Types of Astroturfing campaigns of disinformative and polarised content in times of pandemic in Spain

The paper seeks to determine the application of Astroturfing strategies on Twitter in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. Statistical analysis, network analysis and machine learning techniques are used to evaluate approximately 32,527 messages published from the state of alarm decree in Spain (14 March, 2020) until the end of May of the same year, associated with eight tags that address issues related to misleading content identified by two of the main factchecking projects (Maldito Bulo and Newtral). Data allow us to observe the participation of users (not bots) who play the role of influencers despite having an average profile or a profile that is far from being considered a public personality. The application of Astroturfing can be seen as a communication strategy used to position issues on social networks through the distribution, amplification and flooding of disinformation. The scenario allows us to verify the presence of a digital communication scenario that would favour a framework difficult to detect, from strategies such as the one studied, aimed at breaking the echo chamber and filter bubble of social networks, with the aim of positioning issues at the level of public opinion. © 2023 Scientific Association Icono14. All rights reserved.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Presidential Tweets, the U.S.–U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Humanitarian Intervention, and China's Bilateral Relations

" Words Matter: Presidents Obama and Trump, Twitter, and U.S. Soft Power. Graph [9] concentrate on the issues that soured the initial optimism for a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement between President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson which did not come to its planned fruition by 2020. EN Social Media Foreign Policy Twitter Soft Power Obama Trump Boris Johnson Humanitarian Intervention President Clinton Bosnia Kosovo China Sri-Lanka Kazakhstan South Korea ASEAN Sub-Saharan Africa Information Technology. NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Presidential Tweets, the U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Humanitarian Intervention, and China's Bilateral Relations. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of World Affairs is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Politicians and immigration on Facebook: how the migration discourse is (de)legitimized during the health emergency

In this article we analyse how the immigration issue is narrated during the Covid-19 outbreak by several Italian political actors. We select Facebook as the main digital arena of political communication in the Italian public sphere. Quantitative analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis have been applied to politicians' posts aiming at identifying the linguistic strategies that contribute to instrumentalizing the emergency and aim to reinforce the politicization of the issue. Findings suggest that the main discursive strategies used by politicians do not only include migrants as a danger for the spread of the virus, but the migratory narration is systematically organized on negative campaigning blaming political opponents. The contribution helps to reveal how the anti-migration discourse is reproduced during the Covid-19 outbreak and how the politicization of the migration serves as a context for the normalization of migrant's exclusion.

Manipulation as an element of the political process in social networks

The relevance of the research comes from the extent of the influence of information and communication technologies in socially significant areas, where the manipulation of public consciousness, in the Internet space, particularly in social networks, is an obvious phenomenon. The aim of the study was to discuss the opinion that the main driving factor in the use of social networks, as a proven platform for the manipulation of public consciousness, has been increased by social restrictions on personal contacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. General and special research methods were employed to achieve the stated objective. It is concluded that, despite the obvious advantages of the use of social networks in the political process, the political manipulations that currently exist in the virtual environment are often of a destructive nature and carry hidden symbolic threats to destabilize the life of a given country, as well as to worsen the quality of life of each of its citizens. Most of the time, political manipulations in the virtual environment take place at various stages of the electoral process.

About Face: Hypocrites and Outliers in Canadian News Coverage of Masking and Anti-Masking During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has generated renewed public debate about different forms of masking. In this article I analyze news frames that circulated in English-language Canadian news outlets throughout 2020, performing an informal discourse analysis of coverage of Quebec's secularism law, Bill 21, alongside coverage of two anti-mask protests held in Aylmer, Ontario. In the case of Bill 21, I argue that the predominant frame that shaped coverage was one of hypocrisy, which foregrounded the discriminatory nature of the legislation but obscured the Christian cultural politics otherwise embedded in the law. In the case of the Aylmer marches, I argue that news coverage centered on the role of the religious outlier, particularly through attention to outspoken Church of God Restoration pastor Rev. Henry Hildebrandt. This frame amplified Hildebrandt's political statements but downplayed the more quotidian role of conservative Christianity in shaping some anti-mask sentiment. In both cases I argue that attending to the Christian cultural politics which were obscured by dominant news frames can help us better understand the persistent role of religion in shaping public discourse.

