In a new article for Information, Communication, and Society, Francesca Tripodi and Yuanye Ma reveal the important role electoral communication plays in framing current events and the extent to which email is an essential node in the right-wing media ecosystem. By analyzing both topics and topic absences, Dr. Tripodi and Ms. Ma demonstrate how the Trump administration leveraged the Official White House Newsletter to accentuate topics deemed most important by conservative voters, while resituating negative events and favoring sources from an information ecosystem rife with conspiracy theories and speculative claims:
By encouraging their readers to ‘do their own research’ but providing them the hyperlinks directly, the White House emails reveal an intricate structure whereby conservative news producers work in tandem with elected officials, bouncing signals throughout their information networks.
In partnership with the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), the Center for Media Law and Policy has been researching and summarizing state laws that impose disclosure and/or recordkeeping requirements on online platforms that carry digital political advertisements.
Digital political ads have become an increasingly important tool for political candidates and committees, yet existing federal laws governing political advertisements focus primarily on traditional mediums of communication. While the Federal Election Commission has detailed sponsorship disclosure requirements for political advertising on television and radio, the agency currently does not regulate online political advertising in the same way. Congress proposed legislation in 2017, 2019, and 2021 to extend existing disclosure requirements for political advertisements to online political advertisements, but no action has been taken on these bills.
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