Mis/Disinformation Campaigns on #MAGA, #QAnon, and #BlackLivesMatter in 2020

• In Event: New Trends in Digital Mobilization and Protest

Abstract

A series of studies have revealed the asymmetric spread of disinformation in digital campaigns such that conservative and far-right populist communities trade more mis/disinformation when compared to progressive and far-left communities. Studies have found that conservatives circulate digital disinformation campaigns that are based in toxic narratives of anti-black, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant sentiment. These narratives are also deliberately targeted to communities of color in efforts to destroy group solidarity, dampen political engagement, and suppress the vote. Donald Trump’s calculated assault on truth and fact since 2016 has led to a deluge of problematic, junk news across Twitter and Facebook architectures, exacerbating existing racial tensions while creating a pseudoreality of alternative facts across a variety of issues. Disinformation campaigns have now progressed beyond the involvement of foreign operatives from Russia and China as seen in 2016 to include white domestic insurgents in 2020. Disinformation campaigns fueled the ‘Big Lie’ that Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election illegitimately due to voter fraud. Belief in the “Big Lie” led to a politically violent Stop the Steal Campaign that was organized in plain view on interconnected digital spaces by far-right populist groups like QAnon, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and citizen-armed militia. These insurgents stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, instigated and incited by Trump who spent the latter part of 2020 claiming the US election was rigged by voter fraud. As the US prepares for the midterm 2022 elections, states have responded to the Big Lie by enacting a series of restrictive voter suppression laws to shore up ‘election integrity,’ in spite of overwhelming evidence that the 2020 US presidential election was secure and safe. A raft of new restrictive laws in 2021 now disproportionately impact communities of color, disabled, and vulnerable citizens who will face greater restrictions in accessing and casting mail in ballots, engaging in early voting, registering to vote, and locating ballot drop boxes. Battleground states Georgia, Florida and Arizona with large black and Latino populations have passed draconian voter restriction laws that further disenfranchisement in addition to state redistricting and gerrymandering. The dangerous growth of far-right populism evidenced in 2020 has generated broad racial intolerance and an appetite for political violence, resulting in a crisis in US democracy in the right to vote freely and fairly.
Drawing from data in 2020, this study seeks to investigate the flow of mis/disinformation within far-right populist/conservative digital communities and between far-right populist/conservative digital communities and black digital publics. Research gaps exist in our understanding of how far-right populist communities generate and trade disinformation narratives within their networks. Research gaps also exist in understanding how these dangerous disinformation narratives travel from extreme far-right communities into digital nonwhite communities. Given the little work yet published on 2020 disinformation campaigns across more than one community, it is important to understand the infrastructure of disinformation, its tactics and signature, across a variety of digital spaces in an effort to understand how extreme publics build robust agendas that threaten vulnerable political communities. Utilizing a Twitter data sample of over 11 million tweets across the entire of 2020, this study studies three digital communities: two pro-Trump digital communities, #maga and #QAnon, and one digital black community #blacklivesmatter. Examining the flow of mis/disinformation among all 3 communities, this study questions, 1. What mis/disinformation narratives arose on #maga and #QAnon in 2020, 2. Who seeded and shared these narratives, 3. What were the viral sources, memes, and images of these narratives, and 4. Which mis/disinformation narratives gained traction from #Maga and #QAnon into the #BlackLivesMatter digital public. This study will utilize political communication theoretical frameworks of networked agenda setting (with the theoretical extension of agenda building), and networked framing and gatekeeping. Methodologically, this study will primarily utilize quantitative and statistical analysis, including automated/manual content analysis and framing analysis to detect, code, and trace the spread of disinformation narratives across pro-Trump and pro-Black digital publics. Quantitative methodologies include NLP, semantic and social network analysis, and automated content analysis tools, as well as tools like QDA Miner for framing analysis of memes, images, sources, and text. Throughout the January to December 2020 time period, these four research questions will be analyzed in a big data sample of 4 million tweets drawn from #Maga, 3.5 million tweets drawn from #QAnon tweets, and 3.5 million tweets drawn from #BlackLivesMatter.

Author

• Sharon Meraz, University of Illinois at Chicago