What happens when a billionaire buys the world’s digital public square and starts laundering conspiracy theories? This article examines Elon Musk’s use of memes and AI-generated images on X (formerly Twitter) following his October 2022 acquisition of the platform. It investigates how image-based posts during the 2023–24 US election cycle engaged with conspiratorial narratives and positioned them within the platform’s attention economy. Drawing on a corpus of 132 posts referencing disinformation, hoaxes or conspiracy theories, the study conducts a multimodal analysis of a purposive subsample clustered into six themes: COVID-19 and vaccine scepticism, the Springfield pet-eating hoax, Anthony Fauci mugshots, Pizzagate, QAnon and climate-change denial. Each post is coded for compositional features (imagery, typography, colour and intertextual references) and narrative strategies (humour, irony, nostalgia and paradoxical text). The analysis identifies three recurring strategies in Musk’s posting: softening conspiratorial claims through humour and irony; appropriating familiar cultural texts to lend them unwarranted legitimacy; and generating dissonance via paradoxical captions and visuals. Introducing the Affective – Algorithmic Memetic Circulation framework, the article links close visual analysis to changes in moderation and engagement-driven recommendation under Musk’s ownership, offering a transferable approach for studying multimodal conspiracy content in algorithmic environments.

Recent discussion of voting in US elections claims a strong movement of White working-class voters away from voting for Democrats, with much discussion focusing only on elections between 2012 and the present. We examine longer-term trends from 1980 to 2020 in how more and less privileged White voters-measured by household income, education, and occupational class-moved toward or away from voting Democratic. We also explore how these movements changed the shape of the relationships between these three socioeconomic indicators and voting Democratic. We find little evidence of a long-term movement away from Democrats among voters with lower income, less education, or working-class jobs, although there is some evidence of this after 2012. The clearest long-term trend is that voters in the highest decile of income, college graduates, and white-collar workers moved steadily toward voting Democratic across the 40 y. Thus, the change from negative to flat for income's relationship to voting Democratic, and from negative to positive for education's relationship to voting Democratic comes less from a movement of less privileged voters away from Democratic voting and more from a long-term movement of those in the top decile of income, college graduates, and white-collar workers toward voting Democratic. Whether the post-2012 movement away from voting Democratic among voters without a high school degree and in working-class jobs becomes an enduring trend or is idiosyncratic to Trump's candidacy is an important question for future research.

We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36,906 Facebook users and 25,925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for 6 weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. We show that most presidential ads were targeted towards parties' own supporters and that fundraising ads were the most common. On both Facebook and Instagram, we found no detectable effects of removing political ads on political knowledge, polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, political participation (including campaign contributions), candidate favourability and turnout. This was true overall and for both Democrats and Republicans separately.

<p>The 2020 US presidential election not only witnessed an onslaught of accusations that elections were fraudulent, but these accusations implicitly and explicitly utilized racial signals to cast non-White Americans as the perpetrators of voter fraud. Elite rhetoric during and after the 2020 election painted predominantly Black and Latino cities as the epicenters of voter fraud, while also suggesting non-citizens were illegally voting in elections. We argue these racially coded accusations resonated with racially polarized White Americans, decreasing their confidence in the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Using individual-level panel data to measure change in voter confidence among White Americans from 2016–2020, we find that confidence decreased between 2016 and 2020, but that this effect was more pronounced among White Americans who harbored greater racial affective polarization, with effects substantively similar to those of political measures of affective polarization. These results suggest that the racialization of election integrity in the 2020 election decreased voter confidence among the racially polarized White electorate. This study adds to a growing literature demonstrating the extent to which election racialization has permeated American politics and perceptions of electoral integrity specifically.</p>

ABSTRACT This study examines the dynamics of agenda setting among social media, traditional media, and political candidates. We draw evidence from the 2020 political campaigns led by Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the presidency of the United States, as a political marker in agenda setting dynamics. Data was gathered from different sources in the 251 days leading up to November 2, 2020. Although mainstream media display a weakened agenda setting effect, a complex interplay of intermedia agenda setting influences involving the candidates’ Twitter (X) activity, traditional media, Facebook reactions, Google search patterns and random events such as Trump’s sickness, constitute a vortex of hybrid records of salience.

