This book is about how people in power use language to generate and perpetuate misunderstandings. Edelman explores the ways in which social institutions such as language, authority, courts, science, and the media generate erroneous understandings of political realities in ways that protect the power and interests of the elite.

The Politics of Misinformation is an examination of how concentrations of social and economic power result in public languages of politics that are necessarily image-based, vague, and misleading in their denial of undemocratic tendencies. As a result, public discourses of democracy tend to be populistic, emotional, and likely to emphasize images of progress rather than structural inequalities in their formulations of public problems. In short, neither typical problem definitions nor solutions invite critical popular understanding or involvement in democratic politics.