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Retweeting Populism: Mass Media, Social Networks & Adversarial Hybrid Diplomacy

Fri, August 31, 3:00 to 3:30pm, Hynes, Hall A

Abstract

Kremlin-backed misinformation campaigns fueling polarizing populist movements, candidates and political parties is the new normal of democratic politics in the West. While public officials, bureaucrats and members of the mass media are largely concerned with the fallout surrounding Russia’s election meddling, including identifying responsible parties, political scientists are tasked with explaining these allegedly new phenomena. What connects Russia’s power-political interests to domestic level contention and populist discontent in the West? Why is it that certain audiences—particularly, but not exclusively, the political right—are susceptible to this type of messaging, and what sustains that link? This paper addresses these questions by rethinking the type, function and role of media outlets and institutions regarding the strategic messaging of both state and non-state actors. We draw on Chadwick’s (2013/17) conceptualization of hybrid media forms, and argue the phenomenon in question results from the strategic blending of traditional mass and new media forms and practices. Applying this framework to the field of international political communication, we introduce the concept of Adversarial Hybrid Diplomacy (AHD), defined as the strategic use of social media and social networks of non-state actors to disrupt the media ecology and domestic political environment of other states—particularly during competitive elections—in order to investigate how it is that state actors weaponized information online in the pursuit of their geopolitical objectives abroad. The paper seeks to advance our understanding of how the diffusion and pervasiveness of internet-connected devices armed with apps enabling instant communication across geographic space and time have impacted the pathways and proclivities of and for geopolitical competition among states. Within this context, our first major argument is that AHD is made possible by the networked nature of global politics. States and non-state actors are embedded within a complex web of national, international, and transnational relations occupying varying positions of centrality, influence, responsibility, and power (Hafner-Burton et al. 2009; Goddard 2009; Avant 2016). Moreover, we argue the combination of hyper-connectivity and the everyday digital habitus—drawing from Bourdieu (1977) and de Certeau (1988)—makes the strategic use of digital misinformation campaigns such a powerful tool. Motivated political actors do not have to act independently to create networks to further their goals. Rather, they coopt pre-existing online forum appearing amenable the type of message preferred by the strategic actor. Once penetration is achieved, activity on these networks reflects the activity of the median user. However, the networks of potentially-interested others are primed for action when a crucial political event emerges, such as an election or referendum in an adversarial state. They then increase the frequency of communication in general (tweets, retweets, @replies) and the sharing explicitly political content. To test these hypotheses, we examine a longitudinal body of over 850,000 tweets from users who frequently used the hashtag #MacronLeaks, a reference to the dump of purported campaign documents two days before the French presidential election; and the hashtag #AfDwaehlen, an indication of their support for the right-wing and Russia-friendly party competing in the German parliamentary election. In each case, we highlight both the connections among various agents and information flows to detail the underlying networks structure of these misinformation campaigns and campaigns as well as the substance of the messages using network and sentiment analysis. We conclude with two observations meriting further investigation. First, we find pro-Russian and EU-critical social media activity is persistent in a relatively low centrality/activity environment for most of the time. These percolation networks serve as transmission belts in times of heightened or viral activity but exist prior to and after activation. While this type of activity appears benign most of the time, it can have a significant effect on domestic and international relations during extraordinary political events. Moreover, sentiment analysis indicates that populist and anti-establishment messaging injected by outside actors may be particularly adapt in penetrating these networks because it effectively appropriates preexisting behavioral, cultural, and discursive norms; in our case, primarily chauvinistic, sexist and nativist language that fuels user activity. Following Mische’s (2003) discussion of the network-cultural link, we argue this is crucial for understanding the mechanisms by which network structures and cultural forms interact and change over time in response to contentious interaction, including the success of mobilizing processes such as recruitment, outreach, coordination.

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