Computational Propaganda Threatening Democracy in the EU - A Mixed-method Analysis of european Right-wing News Outlets on Instagram in 2019

My analysis provides little support for the claim that Instagram’s algorithm is exploited in an attempt to increase the exposure to RNQs’ content/narratives or instill users with a fake sense of organic support, by employing bots to amplify their messages and enlarge their following. Although at first glance, it appears like bots make up a substantial amount of their followers, compared to other established media, their number is not significant, but rather a representation of the overall inauthentic bot population on the SMP. Among the inspected outlets, only the Italian outlet “ilGiornale” exhibited abnormal metrics throughout all steps of the analysis and is therefore considered to benefit from CP methods. Since this RNQ has not uploaded any content to Instagram since May 2019 and only has 16 posts in total, an increased exposure to their content is considered to be no threat to democratic deliberation. Rather, even without CP, it is an emerging right-wing media ecosystem that...Show moreMy analysis provides little support for the claim that Instagram’s algorithm is exploited in an attempt to increase the exposure to RNQs’ content/narratives or instill users with a fake sense of organic support, by employing bots to amplify their messages and enlarge their following. Although at first glance, it appears like bots make up a substantial amount of their followers, compared to other established media, their number is not significant, but rather a representation of the overall inauthentic bot population on the SMP. Among the inspected outlets, only the Italian outlet “ilGiornale” exhibited abnormal metrics throughout all steps of the analysis and is therefore considered to benefit from CP methods. Since this RNQ has not uploaded any content to Instagram since May 2019 and only has 16 posts in total, an increased exposure to their content is considered to be no threat to democratic deliberation. Rather, even without CP, it is an emerging right-wing media ecosystem that poses an increasing challenge to EU democracy. These findings, however, should be taken cautiously, as in the course of the empirical chapter, it becomes obvious that qualitative bot-detection models were designed for Twitter or Facebook and do not adequately take the platform-specifics of Instagram into account. Hence, the number of bots and subsequently the number of RNQ accounts that benefit from CP might actually be higher than this analysis suggests.Show less

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Computational Propaganda Threatening Democracy in the EU - A Mixed-method Analysis of european Right-wing News Outlets on Instagram in 2019