Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2024
This chapter examines belief in misinformation during the Coalition air war against ISIL in Iraq. In particular, it investigates a unique nationwide survey of contemporary Iraq that measures Iraqis’ factual perceptions about the Coalition airstrikes against ISIL, as well as whether they have lived under ISIL rule where the vast majority of strikes actually occurred. Moreover, this survey is paired with geo-located event data on the Coalition airstrikes themselves obtained from Airwars in order to measure the respondents’ proximity to the events more directly. Overall, the results reveal that Iraqis’ factual misperceptions about Coalition actions are widespread – fueled by both their own preexisting political orientations and streams of information in the dispute – but that civilians with greater personal exposure to the campaign are much less likely to embrace these falsehoods. Indeed, both experience living under ISIL control and proximity to the airstrikes themselves significantly reduce factual misperceptions about the Coalition’s aerial campaign, including false claims about its targeting of Shiʿa Arab-led militias and its strategic benefits to ISIL.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.