"African American voters. Messaging to African Americans sought to divert their political energy away from established political institutions by preying on anger with structural inequalities faced by African Americans, including police violence, poverty, and disproportionate levels of incarceration. These campaigns pushed a message that the best way to advance the cause of the African American community was to boycott the election and focus on other issues instead. This often happened through the use of repetitive slogans. This accounts for the majority of content in the dataset that targeted this group.
Conservative and right-wing voters. Messaging to conservative and right-wing voters sought to do three things: repeat patriotic and anti-immigrant slogans; elicit outrage with posts about liberal appeasement of “others” at the expense of US citizens; and encourage them to vote for Trump. Messaging to this 19 segment of voters focused on divisive, and at times prejudiced and bigoted, statements about minorities, particularly Muslims. Well documented anti-Muslim tropes are present in both the ads and organic posts (for example claims about the burqa, blanket statements about Muslims as terrorists and sexual deviants). Messaging also focused on pro-gun supporters and various strains of patriotic nationalism, in the form of Texan and Southern identity. Veterans & policing were important subjects of IRA messaging, often in the context of allegations of poor treatment of veterans by the Obama administration, in comparison to how well refugees were allegedly treated. Often, the IRA used unsourced numbers to persuade their audiences of this.
LGBT and liberal voters. Messaging to these groups utilized the same types of symbolic politics of slogans encountered with African Americans. Here, ongoing current events seemed to play an important role and were framed with antagonism towards groups that are perceived as anti-gay (for example certain religious groups, certain segments of conservative and right-wing voters). While there was a limited amount of discussion that sought to drive some of these voters towards Bernie Sanders or third parties, patterns of trying to reduce trust in the political system were more apparent. Claims meant to demerit Hillary Clinton are occasionally peppered into this content, but are relatively infrequent. We interpret messaging to this group as an attempt to increase polarization between liberals and conservatives around LGBT rights, a well-known wedge issue between these groups.
Mexican American voters. Messaging to this group was limited until after the 2016 election, when the Brown Power campaign, run by the IRA, began to gain momentum. There is the repetition of the same themes as with African American voters, again geared towards increasing distrust and cynicism about the US political system. Coverage of issues such as deportation and treatment of migrants, as well as discrimination against them, were important themes. However, as is the case with African American voters, the majority of content tends to focus on slogans about identity that might resonate with this group.
Muslim American voters. Messaging to this group was somewhat different than that of other identity groups. The main IRA page that targeted this community tended to promote positive narratives about Islam and Muslims (for example the values of the religion and its members, its history, and denouncements of terrorist attacks, as well as best wishes sent to victims of attacks in the US and abroad). While this does mirror some of the common discourse of Muslim Americans, it does not use the same kind of slogans that might resonate with Muslim Americans as was done with African Americans or Mexican Americans. It does, however, repeat the themes of suspicion towards the US government, particularly by drawing on US foreign policy. Some anti-Clinton content is peppered in, as it was with LGBT and liberal voters, but there are also a few pro-Clinton messages in the organic posts.
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