Foreign Information Manipulation: What Makes it Possible, and What Makes it Profitable?

Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) has emerged in recent years as a growing concern for its potential to disrupt democracies across the globe by undermining reliance on evidence-based discourse and trust in democratic decision-making. Research and policy initiatives have mostly focused on detection and exposure of inauthentic behaviour and manipulative practices in the information space. What has remained largely unexplored are the underlying conditions – i.e. social, cultural, political and economic enablers and incentives – that make FIMI possible and profitable for a diverse range of actors. In this paper, we begin to map these conditions based on a critical review of existing analytical literature. We advance the argument that only a comprehensive, multi-dimensional view of the problem of (foreign) information manipulation can support effective responses.