A new doctoral thesis from the Swedish Defence University challenges a dominant assumption in research on state-linked disinformation: that the spread of false or misleading content on social media is simply directed from above. In “Beyond Orchestration: A practice-based study of state-linked disinformation on social media,” Johanna Muhrbeck, a doctoral student at the Department of War Studies, argues that this picture is fundamentally incomplete. Strategic actors, including states, can indeed produce and disseminate misleading information with the intention of exerting influence, and they can coordinate efforts, networks, and timing to maximize impact. However, Muhrbeck’s key finding is that such content often continues to spread far beyond the original operation, driven by ordinary users who have no connection whatsoever to the state actor or strategic planner who first introduced it. These users may share, comment on, react to, or remix content for reasons entirely their own—social approval, moral outrage, partisanship, humour, or genuine confusion. Yet the effect is the same: the disinformation gains reach and legitimacy that it would never have achieved through orchestrated channels alone. Muhrbeck stresses that any serious attempt to understand how strategic disinformation travels through social media must look not only at the coordinated activity of state actors and their proxies, but also at the everyday behaviours of other users who contribute, often unwittingly, to the amplification.
The thesis arrives at a moment when social media has become the central arena for public information and political debate. Platforms such as Facebook, X, TikTok, and YouTube are not passive transmission belts; they are engineered to encourage immediate reactions, comments, and shares. Engagement-based algorithms boost content that provokes strong emotional responses, and the currency of the system is visibility. This means that user actions are not incidental to the spread of disinformation—they are an integral part of its success. Muhrbeck’s research shows that it is not enough to ask who is behind a deceptive campaign and what their geopolitical or ideological purpose may be. To understand why certain false narratives gain traction while others fall flat, researchers also need to study how audiences receive, interpret, and interact with the content. A message that resonates with existing fears, identities, or resentments can be circulated by communities whose members are completely unaware that they are participating in a coordinated influence operation. In this sense, the title of the thesis, “Beyond Orchestration,” captures a central insight: the orchestrated part of a disinformation campaign is only the beginning. The broader diffusion is a social process that follows its own logic, shaped by the same emotional and identity-driven forces that govern all viral communication. This complicates attribution, because the reach of disinformation cannot be measured solely by the activity of bots and troll farms; it must be measured by how millions of ordinary users take up and relay a narrative.
Methodologically, Muhrbeck’s study combines qualitative and quantitative approaches in a mixed-methods design. This is important because disinformation is not a single, easily measured object. It exists simultaneously as content, as a network phenomenon, and as a cultural narrative. Qualitative analysis is used to examine the storylines, frames, language, and emotional appeals embedded in disinformation. Quantitative analysis maps the scale of distribution, the types of actors involved, the pathways of spread, and the degree to which engagement is concentrated among particular accounts or communities. Muhrbeck says that she analysed “the content and extent of the disinformation, the types of actors involved in its dissemination, and the purposes, ideas and emotions that shape it.” This multi-layered approach allows the research to move beyond a narrow focus on malicious intent and toward a richer understanding of disinformation as a communicative practice. It also makes it possible to see how some messages remain confined to small extremist networks while others cross over into mainstream audiences, and to identify the specific features that seem to make content more shareable. By connecting what is said, how it is said, who says it, and why audiences respond, the thesis provides a more complete explanation of the social life of disinformation. It suggests that effective research on influence operations must be as attentive to the dynamics of the audience as to the tactics of the originator.
The implications of this research are significant for public authorities and organisations tasked with preventing and countering disinformation. Many existing countermeasures focus on exposing the source of a false story, fact-checking claims, or removing coordinated accounts. These tools are valuable, but they are based on a model of disinformation that is largely sender-driven. Muhrbeck’s findings suggest that a more comprehensive strategy must also account for the role of recipients and intermediaries. If ordinary users are essential to how disinformation spreads, then responses must involve citizens, not only as targets of information but as participants in building resilience. Media literacy, critical thinking, source awareness, and prebunking are not merely optional extras; they are central components of defence. At the same time, the research warns against blaming individuals who share false content, since most do not do so out of malice. They may share because a post aligns with their worldview, because they trust the person who shared it, or because it confirms existing, often legitimate, concerns. An important consequence is that efforts to strengthen societal resilience need to be designed with a sophisticated understanding of the emotional, social, and cultural reasons why people spread information. Muhrbeck explicitly states: “A better understanding of how and why disinformation spreads can provide a stronger basis for developing measures to strengthen society’s resilience to disinformation.” The emphasis on both “how” and “why” reflects her core argument that the mechanics of spread and the reasons for engagement are inseparable.
The broader context of this research includes a decades-long struggle by governments and democratic institutions to respond to state-linked disinformation. Russia, China, and other actors have been documented using state media, troll networks, fake accounts, and amplified influence operations to interfere in elections, undermine public health measures, and deepen social polarisation. Europe has responded with new legislation, including the Digital Services Act, while individual countries such as Sweden have built psychological defence agencies designed to detect and respond to influence operations. Yet many official strategies and toolkits still operate on a relatively linear understanding of how disinformation works: a hostile actor creates content, it is pushed through networks, and vulnerable audiences are manipulated. Muhrbeck’s work contributes to a growing body of scholarship that questions this linear model. In an information environment dominated by recommendation algorithms, influencer cultures, and fragmented publics, the line between producer and audience has blurred. A single post can be amplified by hyper-partisan media, celebrity accounts, foreign state media, community leaders, and ordinary users all at once. In such a system, the original orchestrators may lose control of the message; the message begins to live a life of its own. Understanding this phenomenon is particularly important for Sweden, where the defence of an open and democratic society rests partly on the ability of citizens to resist manipulation. The Swedish Defence University, with its focus on war studies and total defence, is an appropriate home for research that connects strategic competition with the everyday dynamics of social media communication.
Ultimately, Muhrbeck’s thesis points toward a more humble and more realistic account of how disinformation works. It does not diminish the threat posed by state actors; rather, it shows that the threat is more complex than simple command-and-control narratives suggest. The spread of disinformation on social media is not just about malicious actors pulling strings; it is also about how attention is organised, how emotions are mobilised, and how trust is unevenly distributed across networks. Recognising the centrality of user actions does not make the problem less serious, but it does change the nature of possible solutions. Instead of searching only for origins and coordinating hubs, defenders must learn to see the whole ecosystem: the algorithms, the influencers, the communities, and the individual psychological triggers that make a story portable. As social media platforms continue to evolve, and as generative artificial intelligence makes synthetic content easier to produce, the challenges identified in this research will only grow more urgent. By integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, looking beyond state orchestration, and focusing on the interaction between intentional campaigns and user-led amplification, Johanna Muhrbeck’s thesis makes an important contribution to the field of disinformation research. The core lesson is both uncomfortable and necessary: to defend societies against the weaponisation of information, researchers and policymakers must understand not only the actors who create disinformation, but also the social and communicative processes that allow it to spread. In the end, “Beyond Orchestration” is not just the title of a dissertation; it is an invitation to rethink one of the defining challenges of the digital age.