The London School of Economics and Political Science Voices of outrage: Online partisan media, user-generated news commentary, and the contested boundaries of American conservatism during the 2016 US presidential election Anthony Patrick Kelly A thesis submitted to the Department of Media and Communications of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, December 2020 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD de- gree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other per- son is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 99 238 words. 2 Abstract This thesis presents a qualitative account of what affective polarisation looks like at the level of online user-generated discourse. It examines how users of the American right-wing news and opinion website TheBlaze.com articulated partisan oppositions in the site’s below-the-line comment field during and after the 2016 US presidential election. To date, affective polarisation has been stud- ied from a predominantly quantitative perspective that has focused largely on partisanship as a powerful form of social identity. This contributes to a growing recognition of the central role of partisan identity in the evaluation of politics by publics within the American two-party system. However, analyses of partisan identification in the US have also shown how negative affect towards opposing partisans has led some people to dislike the other party more than they like the one with which they identify. This establishes a pivotal relation between affec- tive polarisation and so-called negative partisanship. At the same time, the elec- tion of Donald Trump as US president has led to a new interest in the content and articulation of American conservative identity, particularly as this relates to the role of hybrid partisan media in the production and negotiation of group boundaries. Against this backdrop, my thesis concentrates on the construction of self/other distinctions in partisan news commentary. It employs a conceptual framework which integrates constructionist thematic analysis with an articulation approach grounded in the work of Laclau and Mouffe. Articulation is here viewed as the ongoing struggle to “fix” meaning – including the meaning of so- ciety and identity – in ways that exclude other meanings. This highlights the es- sentially political dimensions of articulation as the mechanism via which the so- cial is produced through discursive acts of opposition and exclusion. My analy- sis reveals how the boundaries of American conservatism are contested through the public performance of antagonism; how characterisations of political difference are performed with reference to the political and economic signifi- cance of hybrid partisan media; and how the use of partisan media is rhetorical- ly related to broader historical processes of social, cultural, and political trans- formation via antagonistic imaginaries of American past, present, and future – processes which are claimed to threaten America’s survival as a manifestation of divine providence encoded in the US Constitution. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the ongoing support of many people. First and foremost, I wish to thank my supervisors, Dr Nick Anstead and Prof Nick Couldry, for their patience, insight, and guidance. But most of all I thank them for their rigour. My supervisory arrangements shifted somewhat as this project took shape, so I also wish to thank Prof Charlie Beckett for his feedback early in the writing process and Prof Myria Georgiou for chairing my upgrade committee. I extend a very special thanks to Prof Lilie Chouliaraki, both for her inspiring and challenging exchanges as a supervisor and for her support as Di- rector of the PhD programme in the Department of Media and Communications. My gratitude also goes to my examiners, Prof Cristian Vaccari and Prof Les Back, for their generous critical engagement with and reflections on my re- search. Also within the Department of Media and Communications, I wish to thank Prof Bart Cammaerts and Prof Sonia Livingstone for the time they dedicated to the PhD researchers as one-time directors of the PhD programme. Prof Nick Couldry must get another mention here, too. I am very grateful to the present and former departmental professional services team for the work they do in en- suring everyone has a smooth-functioning department to work in, particularly Catherine Bennett, Leo Beattie, James Deeley, and Al Challis. I extend a further special thanks to Prof Terhi Rantanen for her mentorship and generous words of encouragement over the past number of years. There have been many colleagues across multiple cohorts in the Department of Media and Communications since I began my studies in 2013 who have made the lengthy process of completing this PhD a great deal more enjoyable and al- together more interesting. From my earliest days in the programme, I wish to acknowledge the members of my initial cohort: Amalia, Angelos, Nora, and Paula, with a special thanks to Brooks and Fabien for their comments and feedback on some of my more recent work. My gratitude, too, to all those peers 4 from other cohorts who made an impact in one way or another over the course of this undertaking – thank you for creating such a welcoming and encouraging environment at LSE. Also at LSE, I wish to acknowledge the warden team at LSE Bankside House and my former colleagues at LSE100, LSE Health, the Financial Markets Group, and the Systemic Risk Centre for helping to keep my head above water on more than one occasion. I give a special mention here to Dr Jessica Temple- ton, Champa Heidbrink, Milena Vasileva, Vivien Winterhoff, Beth Kreling, Debra Ogden, Orla Lynskey, and Venitia Stoby. I am grateful to the members of NYLON, BRESTOLON, and the Online Political Discourse Network for their collegiality and helpful feedback at various points throughout the research and writing process. I thank the conveners of these networks for creating such important spaces of conviviality and intellectual stim- ulation. Of those not already mentioned above, I particularly wish to acknowl- edge Prof Göran Bolin, Prof Natalie Fenton, Prof Andreas Hepp, and Dr Gho- lam Khiabany. Without the funding I received, this thesis simply would not have happened. With this in mind, I extend my sincere gratitude to the organisations which fund- ed my work. Alongside the Department of Media and Communications at LSE and the LSE Financial Support Office, I acknowledge the generous funding pro- vided by the National University of Ireland Travelling Studentship programme. From my formative years at Maynooth University, I extend thanks to two men- tors and colleagues, Dr Thomas Strong and Dr Patty Gray, who provided critical feedback and motivation to continue my research. Here, I give a special men- tion to Dr Robert E Moore and especially Dr Steve Coleman for their instruction in linguistic anthropology, which fundamentally reshaped how I see the world. For that I am immensely grateful. It was the love of that discipline, inspired by these great educators, that led me to pursue this research, even if I may by now have strayed slightly from that particular path. I thank the many beloved friends who have been there throughout this process, many of whom have helped me through many challenging moments: Alan, 5 Andy, Cathy, Ciaran, Claire, Danny, David, Dean, Dmitry, Dom, Fran, Ger, Jill, Jim, Johan, John, Keith, Kevin, Kitty, Liam, Lizzy, Marcus, Mark, Max, Mike, Nessa, Nicky, Sam, Simon, Stuart, Sarah, Susan, Tim, Ting Ting, Trevor, and Tristan. Some of you have picked me up and dusted me off more times than I would like to mention. Mike in particular has provided a calming and supportive voice of experience. A huge thanks to you all, including those of you who are no longer with us and are deeply missed. To the many others I don’t mention here by name, my genuine appreciation. And to anyone who has had to endure me blustering about this project at one point or another over the past several years, my apologies! Lastly and most importantly, I wish to thank my family, who have been a mas- sive source of support as I have sought to complete this sometimes-overwhelm- ing task. Thank you first to Martina, Bernie, Cian, Laoise, and Richard. A further thank you to all those incredibly supportive aunts, uncles, and cousins that have made this process a lighter one. But above all, I wish to thank my parents, Peter and Rita, who have provided bountiful assurance and compassion, in good times and bad, through the sometimes-meandering path towards submitting this thesis. I don’t really have words to express my heartfelt gratitude, so I will just say once more: Thank you! 6 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Table of Contents 7 Table of Figures 10 Chapter 1: Introduction – contextualising American conservative outrage online 11 1.1 Introduction 11 1.2 Context 18 1.2.1 Transformations in the political media