The Fourth Troll Prerequisite

Chapter 7 explores the fourth troll prerequisite for hacked and generated content to influence the U.S. election: was it persuasive, that is, was it convincing, viral, and memorable? Jamieson discusses how the trolls flooded the communication climate in key areas, the way in which liking and sharing amplified the reach of their messages, and the strength of their evocative visual content, which increased both their virality and memorability.

The Effect of Hacked Content on the Last Two Presidential Debates

In Chapter 11, Jamieson examines how the hacked content affected the last two presidential debates of the election, in which the moderators took excerpts of Clinton speeches from the emails released via WikiLeaks and deployed them out of context in their questions. One hacked excerpt was spun into a debate question directed at Clinton about whether it’s acceptable for a politician to be “two-faced”; her response and the subsequent framing by Trump, Russian trolls, and Trump-aligned media fueled the supposition that the Democratic nominee had different public and private stances. In the final debate, a line from another Russian-gotten speech was used to imply that Clinton wanted “open borders,” serving both to create an extended discussion of one of Trump’s central campaign appeals and to further the idea that Clinton’s statements in private diverged from those she made in public.

The Third Troll Prerequisite, Part 1

Chapter 5 examines the third prerequisite for Russian stolen or generated content to influence the U.S. election: did it address the interests of vital constituencies whose mobilization or demobilization was critical to a Trump Electoral College victory? The chapter details how troll messaging and the release of hacked content aimed to influence two key traditional Republican voting blocs that Trump needed in order to win: white Christians and veterans. Jamieson explores the trolls’ appeals to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, including the use of a hacked exchange involving a Clinton communications director. In a similar fashion, the chapter shows how the trolls worked to mobilize veterans by attacking Clinton’s record on military affairs.

The Fifth Troll Prerequisite

Chapter 8 focuses on the fifth troll prerequisite which needed to be met if hacked and Russian-generated content were to influence the U.S. election: was it targeted to reach the desired constituencies? The chapter contends that, despite some arguments against the impact of the Russian troll messaging, the trolls targeted audiences needed to influence the election in both battleground and nonbattleground states, through the use of organic content and paid advertisements. The trolls had access to multiple sources of information about how to reach voters susceptible to mobilizing or demobilizing appeals, including publicly accessible analyses of the candidates’ objectives and tactics, stolen voter models hacked from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and toolkits offered by social media platforms to help identify desired audience members.

Did the Russian Machinations Make the Election Close Enough for Clinton to Lose/Trump to Win?

Throughout Cyberwar, Jamieson argues that taken together the Russian interventions, including press use of the hacked content, troll messaging, disinformation, and the changes in the media and campaign agendas, were sufficient to probably have affected the 2016 Electoral College outcome. Part Five responds to critics who challenge that conclusion. In the process, it examines the controversies over what we know about the nature, extent, timing, targets, and impact of the Russian attacks and their effects.

How Do We Know That Russian Spies and Saboteurs (aka Hackers and Trolls) Intervened in the 2016 Presidential Election?

Chapter 1 of Cyberwar outlines how we know that Russian agents, in the form of both hackers and trolls, intervened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. After briefly summarizing the state of U.S.-Russia relations leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, this chapter details Trump’s and Putin’s denials of Russian interventions and the conspiracy theories used to deflect attention from the Russian origins of hacked content. The chapter also synopsizes the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that confirmed Russian involvement and outlines the scope of the book and the assumptions underlying it.

The First Troll Prerequisite

Chapter 3 examines the first prerequisite required for social media or hacked content to influence the U.S. election: was it widespread and extensive enough to make a difference? The chapter first notes that 2016 election-related Russian propaganda was also disseminated overtly via Russia’s state-sponsored RT. Jamieson goes on to detail the extent and reach of the trolls’ covert social media messaging on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit, 9GAG, and more. The chapter discusses the use of troll accounts to create and amplify content across platforms, including Russian-hacked Democratic content released on WikiLeaks, as well as the use of bots on these sites to skew the trending of content.

The Effect of Russian Hacking (and Troll Reinforcement) on Press Coverage

Chapter 9 of Cyberwar discusses the impact of press and campaign uses of Russian hacking and the ways in which it was amplified by troll messaging. Jamieson argues that, starting in July 2016—when WikiLeaks released its first tranche of private emails from the inboxes of Democratic National Committee staffers—and continuing through to Election Day, the Russian-hacked Democratic materials and uses of it by troll accounts, Republicans, and the media affected what Americans saw, heard, and read about Hillary Clinton. Hacked content released on October 7 was able to counterbalance both the so-called Access Hollywood tape and deflected attention from a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirming that the Russians were behind the DNC hacking. Jamieson also details how hacked Clinton speech segments changed the news agenda and framing on October 9.

Hacked Content Altered the Press Agenda in the Final Four Weeks of the Election

Chapter 10 explores how hacked content, as well as the reopened Clinton email server investigation led by FBI Director James Comey, shaped the press agenda in the final four weeks of the election, from October 7 to Election Day. Throughout that period, the regular release of emails hacked from the account of Clinton campaign director John Podesta and the news media’s coverage of those dumps displaced a focus on the vulnerabilities of both candidates with one on Clinton alone, a frame magnified by the public’s conflation of different Clinton email “scandals.” Polling by the Annenberg Public Policy Center showed that, between October 3 and October 20, perceptions that Clinton was qualified to be president dropped and perceptions of Trump’s temperament, trustworthiness, and alliance with voters’ values improved. Jamieson argues that at least some of these changes should be credited to press use of hacked Democratic content.

A Theory of Communication That Posits Effects

Chapter 2 of Cyberwar explores the insights offered by seventy-five-plus years of political communications research about the effects of media and interpersonal communication on voters and voting. After first noting factors that increased voter susceptibility to communication effects in the 2016 election, Jamieson outlines the role of processes such as priming, agenda setting, framing, and contagion in political persuasion, how interpersonal and mass communication can affect voters and their voting intentions, and some factors that can blunt or bolster the power of communication. The chapter concludes by explaining how this underlying theory of communication suggests that Russian interventions could have affected voters.