, combining authority and virality. | Attribution becomes harder when multiple actors copy, translate or edit the material. |
These channels interact. A televised allegation can become a clip; the clip can be translated and forwarded; a private-group rumor can be cited by a public commentator. Analysts should describe the route that is documented instead of assuming that one service explains the entire spread.
Why dehumanization can raise protection risks
Dehumanizing language narrows the perceived range of acceptable treatment. If a population is described as inherently dangerous, diseased, criminal or undeserving, an audience may become more tolerant of collective punishment, denial of aid or attacks on civilians. The narrative can also make witnesses less likely to report abuse and make institutions less willing to protect the targeted group.
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Those are potential pathways, not automatic results. The ICRC’s framework places dehumanizing rhetoric alongside conflict dynamics, discrimination and broader information conditions. A narrative may intensify fear without any identifiable later assault; a false allegation about an individual may damage a reputation even when no physical attack follows. Conversely, violence can occur for reasons that have little connection to a particular message. Good analysis keeps these possibilities distinct.
The range of harms identified by the ICRC
The ICRC typology groups potential consequences into five categories. The examples below describe what may be at stake; they do not assert that every example follows whenever harmful information circulates.
| Category | Possible consequences | Evidence needed for a stronger claim |
|---|---|---|
| Life and physical well-being | Threats, attacks, forced displacement or other violence against civilians. | Reliable documentation of the act and evidence connecting the information environment to it. |
| Economic or financial well-being | Loss of employment, property damage, blocked access to markets or services, and financial targeting. | Records of the economic harm and a substantiated account of how the narrative contributed. |
| Psychological well-being | Anxiety, fear, humiliation, trauma or persistent distress caused by threats and hateful narratives. | Testimony, clinical or humanitarian documentation, and careful attention to other causes of distress. |
| Social inclusion or cultural well-being | Exclusion from services, stigmatization, damage to reputations, attacks on identity or cultural practices. | Evidence that access, treatment or status changed, rather than only evidence that offensive speech existed. |
| Society-wide effects | Erosion of trust, compromised situational awareness, weakened humanitarian access and deeper polarization. | Longitudinal or comparative evidence showing change across institutions or communities. |
A single incident can touch several categories. For example, a false accusation may create immediate fear, lead to exclusion from a service and undermine trust in a local institution. Reporting should identify each documented effect rather than label the entire sequence “caused” by the original claim.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to judge claims about causation
When the ICRC authors describe their six-context analysis, they state: “In five out of the six contexts analyzed, conflict dynamics and the resort to information operations by state and non-state actors for strategic purposes is another factor fueling the risks of harm for civilians.” This is a finding about those six analyzed contexts and the factors identified there, not a prevalence estimate for all conflicts.
The distinction between correlation and causation is practical. A documentary, investigation or news report can classify its evidence at four levels:
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- Exposure: the material was published, broadcast or forwarded and reached a documented audience.
- Subsequent event: a harmful act or condition occurred after the material appeared.
- Plausible connection: timing, content and testimony suggest the material may have contributed, while other explanations remain possible.
- Demonstrated causation: multiple independent lines of evidence establish that the material materially produced the outcome.
The ICRC typology primarily illustrates the first three levels. It should not be quoted as proof that a particular post, account or platform caused a particular act.
A context-first method for watching or making a conflict documentary
Use the following sequence when evaluating a film, testimony or viral claim. It is designed to prevent both overclaiming and the opposite mistake of treating harmful information as irrelevant.
- Locate the claim in time and place. Record when the content appeared, which version you saw and which conflict event was occurring. Reposts often carry an incorrect date.
- Identify the intended audience and apparent purpose. Ask whether the material seeks mobilization, intimidation, justification, concealment or simple attention. Mark attribution as confirmed, alleged or unknown.
- Map the circulation route. Distinguish a public post from a private forward, a broadcast from a street-level rumor and an original item from an edited copy. Note translations and captions.
- Check the information environment. Look for shutdowns, censorship, displacement, media closures, competing narratives and the level of trust in institutions. These conditions affect both exposure and interpretation.
- Separate language from conduct. Document the dehumanizing frame, then independently verify any reported arrest, expulsion, attack, denial of aid or other harm.
- Grade the connection. State whether the evidence shows exposure, a later event, a plausible contribution or demonstrated causation. Explain what remains unknown.
- Compare across affected groups. Examine who is targeted, who is protected, whose accounts are missing and whether different audiences receive different versions.
This method also helps filmmakers avoid turning a compelling clip into a universal explanation. A case-specific finding should remain tied to its geography, actors, date and evidence.
Humanitarian protection and the limits of general rules
The ICRC published a framework on 30 January 2025 to help humanitarian organizations assess and respond to the consequences of harmful information in conflict settings. Its value is that it treats protection as context-specific: responders must identify how information is affecting civilians in the particular setting rather than apply a single platform rule or a universal theory of persuasion.
The UN Special Rapporteur report A/79/319 discusses online speech and dehumanizing language in the Gaza conflict. Its observations belong to that specific conflict and should be attributed to the report. They should not be converted into a claim about every party, platform or war. Platform policies, battlefield conditions and incident reporting can change, so current assessments need the latest primary documentation.
What a careful conclusion looks like
Propaganda and dehumanization spread when strategic actors, communication networks and receptive conditions reinforce one another. Technology can accelerate circulation, but conflict history, discrimination, distrust, information restrictions and moderation shape what the circulation means. Dehumanizing rhetoric can contribute to physical, economic, psychological, social and society-wide harms, yet no single message explains every outcome. The most defensible account names the actor and audience when known, traces the channel, describes the surrounding information environment and states precisely how strong the evidence for harm or causation is.
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