Building Bridges With Breitbart: The Role of Counterpublic Media in the US Elections 2016

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Poster Session: Political Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

The 2016 US election and the victory of Donald Trump is closely connected to a perceived rise of the right-wing, often called ‘alt-right,’ in the US. We analyze the relationship between the far-right counterpublic and the mainstream right-wing based on the election coverage of nine online outlets. We show through topic modeling of 21,919 articles how Breitbart established itself as the counterpublic top-tier outlet for the right-wing, how it covered both topics from the mainstream as well as from the far right, and show that Fox News and Breitbart influence each other’s election coverage, specifically on the topic of immigration. We are thus able to show that Breitbart functions as a bridge between the far-right and the more moderate right-wing. Additionally, we show that that although a connection between Breitbart and the right-wing counterpublic exists, the far right is still fragmented.

Authors

• Jonas Kaiser, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard U

• Adrian Rauchfleisch, National Taiwan U

• Nikki Bourassa, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society