Abstract
AbstractAfter Russia’s malicious attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election were revealed, “fake news” gained notoriety and became a popular term in political discourses and related research areas. Empirical research about fake news in diverse settings is in the beginning phase while research has revealed limitedly that “what we know about fake news so far is predominantly based on anecdotal evidence.” The purpose of this study is to investigate fake news included in politically opposing hashtag activism, #Gunreformnow and #NRA (The National Rifle Association). This study attempted to lay out the process of identifying fake news in the hashtag activism network on Twitter as a two-step process: 1) hashtag frequency analysis, top word-pair analysis, and social network analysis and 2) qualitative content analysis. This study discovered several frames through a qualitative approach. One of the prominent fake news frames was intentionally misleading information that attacks the opposing political party and its advocators. The disinformation tweets overall presented far-right wing ideologies and included multiple hashtags and a YouTube video to promote and distribute their agendas while calling for coalition of far-right wing supporters. However, the fake news tweets often failed to provide a reliable source to back up credibility of the content.
Highlights
Social media has aided in nurturing democratic communication regarding social and political events, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street movements, and Black Lives movement (Bennett, 2003; Benkler, 2006; Farrell & Drezner, 2008; O’Connor, Balasubramanyan, Routledge, & Smith, 2010) and helped the public to participate in policy and political discourses (Bessi & Ferrara, 2016)
The purpose of this study is to investigate fake news included in politically opposing hashtag activism, #Gunreformnow and #NRA (The National Rifle Association)
Considering the prevalent evidence of fake news and spreadability online (Badawy et al, 2018; Jankowski, 2018; Silverman, 2016; Vargo, Guo, & Amazeen, 2018), this study argues that the hashtag activism networks on Twitter are not free from fake news, and empirical research needs to be performed to discover fake news diffused through social media, including trendy and popular hashtags
Summary
Social media has aided in nurturing democratic communication regarding social and political events, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street movements, and Black Lives movement (Bennett, 2003; Benkler, 2006; Farrell & Drezner, 2008; O’Connor, Balasubramanyan, Routledge, & Smith, 2010) and helped the public to participate in policy and political discourses (Bessi & Ferrara, 2016). Major social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, played a significant role in conjointly framing the public’s agenda. Social media platforms were used as vehicles for manipulating public opinions (Bessi & Ferrara, 2016). During the 2016 U.S presidential election campaign, populistic political news, made-up content, and deceptive stories had been disseminated by Russian agents associated with Internet Research Agency, via social media, including Facebook and Twitter (Badawy, Ferrara, & Lerman, 2018, August). After Russia’s malicious attempts to influence the election were revealed, “fake news” gained notoriety and became a popular term in political discourses and related research areas (Badawy et al, 2018).
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