The Propaganda Pipeline: Hacking the Core from the Periphery

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Core ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cation Sites

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.

scholarly journals “DO YOUR RESEARCH”: COVID-19, POST-SOCIALIST EXPERIENCE AND THE NARRATIVE OF INFORMATION INDEPENDENCE AMONG CZECH INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Hermanova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Political Event ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media

The COVID-19 pandemics highlighted the role of social media influencers as political communicators and drew attention to the question of accountability of influencers and their overall role in the media ecosystem. The aim of the paper is to analyze the role of lifestyle Instagram influencers in shaping the public narrative about COVID-19 as an orchestrated political event aimed at curbing civic freedom in the Czech Republic with focus on two key elements: 1) the politicization of the domestic (space) on Instagram and its gendered nature and 2) the framing of the role of influencers as democratic public voices offering an alternative to mainstream media, within the context of the post-socialist historical experience of totalitarian past. The presented analysis builds on digital ethnography among Czech female lifestyle influencers and content analysis of selected Czech influencers profiles.

scholarly journals Automated News in Brazilian television: a case study on the AIDA system (Globo-Brazil)

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-274
Author(s):  
Renato Essenfelder ◽  
João Canavilhas ◽  
Haline Costa Maia ◽  
Ricardo Jorge Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Competitive Environment ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Television Network ◽  
Secondary Role ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
The Media

Technological advancements have created a media ecosystem in which traditional journalism sees its existence strongly threatened by the emergence of new players. Social networks have created a competitive environment that, whether due to its dispersion or its capillarity, has relegated the mainstream media to a secondary role in the media ecosystem. Ironically, the technologies that threaten traditional journalism are also those that can save it; provided they are used correctly. Journalism, weakened by the economic crisis and with increasingly smaller newsrooms, has artificial intelligence as an opportunity to recover a certain centrality in the media ecosystem. This paper studies AIDA, a project from the Brazilian television network Globo. This project looked to automation as a way to avoid errors and ambiguities in the news. The study of the AIDA case, complemented by interviews, presents the challenges to achieve the automatization of news regarding electoral polls.

Spreadable Spectacle in Digital Culture: Civic Expression, Fake News, and the Role of Media Literacies in “Post-Fact” Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Mihailidis ◽  
Samantha Viotty
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
The Media ◽  
Critical Theorist

This article explores the phenomenon of spectacle in the lead up and immediate aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Through the spread of misinformation, the appropriation of cultural iconography, and the willing engagement of mainstream media to perpetuate partisan and polarizing information, the proliferation of populist rhetoric, polarizing views, and vitriolic opinions spread. Revisiting the world of critical theorist Guy Debord, this article argues that the proliferation of citizen-drive spectacle is unique in its origination and perpetuation, and a direct result of an increasingly polarized and distrustful public spending an increasing amount of time in homophilous networks where contrarian views are few and far between. We apply the frame of spreadable media to explore how citizen expression online initiated, sustained, and expanded the media spectacle that pervaded the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The conclusion of this work argues that media literacies, as a popular response mechanism to help cultivate more critical consumers of media, must be repositioned to respond to an era of partisanship and distrust. We present a set of considerations for repositioning the literacies to focus on critique and creation of media in support of a common good, and that can respond meaningfully in an era of spreadability, connectivity, and spectacle.

scholarly journals Mainstream Media Politics in the Presidential Election of the Republic of Indonesia 2019

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Anang Sujoko
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Politics ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Republic

Mass media has the power to build a discourse on public discussion. This strength should be used in carrying out its function as a watchdog in democratic practice. The mass media must break away in a position as part of the executive or legislative because he himself is the fourth force in the pillar of democracy. In the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Election (Pilpres) the mass media showed practices that weakened this position with the presence of affiliated media owners or even became part of the political parties supporting one of the candidate pairs in the 2019 Presidential Election. This paper is critical thinking about how politics mainstream mass media in Indonesia in polarizing support to candidate pairs. The data are collected through observation of media content and in-depth interviews with informants from media workers and informants who have competence in the field of mass media. The results of the study show that mainstream mass media tends to still be positioned as the main source of information in the five-year democracy event. The preaching of mainstream mass media still shows partiality to certain candidate pairs by not expressing criticism and vice versa often showing criticism on other candidate pairs. The mass media that have affiliations to political parties tend to show partiality to the authorities and ignore the critical role in overseeing government practices. The oligarchy of the media industry in Indonesia has not shown the role of overseeing the social and political environment.

Fake It “Till You Make It”: Debunking Fake News in a Post-Truth America

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-133
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
American People ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, attacks on the media have been relentless. “Fake news” has become a household term, and repeated attempts to break the trust between reporters and the American people have threatened the validity of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In this article, the authors trace the development of fake news and its impact on contemporary political discourse. They also outline cutting-edge pedagogies designed to assist students in critically evaluating the veracity of various news sources and social media sites.

The Fox Diet

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.

The Architecture of Our Discontent

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.

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

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.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

Glimpse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Duygu Onay-Coker ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
Health Politics ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Unequal Treatment ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Media Channels

The COVID-19 pandemic both highlighted and exacerbated deep societal inequalities. Vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, especially women, faced even more unequal treatment. During the lockdown, women at home performed more childcare, and shouldered more cooking and cleaning duties, while husbands spent most of their time in virtual meetings. The media played a crucial role during this situation through its representation of women. An analysis of the reportage of two bestseller print mainstream media, Sabah and Hürriyet, compared to two alternative media channels on the internet, GazeteDuvar and T24, highlighted a serious difference in perspective in news stories about women. Bestseller mainstream Turkish media ignored the difficulties faced by women and followed dominant hegemonic discourse emphasizing women as wives and mothers who sacrifice themselves for their children and families. They ignored the plight of women victims subjected to violence during the lockdown and reproduced the idea of traditional gender roles through their news items. However, alternative newspapers provided a voice to the women, as well as to the voiceless, disadvantageous groups. They were critical of the government, local authorities, related powers, and their health politics. They did not prefer to ignore women and their voices but instead announced them in detail.

From Ni putes ni soumises to #metoo in the French press: Between the hegemony of Whiteness and the Otherness of Muslims

2021 ◽  
pp. 095715582110217
Author(s):  
Marion Dalibert
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
White Women ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cultural Power ◽  
Majority Groups ◽  
Feminist Movements

By questioning the media coverage of the seven feminist movements that have received most publicity in the French mainstream media since the 2000s, this article shows that the media narrative regarding feminism perpetuates the national metanarrative produced in generalist newspapers. This metanarrative reinforces the power of majority groups by portraying them as inherently egalitarian, while those with the least economic, social, political and cultural power, such as Muslim men, are portrayed as the most sexist. It also highlights that racialised collectives are still socially invisible or limited to a visibility that is framed by representations rooted in a (post) colonial imaginary. Non-white women are in fact presented as fundamentally submissive, while (upper)-middle-class white women are the only ones associated with emancipation, which is significant of white and bourgeois hegemony at work in the French news media.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document