This is a narrative literature review that explores how social media can be used to construct political images through the visual communication, synthesizing 52 peer-reviewed materials (2008-2025). The political communication of the modern times is dominated by visual content, which includes images, videos, memes and triggers 3.2 times more interactions than text among 5.2 billion users. Such platforms as Instagram (1.8-3.2% engagement), X (memes), Tik Tok (youth mobilization), and Facebook (reach) facilitate algorithm-enhanced, personal image creation. Semiotics (polysemous signs) and visual framing/image-bite politics (emotional encoding) and political branding/personalization theories are all integrated as theoretical backgrounds. Examples of case studies include India 2024 (Modi: [?]6.61Cr visual adverts, 100M+ followers), US (Fetterman authenticity, Trump spectacle) elections, citing platform specific strategies and traits of cross-cultural behaviours. There are positive impacts such as voter mobilization (43 per cent vote influence India youth) and parasocial bonding and heuristic decision-making. The challenges regarding the negative issues include visual misinformation (18% deepfakes), polarization (X: +34%), and algorithm echo chambers. India-Western differences emphasize the cultural symbol potency (85% vs 60%).

ABSTRACT Much is known about the factors that shape partisan campaign activism in the United States and other democracies. In contrast to this voluminous literature, political scientists have given relatively little attention to an emerging phenomenon in contemporary party politics: the mobilization via “emigrant party branches” of partisans living outside of the territorial borders of their native country. We address this gap in the literature through an analysis of Democrats Abroad—the official overseas arm of the US Democratic Party—during the 2024 election cycle. Drawing from an original two-wave panel survey of party members, we demonstrate that some of the forces that prompt campaign activism in the domestic United States hold for partisans overseas. At the same time, factors pertaining to the migration experience and settlement in another country also affect engagement in American campaigns. Most notably, we find that overseas Democrats who become integrated into the party system of their residential country are more likely to participate in American elections from the distance. This finding contributes a fresh perspective to models of political transnationalism and “campaign spillover” in electoral research—that is, the impact that partisan engagement in one context has on subsequent involvement in separate domains.

The Rise of New Personal Parties in Latin America

Political ads on streaming services have exploded in the United States. Yet, what we know about political ads on streaming services, such as Hulu or Peacock, or CTV (i.e., connected television) devices, such as Roku, is minimal. In this research, we examine what is known about the regulation of ads on streaming services and CTV devices based on a systematic review of the published policies of the providers. We first examine federal regulations that pertain to advertising on CTV, including rules surrounding transparency and disclosure. We then examine the policies of those streaming services and devices that sell this advertising. Finally, we examine the minimal data available on spending on CTV and streaming ads. We conclude that incomplete reporting mandates mean that a significant portion of ads relevant to federal elections are likely unreported in any capacity, most specifically from dark money groups. Additionally, reporting mandates at the federal level for candidates, parties, and political action committees do not allow for accurate summaries of ad spending across digital platforms, making it incredibly difficult to get a complete picture of the scale and scope of ad spending in American elections.

Unlike past studies that examine whether fact-checking can counter conspiratorial belief, we reverse the lens to investigate if fact-checking itself prompts conspiracy belief. Our study occurs in the days immediately preceding the 2024 US election. Shortly thereafter, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg abandoned Facebook’s third-party program altogether, arguing fact-checkers “have destroyed more trust than they have created.” We provide timely insight into fact-checking concerns using a preregistered online survey-based experiment of US Facebook users’ ( n = 2,409), randomly assigned to view either a generic Facebook fact-check (treatment) or a Facebook login screen. Results show no overall effects of third-party fact-checking on users’ propensity for conspiratorial beliefs. However, when individuals with high conspiracy mentality and strong conservative identification encounter a fact-check, they are more likely to endorse Facebook-related conspiracy beliefs. We also observe a three-way interaction among political independents with high and low conspiracy beliefs, where fact-checking potentially triggers or reduces such beliefs.

