Participatory Propaganda in Seven Simple Steps

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The three pro-Trump pages were chosen as a • Facebook page like networks. Beginning
sampling of those supporting his candidacy, with with an initial “seed” page, all of the other
one showing its open support through the name Facebook pages liked by the seed are collected
(Citizens for Trump), another having been found in a directed network of pages, meaning the
spreading fake news 13 supporting Trump (Eagle data shows which page likes which. Using
Rising), and a third standing out as a node in initial, an analytical took called Gephi, 17 these
exploratory network analysis (Wake Up & Reclaim networks can be visualised. The data in this
America).
pull also included information regarding page
categories, follower numbers, and rates of
Drawing from a Pew Research Centre survey on engagement.
Political Polarization and Media Habits 14 , seven • Facebook page posts. All of the posts made
media outlets trusted consistently by respondents by these pages during the month leading up to
who self-identified as liberal or conservative the election (7 October to 7 November 2016)
were selected. One substitute was made on the were also collected, including information
Conservative-trusted side, which was Infowars, regarding the type of post, engagement rates
given the role it played in the election. 15
and embedded links.
The following publicly available data for all of these With that, let’s look at each step of the Participatory
pages was collected using Netvizz: 16 Propaganda model in more detail.