The interweaving of influences The pandemic and the communication strategies of 12 actors through their accounts Facebook

The COVID-19 pandemic has monopolized communication and media information for months, becoming the first global social fact in the digital age. In a new and redefined communicative space, characterized by the pervasive presence of digital media, each information source needs to establish a specific positioning strategy in the crowded communication field. The article aims at investigating the impact of those processes on the production, spread and use of institutional information. It focuses the attention on the "communicative behaviors" of 12 Italian institutional, political and media players, analyzing their contents' production, the intensity and characteristics of this production and the communicative resources they used in managing their Facebook pages/profiles. In order to outline the players' digital strategies and to frame their positioning in the public sphere, different metrics were analyzed and the possible and meaningful connections among the different players and strategies were considered. From this study, a dense interweaving of voices seems to emerge, attesting the complexity of the communicative space, but also the "functionality" of each voice in a sort of inter-relational attitude.

From strategy to veracity: the behaviour of Spanish political leaders at the beginning of the vaccination against COVID-19

Twitter has become the Internet social network of choice for most political leaders and its use was sig-nificant during the hardest months of COVID-19. This paper analyzes the effects that the speeches of the main political leaders in Spain have had on the management of the communication of COVID-19, in order to verify how their speech has influenced transparency and the increase in disinformation in this moment. Likewise, these data will allow us to observe which communication techniques have been used by the most representative figures linked to the management of the pandemic. Based on a triple approach methodolo-gical basis, a quantitative, qualitative and discursive content analysis will be carried out, analyzing the data with the SPSS tool, version 25. The results obtained show how institutional sources have propagated opinionated content on Twitter. more than informative. We also verify that the saturation of messages in the network has given rise to a greater use of fallacy mechanisms by the institutional subjects analyzed and, therefore, it has been possible to determine that the way in which communication has been managed about COVID-19 has contributed to the increase in misinformation. Hand in hand with the new emerging narra-tives, social technology and artificial intelligence to know the citizen opinion of the transparency portals.

Multilevel governance and political leadership: crisis communication in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic

Consistency in crisis communication is a key aspect of effective political leadership during crises, but can be difficult in multilevel systems due to the number of leaders and fragmentation of policymaking powers. The literature on multilevel governance suggests that centralisation enhances consistency in crisis communication while decentralisation leads to inconsistency. Consistency in crisis communication is also expected to depend on whether leaders coordinate crisis management. Comparing crisis communication in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper shows that centralisation does not automatically lead to consistent crisis communication. At the same time, decentralised decision making does not necessarily undermine consistency. Overall, crisis communication tends to be more consistent when leaders coordinate crisis management. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Linking Word Use and Personality Characteristics: A Contrastive Study into Parliamentary Communications of Labour Leaders Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer

Over the past thirty years, Russian linguistic studies have noted terminological heterogeneity in the concepts of "jazykovaja lichnost” and "kommunikativnaja lichnost”, literally "linguistic personality” and "communicative personality”, however, in the field of political communication, due to the inextricable connection of political discourse with the socio-cultural, historical, or political context that constructs it, their differentiation was observed rather than interchangeability. This research seeks to characterise "kommunikativnaja lichnost”, a key concept in linguopersonology. The evidence base is parliamentary speeches of Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer, previous and current leaders of the Labor Party of Great Britain. The results of a qualitative analysis have been verified through the Sketch Engine content analysis program, and they demonstrate how a politician's rhetoric can change depending on situational factors — in this case, the foreign political situation and domestic political processes. The overarching theme of the politicians' communications is the termination of the UK's membership in the European Union and the protracted coronavirus pandemic, which is the root of all social and economic ills. The words frequently used by Corbyn and Starmer are predetermined by the communicative behaviours of the politicians. The article attempts to determine the ‘communicative personality' of Corbin and Starman using the leadership typology proposed by Harold Lasswell. This work thus contributes to the development of linguopersonology provisions and raises the necessity to develop types of the ‘communicative personality' of a politician. Given the analysis results, the article suggests interpreting the Russian concept ‘kommunikativnaja lichnost' as ‘linking word use and personality characteristics'. © 2023, RUDN UNiversity.

