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When Looks Deceive and News Is Anything

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When Looks Deceive and News Is Anything Department of Informatics and Media Master Programme in Social Sciences, specialization Digital Media and Society Two-year Master’s Thesis When Looks Deceive and News Is Anything But: An Ideology-Centered Critical Discourse Analysis of The Kremlin Meddlers’ Twitter Communication & The Media’s Portrayal of The Meddlers in The Context of The U.S. Presidential Election of 2016 and The Brexit Referendum Student: Stephan Hentze Nielsen Supervisor: Kerstin Engström October 2018 Word count: 30973 Abstract This study takes a qualitative approach to contextualizing and examining the communication of the so-called Kremlin trolls on Twitter, in relation to two major political processes that occurred in 2016, namely the Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election. Moreover, the study examines the news media of the two respective countries’ portrayal of the “Kremlin trolls”. The study assesses and problematizes mainstream application and contemporary usage of terminology in relation to two phenomena central to this thesis, namely: “Kremlin trolls”, and “fake news”. The study reconceptualizes the respective concepts into the “Kremlin meddlers” and “deceitful news”, as it was found those terms more accurately reflect both phenomena. Two sets of empirical data are examined in the thesis, one of which consists of 62 posts derived from 14 accounts of the Kremlin meddlers’ Twitter accounts. The other consists of 30 articles stemming from 10 different news outlets, 5 of which were U.K. news outlets and 5 U.S. news sites, covering the political spectrum from one end to the other. The study applies one theoretical framework to examine both sets of empirical data, namely Teun van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis. The Kremlin meddlers’ Twitter accounts used two strategies to influence the electorates of both countries, one of which was to hide under the guise of pseudonyms impersonating actual citizens of the two nations. The other strategy employed by the meddlers was to maintain accounts that simulated news outlets, acting and appearing much like a legitimate news outlet would on the platform. The communication of the Kremlin meddlers was primarily aimed at supporters of the ideological right by (re)producing discourse highly critical of the ideological left, this is particularly so for the Twitter accounts seeking to impersonate actual people. The pursuit of ideological polarization is central in their communication. In the news media’s portrayal of the meddlers, differences are found across the ideological spectrum. The study identifies three themes in the discourse; one portraying the meddlers’ in a humanizing view, one creating a Them vs. Us categorization between Russia and the West, and the last focusing on the meddlers’ impact on democratic processes. Intrinsic to all of the themes is the (re)production of elite discourse, primarily seen through the selective use of voices from the symbolic elite to construct the social reality. 1 Keywords Twitter, Social Media, News, Fake News, Kremlin Trolls, Brexit, U.S. Presidential Election 2016, Information Warfare, Discourse, Ideology, Power. List of figures and tables Figure 1 - Survey results: Trustworthiness of news outlets based on personal views ............. 41 Figure 2 - Survey results: Describe each newspaper using Left, Right or Centre ................... 42 Figure 3 - Pamela Moore’s tweets ........................................................................................... 50 Figure 4 - Jenna Abram’s tweets ............................................................................................. 52 Figure 5 - David Jones’ tweets ................................................................................................. 54 Figure 6 - Special Affair’s tweets ............................................................................................ 55 Figure 7 - Jihadist Wife’s tweets ............................................................................................. 56 Figure 8 - Tennessee GOP’s tweets ......................................................................................... 57 Figure 9 - Kansas City Daily News’ tweets ............................................................................. 59 Figure 10 - Baltimore Online’s tweets ..................................................................................... 60 Figure 11 - Cleveland Online’s tweets ..................................................................................... 61 Figure 12 - San Francisco Daily’s tweets ................................................................................ 61 Figure 13 - Atlanta Online’s tweets ......................................................................................... 62 Figure 14 - Baton Rouge Voice’s tweets ................................................................................. 63 Figure 15 - Missouri News’ tweets .......................................................................................... 64 Figure 16 - Pigeon Today’s tweets .......................................................................................... 65 Table 1 - List of news outlets, ideological leaning and number of articles…………………..44 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Purpose and research questions ............................................................................................ 6 1.2 Structure of the thesis ........................................................................................................... 6 2. Background ...................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Twitter .................................................................................................................................. 8 2.2 The Brexit referendum ......................................................................................................... 8 2.3 The U.S. presidential election 2016 ..................................................................................... 9 2.4 The Kremlin trolls ................................................................................................................ 9 3. Literature review ........................................................................................... 11 3.1 Defining trolls and trolling................................................................................................. 11 3.2 Trolling political discussion spaces ................................................................................... 14 3.3 Exploring fake news .......................................................................................................... 18 3.4 Summarization ................................................................................................................... 22 3.5 Contributions to the field ................................................................................................... 23 4. Theoretical framework and analytical tools ............................................... 26 4.1 Exploring Discourse Studies .............................................................................................. 26 4.2 Introduction to Teun van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................ 28 4.2.1 Ideology ...................................................................................................................... 30 4.2.2 Power, dominance and control .................................................................................... 31 4.2.3 Discourse, access and context ..................................................................................... 32 4.2.4 Analytical tools ........................................................................................................... 33 4.2.5 Macrorules and discourse topics ................................................................................. 34 4.2.6 Critique ....................................................................................................................... 35 4.2.7 Application .................................................................................................................. 36 5. Methodology .................................................................................................. 38 5.1 Collection of empirical data ............................................................................................... 39 5.1.1 The Kremlin meddlers’ tweets .................................................................................... 39 5.1.2 Online news sites ........................................................................................................ 41 5.2 Analytical approach ........................................................................................................... 47 5.3 Ethics.................................................................................................................................. 48 6. Analysis .......................................................................................................... 50 6.1 The Kremlin meddlers’ Twitter communication ............................................................... 50 6.1.1 The voices of “citizens” .............................................................................................. 50 6.1.2 The Kremlin “news outlets” .......................................................................................
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