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Patrick L. Warren - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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“THE RUSSIANS ARE HACKING MY BRAIN!” investigating Russia's Internet Research agency twitter tactics during the 2016 United States presidential campaign
Computers in Human Behavior, 2019Co-Authors: Darren L. Linvill, Brandon Boatwright, Will J. Grant, Patrick L. WarrenAbstract:Abstract This study analyzed tweets from handles associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency in an effort to better understand the tactics employed by that organization on the social media platform Twitter in their attempt to influence U.S. political discourse and the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. We sampled tweets from the month preceding the election and analyzed to understand the qualitative nature of these tweets as well as quantitative differences between how types of IRA Twitter accounts communicated. Seven categories of tweet behavior were identified: attack left, support right, attack right, support left, attack media, attack civil institutions, and camouflage. While camouflage was the most common type of tweet (52.6%), descriptive analyses showed it was followed by attack left (12%) and support right (7%). A variety of quantitative differences were shown between how account types behaved.
Anis Rahman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Manufacturing rage: The Russian Internet Research Agency’s political astroturfing on social media
First Monday, 2020Co-Authors: Ahmed Al-rawi, Anis RahmanAbstract:This paper examines social media ads purchased by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA). Using a public dataset, we employ a mixed method to analyze the thematic and strategic patterns of these ads. Due to Facebook and Instagram’s promotional features, IRA managed to microtarget audiences mostly located in the United States fitting its messages to suit the audiences’ political, racial, gendered, and in some cases religious backgrounds. The findings reveal the divisive nature and topics that are dominant in the dataset including: race, immigration, and police brutality. By expanding on the theoretical conceptualization of astroturfing strategy that focuses on carefully concealing the identity and intention of actors behind social media activities, we argue that IRA has added political astroturfing as a powerful tool at a low cost contributing to the broader Russian geopolitical disinformation campaign strategies. The IRA made use of the business model of Facebook and Instagram in an attempt to further divide its targeted audiences and by highlighting mostly negative issues with a potential goal of fuelling political rage.
Josephine Lukito - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: How Russia’s Internet Research Agency Tweets Appeared in U.S. News as Vox Populi:
The International Journal of Press Politics, 2019Co-Authors: Josephine Lukito, Jiyoun Suk, Yini Zhang, Larissa Doroshenko, Sang Jung Kim, Yiping Xia, Deen Freelon, Chris WellsAbstract:The Russian-sponsored Internet Research Agency’s (IRA) use of social media to influence U.S. political discourse is undoubtedly troubling. However, scholarly attention has focused on social media, overlooking the role that news media within the country played in amplifying false, foreign messages. In this article, we examine articles in the U.S. news media system that quoted IRA tweets through the lens of changing journalism practices in the hybrid media system, focusing specifically on news gatekeepers’ use of tweets as vox populi. We find that a majority of the IRA tweets embedded in the news were vox populi. That is, IRA tweets were quoted (1) for their opinion, (2) as coming from everyday Twitter users, and (3) with a collection of other tweets holistically representing public sentiment. These findings raise concerns about how modern gatekeeping practices, transformed due to the hybrid media system, may also unintentionally let in unwanted disinformation from malicious actors.
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Coordinating a Multi-Platform Disinformation Campaign: Internet Research Agency Activity on Three U.S. Social Media Platforms, 2015 to 2017
Political Communication, 2019Co-Authors: Josephine LukitoAbstract:Though nation-states have long utilized disinformation to influence foreign audiences, Russia’s 2015 to 2017 campaign against the U.S.—executed by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) —is unique in i...
Alexander Volfovsky - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency's impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019Co-Authors: Christopher A. Bail, Deen Freelon, Brian Guay, Emily Maloney, Aidan Combs, D. Sunshine Hillygus, Friedolin Merhout, Alexander VolfovskyAbstract:There is widespread concern that Russia and other countries have launched social-media campaigns designed to increase political divisions in the United States. Though a growing number of studies analyze the strategy of such campaigns, it is not yet known how these efforts shaped the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. We study this question using longitudinal data that describe the attitudes and online behaviors of 1,239 Republican and Democratic Twitter users from late 2017 merged with nonpublic data about the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) from Twitter. Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts substantially impacted 6 distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network, high interest in politics, and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized. We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study—especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election—as well as its implications for future Research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science.
Darren L. Linvill - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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“THE RUSSIANS ARE HACKING MY BRAIN!” investigating Russia's Internet Research agency twitter tactics during the 2016 United States presidential campaign
Computers in Human Behavior, 2019Co-Authors: Darren L. Linvill, Brandon Boatwright, Will J. Grant, Patrick L. WarrenAbstract:Abstract This study analyzed tweets from handles associated with the Russian Internet Research Agency in an effort to better understand the tactics employed by that organization on the social media platform Twitter in their attempt to influence U.S. political discourse and the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. We sampled tweets from the month preceding the election and analyzed to understand the qualitative nature of these tweets as well as quantitative differences between how types of IRA Twitter accounts communicated. Seven categories of tweet behavior were identified: attack left, support right, attack right, support left, attack media, attack civil institutions, and camouflage. While camouflage was the most common type of tweet (52.6%), descriptive analyses showed it was followed by attack left (12%) and support right (7%). A variety of quantitative differences were shown between how account types behaved.