Disinformation, performed: self-presentation of a Russian IRA account on Twitter

ABSTRACT

How disinformation campaigns operate and how they fit into the broader social communication environment – which has been described as a ‘disinformation order’ [Bennett & Livingston, (2018). The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139] – represent critical, ongoing questions for political communication. We offer a thorough analysis of a highly successful disinformation account run by Russia’s Internet Research Agency: the so-called ‘Jenna Abrams’ account. We analyze Abrams’ tweets and other content such as blogposts with qualitative discourse analysis, assisted by quantitative content analysis and metadata analysis. This yields an in-depth understanding of how the IRA team behind the Abrams account presented this persona across multiple platforms and over time. Especially, we describe the techniques used to perform personal authenticity and cultural competence. The performance of personal authenticity was central to her persona building as a likeable American woman, whereas the performance of cultural competence enabled her to infiltrate American conservative communities with resonant messages. Implications for understanding disinformation processes, and how some aspects of the hybrid media system are especially vulnerable to hijacking by bad actors are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Disinformation
• self-presentation
• performance
• authenticity
• affordances
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Yiping Xia is a PhD student at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is mainly concerned with political communication and social media.

Josephine Lukito is a Ph.D. student at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying language and power in media texts. She is a mixed-methods researcher, specializing in critical discourse analysis, human-coded content analysis, and syntactic natural language processing tools.

Yini Zhang is a PhD candidate at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Chris Wells is Assistant Professor in the Division of Emerging Media Studies and Department of Journalism at Boston University. His current research explores the dynamics and dysfunctions of the digital political information system.

Sang Jung Kim is a doctoral student at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interest focuses on the interaction between technology and the politics of social identities.

Chau Tong is a doctoral candidate at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are broadly in areas of public opinion, political communication and political behavior.

ORCID

Yiping Xia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1483-2006

Notes

1. Thus, though Hogan’s (2010) contention that ‘performance’ does not capture online interactions as well as ‘exhibition’ is well-taken, in our specific case we adopt Papacharissi’s (2012) terminology of ‘performance’ to conceptualize Jenna Abrams’ self-presentation. We would like to show that in a space where all identities need to be performed – as Papacharissi and others suggest, fake ones are perfectly welcome to join in.

2. Five categories used for quantitative content analysis were not included in discourse analysis categories, though we still wrote notes when they applied.