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.