Official Information on Twitter during the Pandemic in Spain

This article shows the use of Twitter that the main official spokespersons of the Spanish government made during the first weeks of the pandemic, with the aim of analyzing how government health campaigns were managed during the exceptional period of the state of alarm to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and whether the instructions in terms of institutional management of communication to combat the infodemic set by the World Health Organization (WHO) were followed. This research considers the diffusion of official information in different phases of the first three months of the government's action (102 days) from the outbreak of COVID-19 in Spain (March 2020) and how it developed its approach to crisis communication using the Twitter accounts of the President of the Spanish government (@sanchezcastejon), front-line leaders and the Ministry of Health (@sanidadgob), the main public institution responsible for health crisis management with the hashtags #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos and #COVID-19. The results of a sample of 750 tweets reveal how the official sources used a model of online communication with a particular emphasis on informative and motivational tweets from leaders aimed at audiences (media and the general public). At the same time, there is also an instructive function about the pandemic towards audiences (general public and companies), with the Ministry and health authorities playing a key, proactive role in an attempt to achieve informative transparency to mitigate the pandemic and infodemic.

Populist Communication in a Time of Global Pandemic: Understanding 'Post-truth Populism' During COVID-19

Populism and the post-truth: two concepts often used simultaneously or interchangeably to explain current developments in contemporary politics, yet the demarcation line between them remains blurry. Building on definitions of populism that describe it as a style of political communication, 'post-truth populism' can be regarded as a specific type of populist communication which shares the characteristics of post-truth politics. How the two phenomena intertwine, and how the aesthetic transformation of the public sphere and the rise of social media had a role in their appearance will be discussed. The theoretical framework is illustrated by two cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I politici e l'immigrazione su Facebook: come si (de)legittima il discorso migratorio durante l'emergenza sanitaria

In this article we analyse how the immigration issue is narrated during the Covid-19 outbreak by several Italian political actors. We select Facebook as the main digital arena of political communication in the Italian public sphere. Quantitative analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis have been applied to politicians' posts aiming at identifying the linguistic strategies that contribute to instrumentalizing the emergency and aim to reinforce the politicization of the issue. Findings suggest that the main discursive strategies used by politicians do not only include migrants as a danger for the spread of the virus, but the migratory narration is systematically organized on negative campaigning blaming political opponents. The contribution helps to reveal how the anti-migration discourse is reproduced during the Covid-19 outbreak and how the politicization of the migration serves as a context for the normalization of migrant's exclusion.

Female political leadership styles as shown on Instagram during COVID-19.

This paper explores the leadership styles of fourteen elected female politicians in executive government positions, as communicated through the official Instagram accounts that were in use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven of them are, or were, heads of government, six are or were mayors, and one is the president of an autonomous region in Spain. These women are Angela Merkel (Germany), Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand), Sanna Marin (Finland), Mette Frederiksen (Denmark), Erna Solberg (Norway), Katrin Jakobsdottir (Iceland), Tsai Ing-Wen (Taiwan), Anne Hidalgo (Paris), Virginia Raggi (Rome), Ada Colau (Barcelona), Claudia López (Bogotá), Claudia Sheinbaum (Mexico City), London Breed (San Francisco) and Isabel Díaz Ayuso (Madrid Region). A comparative content analysis of 2,330 units was conducted over a 6-month period. The study analyses the hard or soft leadership style conveyed by the women politicians selected in relation to four variables: political ideology, generational affiliation, level of government and techniques used in communication. The results show that the values of the variables affect leadership styles;therefore, the assumption that all female politicians have a single leadership style is erroneous and related to gender stereotyping. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] Este trabajo realiza una exploración de los estilos de liderazgo comunicados en las cuentas oficiales de Instagram por catorce mujeres políticas electas en cargos gubernamentales ejecutivos, con actuación durante la pandemia de la COVID-19. Siete son o han sido jefas de gobierno, seis alcaldesas, y una presidenta de una comunidad autónoma en España. Ellas son Angela Merkel (Alemania), Jacinda Ardern (Nueva Zelanda), Sanna Marin (Finlandia), Mette Frederiksen (Dinamarca), Erna Solberg (Noruega), Katrin Jakobsdottir (Islandia), Tsai Ing-Wen (Taiwan), Anne Hidalgo (París), Virginia Raggi (Roma), Ada Colau (Barcelona), Claudia López (Bogotá), Claudia Sheinbaum (Ciudad de México), London Breed (San Francisco) e Isabel Díaz Ayuso (Comunidad de Madrid). La técnica de investigación utilizada es el análisis comparado y de contenido aplicado a 2.330 unidades de análisis durante un periodo de seis meses. El estudio analiza el estilo de liderazgo duro o blando comunicado por las lideresas con relación a cuatro variables: ideología política, pertenencia generacional, nivel de gobierno y técnicas usadas en la comunicación. Los resultados evidencian que los valores de las variables afectan a los estilos de liderazgo, por tanto, la suposición de que las mujeres políticas tienen un único estilo de liderazgo es errónea y atiende a un estereotipo de género. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Comunicar is the property of Grupo Comunicar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