Deep Fake is a technology which was invented by Ian Goodfellow. The Deep Fake works with generative adversarial networks (GANs). It is an algorithm which classifies data into creating images or generating them. In this scenario, two GANs try to trick each other into thinking that the image is real; the usage of the actual image is very little, and GAN can create a different version of that person. There have been many controversies around this technology which have been affecting society, e.g., the US election, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. There have been several research efforts conducted on finding methods to deduce the negative effects of deep fake. This assignment will focus on finding the solution to deepfake attacks and what potential risks can be seen in such attacks. The impact of this attack will also be elaborated and what kind of techniques can be used to help in recovering an organization.

Abstract In the United States in 2020 and early 2021, two historic crises relating to public health and election administration placed significant stresses on democratic institutions and civil servants, and contributed to the erosion of democratic accountability standards and the promulgation of democratic backsliding. Employing critical events analysis, a set of seven democratic accountability standards serve as benchmarks against which detailed timelines for each event are assessed. The study concludes that both critical events contributed to the erosion of democratic accountability standards, particularly seen in the failures of public leaders to demonstrate forbearance toward democratic institutions; to respect and defer to the professional discretion of career civil servants; and to draw on truth claims and evidence to guide decisions and actions. Implications for the present state of American democracy and public administration are considered.

ABSTRACT Russia has repeatedly faced allegations of interfering in US elections through cyber and information operations. While the existence of these operations is well-documented, little is known about how Russian state-sponsored cyber proxies strategically counter these accusations on social media. In this article, I analyze 3,424 tweets from 287 Russian proxy accounts identified by X (formerly Twitter), focusing on their responses to election interference claims between 2010 and 2020. Using topic modeling, cluster analysis, and rhetorical analysis, I uncover sophisticated tactics employed by these proxies, including narrative control, strategic retweeting, and reactive engagement, designed to amplify doubt, discredit accusers, and deepen social divisions. My findings highlight the nuanced ways in which state-sponsored proxies leverage social media dynamics to manipulate public perceptions. This study informs contemporary policy debates around misinformation and platform governance, providing valuable insights for safeguarding democratic processes against state-backed disinformation campaigns.

