The final days of the Trump presidency and its aftermath brought into sharp focus the issue of political lying. Politicians have historically employed rhetoric and rhetorical spin to embellish the truth and hide damaging information. However, outright lying has traditionally been deemed politically too risky, resulting in resignation and the undermining of public trust. In contrast, recent electoral successes —the 2016 Brexit Referendum and the 2019 general election in the United Kingdom, and Trump's victory in 2016 and his increased electoral support in 2020—point to an apparent growing tendency for politicians caught lying not to be punished at the ballot box. Using the U.K. Brexit referendum and the 2019 general election as its case study, this conceptual paper argues that strategic political lying has been designed as a priming device to set the news agenda. As an effective campaigning tactic “strategic lying” represents a development of political spin—first evident in the mass media era—that has been intensified by the increasing professionalization of political communications and the rise of social media. In doing so, the concept of “strategic lying” theorized here contributes to deepening our understanding of the ongoing evolution of “spin” in the digital era.

特朗普总统任期的最后日子及其后果使人们更加关注政治谎言问题。政治家历来采用修辞和修辞手法修饰真相并隐藏破坏性信息。但是，从传统上讲，彻头彻尾的撒谎被认为在政治上过于冒险，从而导致辞职并破坏了公众的信任。相比之下，最近的选举成功（2016年英国脱欧公投和英国2019年大选，以及特朗普在2016年的胜利和他在2020年的大选支持）表明，政客被撒谎而不受惩罚的趋势越来越明显。选票箱。以英国脱欧公投和2019年大选为案例研究，该概念文件认为，战略性政治谎言已被设计为设定新闻议程的主要手段。作为一种有效的竞选策略，“战略上的谎言”代表着政治旋转的发展，这在大众传媒时代已初见端倪。随着政治传播专业化程度的提高和社交媒体的兴起，这种发展变得愈演愈烈。这样做时，这里理论化的“战略性说谎”概念有助于加深我们对数字时代“旋转”正在进行的演变的理解。