Assessing the Russian Troll Efforts to Sow Discord on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. Election

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A Rains ◽  
Yotam Shmargad ◽  
Kevin Coe ◽  
Kate Kenski ◽  
Steven Bethard
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
General Election ◽  
Internet Research ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Election Cycle ◽  
Electoral Cycle

Abstract Although experts agree that the Russian Internet Research Agency deployed trolls on Twitter to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election, questions remain about the nuances of their efforts. We examined almost 350,000 original tweets made during the two-year electoral cycle to investigate the emphasis, timing, content, and partisanship of the trolls’ efforts targeting leading candidates. Despite only dedicating a fraction of their tweets to candidates, troll behavior generally tracked the relevance of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Ted Cruz during the election cycle. Trolls were significantly more likely to engage in name-calling in tweets about Trump, Clinton, and Cruz than in tweets about other topics. Name-calling peaked in tweets addressing Clinton during the general election. Right trolls were more likely to focus their attention on Trump, Clinton, and Cruz than were other partisan trolls.

Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-61
Author(s):  
Robert G. Boatright ◽  
Valerie Sperling
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
General Election ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Gender Dynamics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Presidential Primaries

This chapter provides details regarding the gender dynamics of the presidential primaries and general election campaign in 2016, in order to show how these phases of the presidential contest set the stage for and affected the down-ballot races. It reviews the various ways in which gender became a central theme in the presidential election and in the public discourse surrounding the election, and considers Trump’s rhetoric in the context of hypermasculine politicians’ behavior in other countries. It also describes in detail how the Republican primary deteriorated into a peculiarly graphic masculinity contest, and how Trump’s tendency toward bigoted and misogynist comments provided fuel for the Clinton campaign and its supporters, and set the stage for Republican down-ballot candidates to respond to the “Trump factor” in their own campaigns.

You’re Fired! Donald Trump and the 2020 Congressional Elections

The Forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-650
Author(s):  
Jamie L. Carson ◽  
Spencer Hardin ◽  
Aaron A. Hitefield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
General Election ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Modern Era

Abstract The 2020 elections brought to an end one of the most divisive and historic campaigns in the modern era. Former Vice President Joe Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States with the largest number of votes ever cast in a presidential election, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump in the process. The record turnout was especially remarkable in light of the ongoing pandemic surrounding COVID-19 and the roughly 236,000 Americans who had died of the virus prior to the election. This article examines the electoral context of the 2020 elections focusing on elections in both the House and Senate. More specifically, this article examines the candidates, electoral conditions, trends, and outcomes in the primaries as well as the general election. In doing so, we provide a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the climate and outcome of the 2020 congressional elections. Finally, the article closes with a discussion of the broader implications of the election outcomes on both the incoming 117th Congress as well as the upcoming 2022 midterm election.

scholarly journals Don’t Republicans Tweet Too? Using Twitter to Assess the Consequences of Political Endorsements by Celebrities

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-160
Author(s):  
Jan Zilinsky ◽  
Cristian Vaccari ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decision To Stay ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

Michael Jordan supposedly justified his decision to stay out of politics by noting that Republicans buy sneakers too. In the social media era, the name of the game for celebrities is engagement with fans. So why then do celebrities risk talking about politics on social media, which is likely to antagonize a portion of their fan base? With this question in mind, we analyze approximately 220,000 tweets from 83 celebrities who chose to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign to assess whether there is a cost—defined in terms of engagement on Twitter—for celebrities who discuss presidential candidates. We also examine whether celebrities behave similarly to other campaign surrogates in being more likely to take on the “attack dog” role by going negative more often than going positive. More specifically, we document how often celebrities of distinct political preferences tweet about Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and we show that followers of opinionated celebrities do not withhold engagement when entertainers become politically mobilized and do indeed often go negative. Interestingly, in some cases political content from celebrities actually turns out to be more popular than typical lifestyle tweets.

Losing (to) Misogynists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Manne
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Male Counterpart ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Protective Mechanisms ◽  
The Right

This final chapter applies the analysis of misogyny to the 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump, despite the latter being vastly underqualified and temperamentally and morally unsuited to the position. There was also a great deal of misogyny directed toward Clinton not only by Trump and others on the right but also from left-wing sources. It is argued that much of this misogyny and even the outcome were to some extent predictable, on the basis of evidence of misogynistic biases against women who compete for male-dominated leadership positions. Research in social psychology shows that, when a woman cannot be judged less competent than her male counterpart in such contexts, many people will hold that, although they are equally competent, she is less likable than he is. Women are just as likely as men to reject high-achieving women in this manner, due to ego-protective mechanisms.