The year 2024 was marked by an unprecedented confluence of elections around the world, with more than 50% of the world’s population called upon to vote on the future of their governments; perhaps most important of these was the presidential election in the United States in November 2024, which saw Donald Trump returned to the Presidency – an outcome whose immense consequences are already being felt strongly around the world, mere months into the new administration’s term. In particular, Trump’s victory and his immediate upending of the rule of law at home and world order abroad impacts directly on major subsequent elections elsewhere in the world, including in closely allied nations like Germany (whose federal election took place in February 2025) and Australia (where a federal election is scheduled for April or May 2025). The resurgence of Trumpism emboldened extreme right parties like Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which attracted over 20% of the popular vote in the 2025 election; and Trump’s threats of import tariffs and wavering support for international alliances are emerging as a key topic in the 2025 Australian election campaign. These developments are further exacerbated by substantial changes in online campaigning environments and strategies. Social media platform operators like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have closely aligned themselves with the Trump administration (or in Musk’s case, joined it outright), in part to seek protection against European Union and other regulations that require action against disinformation, abuse, and hate speech, and enforce transparency and researcher data access; they have dismantled their content moderation and fact-checking teams; and (in Musk’s case) are actively disseminating disinformation, hate speech, and extremist content. This has also opened the door for other political agitators and influence operators to push problematic materials, including conspiracy theories and AI-generated disinformation. Finally, the changing platform landscape – marked by the gradual decline of Facebook, a steady exodus from X under Musk’s leadership, the rapid rise of TikTok, and the emergence of federated Twitter alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky – also necessitates substantial changes in electoral campaigning on the one hand, and in campaign research methods on the other. This panel brings together five papers from major research teams that trace these developments through the US, German, and Australian elections of 2024 and 2025. They provide new insights into the changing electoral campaigning environments of the present moment, and offer new approaches for how we can conduct such research under these changed circumstances. Paper 1 addresses the 2024 US presidential election, and explores in particular how the digital advertising funded by Elon Musk engaged in targeted disinformation of key voter groups. Scraping data from the Meta Ad Library and Google Ad Transparency Center, it documents substantial efforts to pollute the information environment with such content. Paper 2 shifts our attention to the 2025 German election. It explores the strategies of political campaigners for embracing TikTok, and especially the interlinkage between political talk show appearances and the talking points presented in campaign videos on TikTok – a platform which serves both to trial such talking points for use in talk shows, and to redistribute television clips of talk show appearances afterwards. Paper 3 continues our focus on the role of TikTok in the German election, but shifts the emphasis to the experience of ordinary users. Drawing on more than 300 data donations from German TikTok users, it examines their exposure to political content on the platform, explores the role of TikTok’s algorithms in pushing users towards specific videos, and investigates whether such algorithmic amplification is asymmetrical across parties. Paper 4 extends a long tradition of research into the use of social media in Australian elections. Traditionally, Twitter and Facebook served as key campaigning spaces, but this has diversified considerably now, and the paper therefore presents an ambitious cross-platform data gathering and analysis agenda for the 2025 election. It also employs the novel practice mapping technique to examine campaigning patterns in the election. Paper 5 concludes the panel. Building on concepts from semiotic theory, it combines topic modelling, named entity recognition, part-of-speech tagging, and dependency parsing methods to systematically identify the discursive and semionarrative structures of Facebook posts by and comments to the leading candidates in the 2022 and 2025 Australian elections, exploring differences between candidates and changes over time. In combination, then, these five papers examine election campaigning on social media across three major national elections, drawing on innovative conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches and applying them to a wide range of platforms and practices. They offer critical new insights into the state of social media campaigning, and important impulses for future research agendas in a rapidly changing world. Individual extended abstracts for these five papers are included in the PDF submission.

AI has significantly affected different aspects of governance while its effects on the values of democracies have raised global concern. This paper concerns how different AI systems, particularly deepfakes, predictive analytics, and misinformation, are utilized to sway voters in democratic processes. With AI's ability to handle large amounts of data and generate convincing but fake content, AI is a strategic asset for political actors seeking to determine voters' choices. A recent example can be considered the 2024 Indian General Election in which artificial intelligence impacts a democratic context. From political ads targeted based on social, economic, and behavioural data to AI-based chatbots for engaging the voters, AI has redrawn the map of political communication. However, at the same time, it was instrumental to people's practical lives, AI was a source of fake news such as the fake videos of Bollywood stars giving their opinions on political leaders. The famous scandal with Cambridge Analytical also presents another significant example to which ethical issues connected with AI and Big data relate. Although it is a British consultancy firm, it stole the personal data of millions of Facebook users unlawfully for political advertising to manipulate important elections including the presidential elections in the United States in 2016 and the Brexit elections. This case makes it clear why the use of personal data for political purposes is an ethical and regulatory concern. During the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, this research discovered that deepfake AI with political figures as subjects has led to the manipulation of the democratic process. Consequently, this paper proposes the necessity of a broad over-evaluation of the integrity of democracy in the AI context and investigates the demand for the legislation regulation of potential threats of AI manipulation to democracy.