El meme como ágora digital del lenguaje político contemporáneo. El caso del movimiento 21N y 11S en Colombia

On November 21st, 2019 (21N), Colombia experienced one of the most shocking social mobilizations in history. The effervescence of the mobilization was neutralized by the social isolation generated by COVID-19 and challenged on September 11th, 2020 (9S), after the murder of a citizen due to excessive use of force by law enforcement. However, civil society resisted the coercive measures of the pandemic and the state violence with viral memes as a synthetic, hyperbolic, and ironic expression of reality. In this regard, the objective of the article is to analyze how memes, from iconic, semantic, and humorous perspectives, catalyze the understanding of social protests and mobilize a global trend to reinforce criticism of political and economic power, from digital activism. The methodology of multimodal analysis is worked with a corpus of 201 memes. The results show how the meme transforms an instant message, into discursive practices that criticize the action or inertia of state and private institutions. In conclusion, it is proposed that although memes are not a guarantee of a transformation of reality, they do revitalize traditional social mobilizations that seek social empathy from the public sphere. © 2022 Universidad Nacional de Colombia. All rights reserved.

Evolving Face Mask Guidance During a Pandemic and Potential Harm to Public Perception: Infodemiology Study of Sentiment and Emotion on Twitter.

BACKGROUND: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention policies on face mask use fluctuated. Understanding how public health communications evolve around key policy decisions may inform future decisions on preventative measures by aiding the design of communication strategies (eg, wording, timing, and channel) that ensure rapid dissemination and maximize both widespread adoption and sustained adherence. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess how sentiment on masks evolved surrounding 2 changes to mask guidelines: (1) the recommendation for mask use on April 3, 2020, and (2) the relaxation of mask use on May 13, 2021. METHODS: We applied an interrupted time series method to US Twitter data surrounding each guideline change. Outcomes were changes in the (1) proportion of positive, negative, and neutral tweets and (2) number of words within a tweet tagged with a given emotion (eg, trust). Results were compared to COVID-19 Twitter data without mask keywords for the same period. RESULTS: There were fewer neutral mask-related tweets in 2020 (ß=-3.94 percentage points, 95% CI -4.68 to -3.21; P<.001) and 2021 (ß=-8.74, 95% CI -9.31 to -8.17; P<.001). Following the April 3 recommendation (ß=.51, 95% CI .43-.59; P<.001) and May 13 relaxation (ß=3.43, 95% CI 1.61-5.26; P<.001), the percent of negative mask-related tweets increased. The quantity of trust-related terms decreased following the policy change on April 3 (ß=-.004, 95% CI -.004 to -.003; P<.001) and May 13 (ß=-.001, 95% CI -.002 to 0; P=.008). CONCLUSIONS: The US Twitter population responded negatively and with less trust following guideline shifts related to masking, regardless of whether the guidelines recommended or relaxed mask usage. Federal agencies should ensure that changes in public health recommendations are communicated concisely and rapidly.

Comunicación gubernamental sobre el Covid-19 en México: dos estrategias discursivas

The arrival of Covid-19 in Mexico made it necessary to adopt an official version regarding how the Pandemic would affect daily life. Two versions were identified in this regard in the federal government: that of President López Obrador in his morning talks and that of Undersecretary López-Gatell, who would replicate the same format in the afternoons. For this reason, this study focused on what is considered an original model within the field of political communication, and it put emphasis on the framework proposed in said model to interpret the pandemic. After understanding both messages as part of the same paradigm, the differentiation in the message was analyzed through the construction of interlocutors in the speeches.[La llegada del Covid-19 a México hizo necesaria una versión oficial respecto a cómo afectaría la Pandemia eso que se ha dado en llamar la cotidianidad. Se identificaron dos versiones al respecto en el discurso del Gobierno federal: la del presidente López Obrador en sus conferencias mañaneras y la del subsecretario López-Gatell, quien repitió dicho formato por las tardes. Por ello, se enmarcó lo que se considera un modelo original dentro del campo de la comunicación política al mismo tiempo que se reparó en el marco que se propuso en dicho modelo para interpretar la pandemia. Luego de comprender ambos mensajes como parte de un mismo paradigma, se analizó la diferenciación en el mensaje a través de la construcción de interlocutores en los discursos.

