Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Faris, Robert M., Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yochai Benkler. 2017. Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Research Paper. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33759251 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA AUGUST 2017 PARTISANSHIP, Robert Faris Hal Roberts PROPAGANDA, & Bruce Etling Nikki Bourassa DISINFORMATION Ethan Zuckerman Yochai Benkler Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is the result of months of effort and has only come to be as a result of the generous input of many people from the Berkman Klein Center and beyond. Jonas Kaiser and Paola Villarreal expanded our thinking around methods and interpretation. Brendan Roach provided excellent research assistance. Rebekah Heacock Jones helped get this research off the ground, and Justin Clark helped bring it home. We are grateful to Gretchen Weber, David Talbot, and Daniel Dennis Jones for their assistance in the production and publication of this study. This paper has also benefited from contributions of many outside the Berkman Klein community. The entire Media Cloud team at the Center for Civic Media at MIT’s Media Lab has been essential to this research. Natalie Gyenes and Anushka Shah provided research insights and Media Cloud expertise. Rahul Bhargava, Linas Valiukas, and Cindy Bishop built the platform that made this work possible. John Kelly and Vlad Barash provided important insights into the role of social media in the election, leading us to new hypotheses and ideas that shaped the paper’s development. Matt Higgins helped lay a firm foundation of thought and hypotheses upon which this work was completed. Philipp Nowak provided valuable early research assistance. Participants of Data & Society’s Propaganda & Media Manipulation Workshop in May 2017 provided valuable feedback and critical cross-examination that helped steer this paper to its final version. Thanks to Anthony Nadler for particularly helpful feedback on an early draft of this study. This study was funded by the Open Society Foundations U.S. Programs. Media Cloud has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations. Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, & Yochai Benkler Authors 23 Everett Street • Second Floor • Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 +1 617.495.7547 • +1 617.495.7641 (fax) cyber.harvard.edu • [email protected] Permanent link: https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud v 1.3, updated August 24, 2017 Report Design: Ambit Creative Layout: Daniel Dennis Jones This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 International License Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University 2 ABOUT MEDIA CLOUD The Media Cloud project is an open platform for the qualitative and quantitative study of online media. Media Cloud archives and analyzes hundreds of millions of stories published online and makes that data available through a suite of web tools as well as an API, both freely available to the public and implemented through an open source code base. The project is a joint effort by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the MIT Center for Civic Media. https://mediacloud.org/ Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 Overview of Methods 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS 6 INTRODUCTION 17 METHODS 23 STRUCTURE & CONTENT: THE EMERGENCE AND COMPOSITION OF MEDIA SPHERES 25 NEWS & MEDIA ON THE OPEN WEB 26 STRUCTURE & SALIENCE: A VIEW FROM SOCIAL MEDIA 32 CONTINUITY & CHANGE: THE LINK ECONOMY IN 2012 37 MEDIA STRUCTURE & PARTISANSHIP 39 Polarization Rising 41 A STRUCTURAL VIEW OF PARTISAN MEDIA 43 ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF PARTISANSHIP 52 REALIGNMENTS IN PARTISAN MEDIA: COMPARING 2014 AND 2016 55 NICHES IN ONLINE MEDIA 58 Salience, Credibility, & Authority 63 INSULARITY & CROSS-PARTISAN ENGAGEMENT 71 MEDIA PARTISANSHIP & THE LINK ECONOMY 79 The Drudge Report 81 MEDIA COVERAGE OF ELECTION ISSUES: IMMIGRATION, EMAILS, & NEGATIVE COVERAGE 84 Link Economy Focus 85 Topics & Scandals 88 IMMIGRATION 90 The Alt-Right & Immigration 100 BREITBART, FOX NEWS, & INFLUENCE IN CONSERVATIVE MEDIA 101 DYNAMICS OF NETWORK PROPAGANDA: CLINTON FOUNDATION CASE STUDY 105 Capturing Mainstream Media: Steve Bannon Harnesses the New York Times 106 Clinton Foundation Within the Right-Wing Ecosystem: Saudis, Muslims, & Russians 120 Network Propaganda & Disinformation 128 CONCLUSION 130 APPENDIX 1: METHODS 132 APPENDIX 2: MASS-MARKET MEDIA LIST 136 APPENDIX 3: TOP MEDIA 137 Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction In this study, we analyze both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election. We document that the majority of mainstream media coverage was negative for both candidates, but largely followed Donald Trump’s agenda: when reporting on Hillary Clinton, coverage primarily focused on the various scandals related to the Clinton Foundation and emails. When focused on Trump, major substantive issues, primarily immigration, were prominent. Indeed, immigration emerged as a central issue in the campaign and served as a defining issue for the Trump campaign. We find that the structure and composition of media on the right and left are quite different. The leading media on the right and left are rooted in different traditions and journalistic practices. On the conservative side, more attention was paid to pro-Trump, highly partisan media outlets. On the liberal side, by contrast, the center of gravity was made up largely of long-standing media organizations steeped in the traditions and practices of objective journalism. Our data supports lines of research on polarization in American politics that focus on the asymmetric patterns between the left and the right, rather than studies that see polarization as a general historical phenomenon, driven by technology or other mechanisms that apply across the partisan divide. The analysis includes the evaluation and mapping of the media landscape from several perspectives and is based on large-scale data collection of media stories published on the web and shared on Twitter. Overview of Methods • Cross-linking patterns between media sources offer a view of authority and prominence within the media world. • The sharing of media sources by users on Twitter and Facebook provides a broader perspective on the role and influence of media sources among people engaged in politics through Twitter and Facebook. • The differential media sharing patterns of Trump and Clinton supporters on Twitter enable a detailed analysis of the role of partisanship in the formation and function of media structures. • Content analysis using automated tools supports the tracking of topics over time among media sources. • Qualitative media analysis of individual case studies enhances our understanding of media function and structure. Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS Donald Trump succeeded in shaping the election agenda. Coverage of Trump overwhelmingly outperformed coverage of Clinton. Clinton’s coverage was focused on scandals, while Trump’s coverage focused on his core issues. 100000 80000 60000 70000 40000 60000 Number of sentences 20000 50000 0 40000 Trump - Scandal Trump - Issue 30000 Clinton - Issue Clinton - Scandal 20000 10000 Number of sentences 0 Trump - Jobs Clinton - Email Clinton - Trade Clinton - Jobs Trump - TradeTrump - Taxes Trump - Russia Trump - Women Clinton - Benghazi Trump - University Trump - Foundation Clinton - Foundation Clinton - Immigration Trump - Immigration Figure 1: Number of sentences by topic and candidate from May 1, 2015, to November 7, 2016 Attempts by the Clinton campaign to define her campaign on competence, experience, and policy positions were drowned out by coverage of alleged improprieties associated with the Clinton Foundation and emails. Coverage of Trump associated with immigration, jobs, and trade was greater than that on his personal scandals. Partisanship, Propaganda, & Disinformation: Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University 6 Immigration and Muslims/Islam were the two most widely covered substantive issues of the campaign. 40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 Number of sentences 5000 0 Race Trade Guns Policing