The Brave New E-world of the Human-Centered Media Ecosystem

This chapter examines the claim that alt-right activists hacked the media ecosystem byinserting various destructive memes into the mainstream media that helped DonaldTrump win the 2016 presidential election. In particular, this chapter considers thepropaganda pipeline—the path from the periphery to the core through a series ofwell-known amplifi cation sites, most prominently Infowars and Drudge. Th e “spiritcooking” stories as seen on Infowars, Washington Times, and Sean Hannity perfectlyencapsulate the propaganda pipeline from the periphery to the core, drawingin the various suspects in producing information disorder. Th e chapter also showshow statements by marginal actors on Reddit and 4chan were collated and preparedfor propagation by more visible sites, and how this technique was exploited by bothalt-right and Russia-related actors successfully to get a story from the periphery toHannity.

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The Fox Diet

10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Yochai Benkler ◽

Robert Faris ◽

Hal Roberts

Keyword(s):

First Year ◽

Right Wing ◽

Justice Department ◽

Fox News ◽

The Core ◽

Deep State ◽

Media Ecosystem ◽

Conservative Media ◽

The Right

This chapter focuses on the role of the dominant player in conservative media, Fox News, during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. It looks at three case studies to illustrate how Fox News used its position at the core of the right-wing media ecosystem repeatedly to mount propaganda attacks in support of Trump: the Michael Flynn firing in March 2017, when Fox adopted the “deep state” framing of the entire controversy; the James Comey firing and Robert Mueller appointment in May 2017; when Fox propagated the Seth Rich murder conspiracy; and in October and November, when the arrests of Paul Manafort and guilty plea of Flynn seemed to mark a new level of threat to the president, Fox reframed the Uranium One story as an attack on the integrity of the FBI and Justice Department officials in charge of the investigation.

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The Propaganda Feedback Loop

10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Yochai Benkler ◽

Robert Faris ◽

Hal Roberts

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Feedback Loop ◽

The Other ◽

Hillary Clinton ◽

Donald Trump ◽

The Public ◽

False Reporting ◽

Media Ecosystem ◽

Crowd Out ◽

Selection Of

This chapter presents a model of the interaction of media outlets, politicians, and the public with an emphasis on the tension between truth-seeking and narratives that confirm partisan identities. This model is used to describe the emergence and mechanics of an insular media ecosystem and how two fundamentally different media ecosystems can coexist. In one, false narratives that reinforce partisan identity not only flourish, but crowd-out true narratives even when these are presented by leading insiders. In the other, false narratives are tested, confronted, and contained by diverse outlets and actors operating in a truth-oriented norms dynamic. Two case studies are analyzed: the first focuses on false reporting on a selection of television networks; the second looks at parallel but politically divergent false rumors—an allegation that Donald Trump raped a 13-yearold and allegations tying Hillary Clinton to pedophilia—and tracks the amplification and resistance these stories faced.

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The Architecture of Our Discontent

10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Yochai Benkler ◽

Robert Faris ◽

Hal Roberts

Keyword(s):

Political Communication ◽

News Media ◽

The United States ◽

Online Media ◽

First Year ◽

Media Ecosystem ◽

The Media ◽

The Right ◽

Integrated Media ◽

Presidential Election Campaign

This chapter presents the book’s macrolevel findings about the architecture of political communication and the news media ecosystem in the United States from 2015 to 2018. Two million stories published during the 2016 presidential election campaign are analyzed, along with another 1.9 million stories about Donald Trump’s presidency during his first year. The chapter examines patterns of interlinking between online media sources to understand the relations of authority and credibility among publishers, as well as the media sharing practices of Twitter and Facebook users to elucidate social media attention patterns. The data and mapping reveal not only a profoundly polarized media landscape but stark asymmetry: the right is more insular, skewed towards the extreme, and set apart from the more integrated media ecosystem of the center, center-left, and left.

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Epistemic Crisis

10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Yochai Benkler ◽

Robert Faris ◽

Hal Roberts

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Intellectual History ◽

Public Institutions ◽

First Year ◽

Fake News ◽

Media And Politics ◽

Social Divisions ◽

Echo Chambers ◽

History Of ◽

Media Ecosystem

This chapter describes the contours of the epistemic crisis in media and politics that threatens the integrity of democratic processes, erodes trust in public institutions, and exacerbates social divisions. It lays out the centrality of partisanship, asymmetric polarization, and political radicalization in understanding the current maladies of political media. It investigates the main actors who used the asymmetric media ecosystem to influence the formation of beliefs and the propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere, and to manipulate political coverage during the election and the first year of the Trump presidency, , including “fake news” entrepreneurs/political clickbait fabricators; Russian hackers, bots, and sockpuppets; the Facebook algorithm and online echo chambers; and Cambridge Analytica. The chapter also provides definitions of propaganda and related concepts, as well as a brief intellectual history of the study of propaganda.

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Novel interfaces in science communication: Comparing journalistic and social media uptake of articles published by The Conversation Africa

Public Understanding of Science ◽

10.1177/09636625211019312 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 096366252110193

Author(s):

Lars Guenther ◽

Marina Joubert

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Science Communication ◽

Social Issues ◽

Science Journalism ◽

African Countries ◽

Public Science ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Agenda Setter ◽

Or Economics ◽

Media Ecosystem

Science amplifier platforms such as The Conversation have gained popularity in a changing media ecosystem in which the traditional roles of journalists are eroded, and scientists are urged to engage with society. The Conversation constitutes a blend of scientific communication, public science communication and science journalism, and a convergence of the professional worlds of science and journalism. In this study, we investigated the nature and impact of the Africa-focussed edition of this platform, The Conversation Africa. We analysed articles published over a 5-year period since its launch in 2015 ( N = 5392). Contents from South Africa dominate the platform, but contributions from other African countries are increasing. Regarding the role of The Conversation Africa as an inter-media agenda setter, mainstream media more often republished stories related to politics or economics, while stories about social issues such as education, conservation and art were more often shared on social media.

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