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Cross-Platform State Propaganda: Russian Trolls on Twitter and YouTube During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
How did Russian trolls operate on Twitter and YouTube during the 2016 election? We analyzed over 100,000 IRA tweets and found that, although IRA accounts promoted links on both sides of the ideological spectrum, they were more likely to promote conservative news sources, and conservative trolls were more active than liberal ones overall.
Citation
Golovchenko, Yevgeniy, Cody L. Buntain, Gregory Eady, Megan A. Brown, and Joshua A. Tucker. “Cross-Platform State Propaganda: Russian Trolls on Twitter and YouTube during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 25, no. 3 (2020): 357–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220912682
Date Posted
Jul 01, 2020
Authors
- Yevgeniy Golovchenko,
- Cody L. Buntain,
- Gregory Eady,
- Megan A. Brown,
- Joshua A. Tucker
Area of Study
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Abstract
This paper investigates online propaganda strategies of the Internet Research Agency (IRA)—Russian “trolls”—during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We assess claims that the IRA sought either to (1) support Donald Trump or (2) sow discord among the U.S. public by analyzing hyperlinks contained in 108,781 IRA tweets. Our results show that although IRA accounts promoted links to both sides of the ideological spectrum, “conservative” trolls were more active than “liberal” ones. The IRA also shared content across social media platforms, particularly YouTube—the second-most linked destination among IRA tweets. Although overall news content shared by trolls leaned moderate to conservative, we find troll accounts on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and these accounts maintain their political alignment. Links to YouTube videos were decidedly conservative, however. While mixed, this evidence is consistent with the IRA’s supporting the Republican campaign, but the IRA’s strategy was multifaceted, with an ideological division of labor among accounts. We contextualize these results as consistent with a pre-propaganda strategy. This work demonstrates the need to view political communication in the context of the broader media ecology, as governments exploit the interconnected information ecosystem to pursue covert propaganda strategies.
Background
As tensions increase between the West and Russia, interest in foreign propaganda and disinformation is on the rise. Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the U.S. Department of Justice accused agents of Russian intelligence services of using fake social media accounts to influence the election in an effort to destabilize the country politically. Questions still remain about whether Russia’s use of social media for propaganda purposes are evidence of wholly new strategy, or whether these platforms primarily provide a means to extend existing ones.
Study
To answer this question, we investigate the online propaganda strategies of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) — also known as Russian “trolls” — during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We analyze hyperlinks contained in 108,781 IRA tweets and assess claims that the IRA sought either to support Donald Trump or to create discord among the U.S. public. The IRA also shared content across social media platforms, particularly YouTube, which was the second-most linked destination among IRA tweets. Although the overall news content shared by trolls leaned moderate to conservative, the authors find troll accounts on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and these accounts maintain their political alignment.
Results
The results show that, although IRA accounts promoted links to both sides of the ideological spectrum, “conservative” trolls were more active than “liberal” ones. Although moderate sources are the most commonly amplified, IRA troll accounts link to conservative news accounts more frequently than liberal ones. In addition, IRA trolls that appear liberal often share links to conservative news sources, but conservative trolls do not show this behavior. Since this behavior is not symmetric, it suggests the activity is meant to pull liberal audiences toward the conservative spectrum, while conservative audiences are reinforced. This evidence is consistent with the IRA’s supporting the Republican campaign, but also shows that the IRA’s strategy was multifaceted with an ideological division of labor among accounts. Our work demonstrates the need to view political communication in the broader context of the media ecology as governments exploit the interconnected information ecosystem to pursue covert propaganda strategies.