Prospects for US politics to end-2016

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
General Election ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Presidential Primaries

Subject Prospects for US politics to end-2016. Significance With the functional conclusion of the presidential primaries, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will face Donald Trump in the November 8 general election. Most policy action and political posturing by both parties in the coming months will aim to rally their ideological base and sway undecided voters.

scholarly journals Donald Trump as a cultural revolt against perceived communication restriction: Priming political correctness norms causes more Trump support

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 244-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucian Gideon Conway ◽  
Meredith A. Repke ◽  
Shannon C. Houck
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
General Election ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Positive Communication ◽  
Negative Communication

Donald Trump has consistently performed better politically than his negative polling indicators suggested he would. Although there is a tendency to think of Trump support as reflecting ideological conservatism, we argue that part of his support during the election came from a non-ideological source: The preponderant salience of norms restricting communication (Political Correctness – or PC – norms). This perspective suggests that these norms, while successfully reducing the amount of negative communication in the short term, may produce more support for negative communication in the long term. In this framework, support for Donald Trump was in part the result of over-exposure to PC norms. Consistent with this, on a sample of largely politically moderate Americans taken during the General Election in the Fall of 2016, we show that temporarily priming PC norms significantly increased support for Donald Trump (but not Hillary Clinton). We further show that chronic emotional reactance towards restrictive communication norms positively predicted support for Trump (but not Clinton), and that this effect remains significant even when controlling for political ideology. In total, this work provides evidence that norms that are designed to increase the overall amount of positive communication can actually backfire by increasing support for a politician who uses extremely negative language that explicitly violates the norm.

scholarly journals Micro-Expressions of Fear During the 2016 Presidential Campaign Trail: Their Influence on Trait Perceptions of Donald Trump

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Stewart ◽  
Elena Svetieva
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Contrast Study ◽  
Leadership Traits ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
National Convention ◽  
Acceptance Speech

The 2016 United States presidential election was exceptional for many reasons; most notably the extreme division between supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In an election that turned more upon the character traits of the candidates than their policy positions, there is reason to believe that the non-verbal performances of the candidates influenced attitudes toward the candidates. Two studies, before Election Day, experimentally tested the influence of Trump’s micro-expressions of fear during his Republican National Convention nomination acceptance speech on how viewers evaluated his key leadership traits of competence and trustworthiness. Results from Study 1, conducted 3 weeks prior to the election, indicated generally positive effects of Trump’s fear micro-expressions on his trait evaluations, particularly when viewers were first exposed to his opponent, Clinton. In contrast, Study 2, conducted 4 days before Election Day, suggests participants had at that point largely established their trait perceptions and were unaffected by the micro-expressions.

Behavior notwithstanding: Person perception and news photographs of the two leading candidates in the 2016 presidential election

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-159
Author(s):  
Nicole Smith Dahmen
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Person Perception ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Quantitative Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Perception Theory

Applying person perception theory, this research uses quantitative content analysis to analyze 1,183 newspaper photographs of the two leading candidates from the 2016 presidential election. Study findings show that there were statistically significant differences in the photographic presentations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 election, with Clinton pictured more favorably than Trump.

scholarly journals Social Media for Political Campaigns: An Examination of Trump’s and Clinton’s Frame Building and Its Effect on Audience Engagement

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511985514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulsamad Sahly ◽  
Chun Shao ◽  
K. Hazel Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
Frame Effect ◽  
Frame Building ◽  
Cross Platform

This study investigates cross-platform differences in social media by analyzing the contending candidates who represent different political ideology during the 2016 presidential election. Borrowing the frame-building and frame-effect perspectives, it examines the ways in which the two contending candidates (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) built their message frames in two different social platforms—Twitter ( N = 3,805) and Facebook ( N = 655)—and how the frame differences affected audience engagement in each platform. The results showed that Trump’s messages presented more variety in frame selection than Clinton’s, focusing on conflict and negative emotional frames on Twitter while displaying frequent positive emotional frames on Facebook. Clinton’s strategy relied heavily on conflict and positive emotional frames on both Twitter and Facebook. The results also suggested that for both Trump and Clinton followers on Twitter, conflict and morality frames consistently attracted retweeting behaviors and emotional frames attracted favoriting behaviors. However, Facebook engagement behaviors did not show a consistent pattern between the followers of the two candidates.

scholarly journals Analysis of Facebook Meme Groups Used During the 2016 US Presidential Election

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511880879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Moody-Ramirez ◽  
Andrew B Church
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Facebook Pages

Using content analysis, this study examines how citizens may use memes to share grassroots political ideas in a social media group setting during elections. Specifically, it offers a glimpse at the types of meme-related Facebook pages that emerged during the 2016 presidential election with an emphasis on representations of the two front-runner candidates—Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Generally, Facebook-meme pages and profile photos of both candidates were negative in tone with Trump more likely to be framed in terms of his hairstyle and facial expressions and Clinton in terms of the email scandal and her relationships with people. Political party and gender differences between these two candidates contributed to variations in representations. Study findings are important as they offer a look at grassroots use of memes during a major election and provide a general overview of Facebook user depictions of the two politicians.

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