Abstract Written by graduate students in George Mason University's Folklore Studies program, this collaborative essay reflects on the intersection of academic life, political instability, and professional identity in the wake of the 2024 presidential election in the United States. It explores how the current political climate endangers core folkloristic values—community, diversity, and cultural expression—while simultaneously reinforcing the importance of solidarity and resilience. Through personal narrative, the authors articulate the precarity faced by emerging folklorists, particularly in proximity to federal institutions and under shifting ideological pressures. They call for greater collaboration across academic and public spheres, emphasizing humor, creative expression, and grassroots engagement as tools for resistance and continuity. Ultimately, the essay asserts the enduring relevance of folklore as both a methodology and a mode of survival, and positions the authors as committed participants in sustaining the field through collective action and care.

This article explores the strategic role of Russian disinformation in undermining electoral integrity in the EU and the US. Focusing on the 2016 and 2020 US elections, Brexit, and the 2017 French elections, the paper identifies core disinformation tactics, including bots, targeted content, and information leaks. Using case studies and content analysis, the study reveals how these campaigns disrupted specific elections and eroded long-term public trust. The findings show that current responses, such as the EU’s Action Plan Against Disinformation, the DSA, and NATO StratCom, remain insufficient. Key obstacles include weak coordination, underdeveloped detection systems, and superficial media literacy initiatives. The article advocates for a paradigm shift from reactive to preventive strategy, rooted in ethical communication, public resilience, and cross-sectoral collaboration. Framed within the logic of hybrid threats and algorithmic manipulation, the paper underscores the urgency of a comprehensive, future-facing defence against information warfare. Keywords: Algorithmic manipulation, disinformation, electoral integrity, hybrid threats, public trust, strategic communication

Abstract Redistricting plays a critical role in structuring the competitive terrain of American elections and shaping the quality of democratic representation. While often viewed as a routine administrative task, the redrawing of electoral boundaries is a deeply political process that can significantly influence who runs for office, who wins, and how voters are represented. This article examines the relationship between redistricting and electoral competition, with a particular focus on how partisan gerrymandering, legal rulings, and institutional reforms have influenced the fairness and integrity of the redistricting process. Tracing its historical roots and evolution, the analysis explores how legislatures, courts, and independent commissions construct district maps and the downstream effects these configurations have on incumbent entrenchment, voter behavior, and partisan polarization. By investigating the trade-offs between fair representation and competitive elections, this article illuminates how institutional design choices shape electoral outcomes and democratic legitimacy. In doing so, it underscores the enduring significance of redistricting as a source of political contestation and reform in the ongoing struggle to strengthen American democracy.

Abstract Do appeals to Black voters necessarily detract white voters from supporting the left? Extant studies have yielded mixed answers to this question by examining voter turnout data. We use two survey experiments to test how framing politicians as either supportive of or hostile to the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) and #SayHerName (SHN) movements affected the willingness of voters to support them during the 2020 Senate runoff elections in Georgia. We find that Democratic-leaning respondents in both a national sample of Black respondents and a sample of White respondents in Georgia were more likely to support politicians whom we framed as supportive of the BLM and SHN movements. These findings illustrate the potential potency of messaging strategies grounded in racial justice themes for mobilizing Democratic-leaning voters in American elections.

This paper investigates the feasibility, efficiency, and broader sociocultural implications of adopting electronic voting (e-voting) as the sole legal method for presidential elections in the United States. While e-voting is frequently promoted as a modern solution for enhancing electoral accessibility and administrative convenience, its complete replacement of traditional voting methods raises complex questions about security, trust, and democratic participation. This study evaluates whether e-voting systems are sufficiently reliable to function as the exclusive mode of voting by examining their technical performance, susceptibility to cyberthreats, and the institutional capacity required for nationwide implementation. To contextualize the U.S. experience, the paper also reviews international cases such as Estonia, Brazil, and Switzerland, where e-voting has been adopted in varying forms, highlighting lessons relevant to digital governance and public confidence. Additionally, the study analyzes public attitudes toward e-voting, drawing on national surveys and opinion polls, and explores trends in electronic voter participation over recent election cycles. By synthesizing empirical evidence, comparative insights, and social perspectives, the paper offers a critical assessment of whether transitioning to a fully digital voting system could strengthen or undermine democratic engagement in the digital age.