Discourse Analysis in the speeches of Indonesian Parliamentarians about Handling COVID-19

Political communication exemplifies rhetoric and propagandist approach in its various forms, among which the Aristotle's rhetorical theory and its three aspects, ethos, pathos and logos are the major ones. This study used these three as indicators of public rhetoric in the context of Indonesian parliamentarian speeches This study used a qualitative research design, to produce descriptive data comprising sampled speech excerpts of parliamentarians. Secondary data from journals, books, documents, websites, media helped in sustaining the rhetorical criticism. The data was analyzed using data reduction techniques prior to describing, clarifying, and interpreting the data. The study took a discourse analytical approach to find out the implied ideas in the sampled speech excerpts. The theoretical dimensions explained by Wodak (2012) and Fairclough (2000a, 2000b) helped this study to analyze the linguistic data and find out the structures intended by the speakers. The study findings imply that the parliamentarians who speak on the policy of handling COVID-19 in Indonesia are largely determined by their position, whether from parties supporting the government or the opposition. The application of the Aristotelian three principles would provide useful insights to understand the objectives and impact of the political speeches.

Género y comunicación política: análisis de las publicaciones en Instagram de candidatas y candidatos durante las campañas para elecciones primarias 2021 en Argentina

Este artículo detalla los resultados de una investigación que explora las características diferenciales de la presentación de las precandidaturas en videos de Instagram, y de las candidaturas en historias y en el flujo de contenido [feed], de acuerdo con el género de los candidatos y las candidatas que compitieron durante la campaña para las elecciones legislativas 2021 en Argentina. La muestra está conformada por 265 historias, 8 videos de presentación y 86 publicaciones del flujo de contenido. Se utilizó el método de análisis de contenido cuantitativo, el cual se combinó con categorías que provienen de la sociosemiótica y de las teorías de la mediatización de la política. Los resultados muestran similitudes en los tipos de contenido más utilizados, así como diferencias entre los postulantes a legisladores según su género. Las principales diferencias se concentran en la presentación de la persona pública en los videos, en la difusión de contenidos vinculados a la participación en medios de comunicación, la frecuencia de uso de la argumentación, los contenidos que aluden al contacto con la ciudadanía y la generación de publicaciones e historias referidas a la pandemia de Covid-19.Alternate :

BETWEEN INTERFERENCE AND INTEGRATION. INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTORS ON FACEBOOK DURING THE PANDEMIC EMERGENCY

This article aims at investigating how Italian institutions and political leaders have revised their communication strategies in response to the informative needs of citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the crucial challenges during these difficult times were the local response to global issues, communicating in and outside of the institutions and managing extraordinary activities together with ordinary relationships and goals. The article addresses this scenario in an everchanging digital environment and illustrates the main findings of a wider study concerning the use of Facebook by Italian institutions and political leaders in 2020. Finally, it offers a reflection on key issues that, although arising and/or spreading during the pandemic, represent realistic future development for the institutional and political communications of the Country © 2022, Comunicazione Politica.All Rights Reserved.

Networked frame contestation from authoritarian to Western democracy – A case of China's (failed) Twiplomacy in contesting coronavirus narrative in the UK

Transnational political communication today is being reconfigured by digital technologies and global power transition. Authoritarian state actors such as China are increasingly active on global social media platforms such as Twitter to directly advance their preferred frames with foreign publics in Western democracies, most notably in what could be called Chinese Twiplomacy contesting narrative globally over contentious issues. This paper problematises such Twiplomacy from authoritarians to Western democracies as ‘networked transnational frame contestation', arguing that the political and cultural distance between the sending and target countries, the networked affordance of social media, and the national prism of the target countries, all contribute importantly to the complexity of such frame contestation. Through a case study on China's Twiplomacy in contesting coronavirus narrative in the UK, this paper further provides empirical evidence on how ‘networked transnational frame contestation' works between politically and culturally distant countries. Using a mixed-method approach combining social network analysis and discourse analysis, this study finds that China's emotion-evoking discursive strategy draws traction but the authoritarian nature of the highly centralised networkedness and that of its discursive strategy, together with the strong cultural discordance with British publics, lead to networked recontextualisation of its intended frames in Britain. British publics, heavily relying on British political elites and press for foreign affairs, invoke shared cultural reference to recontextualise Chinese frames into culturally resonant counterframes. This study proposes a paradigm of ‘networkedness within cascades' to understand frame contestation between politically and culturally distant countries. [ FROM AUTHOR]