(Research Summary by Katherine Furl)
Recent upticks in election denial highlight journalism’s role in alerting the public to the risks such denials pose to the peaceful transfer of political power and to democracy itself. In “Safeguarding the Peaceful Transfer of Power: Pro-Democracy Electoral Frames and Journalist Coverage of Election Deniers During the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections,” recently published in the International Journal of Press/Politics, Hesoo Jang and Daniel Kreiss analyze national and local news coverage of 2022 U.S. midterm elections with politicians denying the results of the 2020 Presidential election on the ballot, finding that journalists repeatedly fail to direct public attention to how election denial undermines the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Jang and Kreiss develop a new framework to assess journalism’s role in protecting democratic institutions, introducing the concept of “democracy-framed electoral coverage.” For electoral coverage to be considered democracy-framed, Jang and Kreiss assert it must go beyond merely mentioning political candidates’ election denialism. Democracy-framed electoral coverage must also “positio[n] election denial as a violation of democratic norms with deleterious implications for democracy...fundamentally different from other campaign issues.” Jang and Kreiss consider democracy-framed electoral coverage a core responsibility for journalists to uphold—without alerting the public to anti-democratic threats, journalism risks tacitly consolidating power among anti-democratic political leaders.
Using the 2022 U.S. midterm elections as a case, Jang and Kreiss analyzed of over 700 national and local news articles covering elections with 2020 election deniers on the ballot to determine if, and when, journalists employed democracy-framed electoral coverage. Across these articles, Jang and Kreiss found limited use of pro-democracy electoral frames. Even strong statements asserting denial was untrue (which fall short of democracy-facing electoral coverage, but at least attempt to counter blatant falsehoods) were less common than weak statements simply mentioning election denialism without attempting to correct it. Journalists rarely consulted election administrators, despite their nonpartisan role in ensuring secure and fair elections.
Jang and Kreiss additionally interviewed twelve journalists from local, state, and national news outlets to better understand the dearth of democracy-framed electoral coverage. These journalists very rarely considered that election denialism and other falsehoods could be employed in strategic bids for political power. Given threats to democracy posed by election denialism and other similar surges in anti-democratic rhetoric, Jang and Kreiss urge future research to interrogate the jouranlism’s responsibility to alert the public to these and other anti-democratic threats, in the United States and across the globe.
Research summary by Katherine Furl
The “Gaylor” online subculture has long speculated about Taylor Swift’s sexuality, speculations bolstered on the highly participartory TikTok platform. In “‘You Could Hear a Hair Pin Drop’: Queer Utopianism and Informal Knowledge Production in the Gaylor Closeting Conspiracy Theory,” recently published in Social Media + Society, Yvonne Eadon analyzes TikTok videos to understand how Gaylor community members parse evidence and collectively develop community lore. The TikTok Gaylor community exhibits phenomena prominent in both conspiracy and fandom online communities with a distinctly feminized character, ultimately pushing back against heterosexist consensus.
Gaylor as a theory can be considered a “Closeting Conspiracy Theory” or CCT, theories focused on speculation toward a public figure’s sexuality in online spaces. CCT believers gather evidence and produce knowledges across several online platforms, though the capabilities of video-sharing platform TikTok are especially suited to the sorts of multi-layered discussions, challenges, and boundary-setting work conducted by CCT believers. Eadon notes that in past research, conspiracy theories have often been homogenized, and are frequently masculinized such that conspiracy theories more popular among women are considered inconsequential. Taking a queer feminist approach to her research, Eadon urges researchers to consider the specific contexts in which different conspiracy theories and communities engaging with them form and develop.
Analyzing 200 TikTok videos with hashtags related to the Gaylor conspiracy, Eadon finds TikTokers participating in the Gaylor community frequently engage in boundary work: self-identified Gaylors frequently work to distinguish themselves from “Hetlors,” who avow Swift’s heterosexuality, while self-identified Hetlers work to distinguish themselves from Gaylor in turn. Further, Gaylor TikTokers collectively analyze various media produced by Swift—from Instagram reels to song lyrics and liner notes—to parse supposed clues related to Swift’s sexuality in ways mirroring other conspiratorial communities. Gaylor TikTokers, for example, repeatedly predict precise dates at which Swift will reveal her sexuality, with multiple album release dates put forward as dates when this will occur. Eadon refers to the as the “doomsday coming-out,” capturing how Gaylor TikTokers merge tropes from both conspiratorial and queer online communities.
Working together to interpret fandom media, set themselves apart, and develop valued knowledges, the Gaylor TikTok community inspires members to think toward queer futures, and to value their own social positions and subjectivities. Eadon notes Swift’s own thin, white womanhood potentially confines how fans imagine queerness. Conversely, Eadon asserts that considering the Gaylor TikTok community as a space in which only fans whose racialized and other social identities align with Swift’s as capable of developing meaningful, impactful community lore is not just limiting—it misrepresents the Gaylor community. A diverse group of Gaylor TikTokers find meaning and legitimacy through imagining queer possibilities on TikTok.
(Research Summary by Katherine Furl)
How can those in positions of political power lend legitimacy to fringe and far-right news outlets (FROs), granting them attention among mainstream news outlets, politicians, and the public? In “Presidential Authority and the Legitimation of Far-Right News,” recently published in the International Journal of Press/Politics, authors Allison Archer, Carolyn Schmitt, Shannon McGregor, and Heesoo Jang examine former President Donald Trump’s amplification of three FROs—One America News Network (OANN), Newsmax, and Breitbart—on X (formerly Twitter) and how this amplification lent FROs increased legitimacy contributing to their mainstreaming.
Archer and coauthors consider Trump’s amplification of FROs a form of authority signaling, which “implicitly or explicitly imply the legitimacy of individuals or ideas.” Trump was able to leverage his former position as U.S. president to selectively praise or denigrate news outlets, bringing increased attention to these outlets in turn. Trump combined this authority signaling with a populist communication style that portrayed mainstream news outlets as corrupt, elitist, and exclusionary while portraying hyper-partisan FROs as put-upon purveyors of the truth.
To understand the multifaceted impacts of Trump’s amplification of FROs on X/Twitter, Archer and coauthors combined analysis of tweets from the Trump Twitter Archive with monthly mainstream news coverage of OANN, Newsmax, and Breitbart in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. The authors additionally tracked the number of interviews given in these FROs among U.S. politicians. Archer and coauthors find that Trump’s X/Twitter mentions of OANN, Newsmax, and Breitbart increased over his presidency and that these mentions were largely positive. Mainstream news outlets increased their coverage of these FROs during the same period, while Republican politicians—particularly those serving in the House of Representatives—provided far more interviews to these FROs during this time.
Taken together, Archer and coauthors contend that Trump’s mentions of OANN, Newsmax, and Breitbart during his presidency were not the sole contributing factors to these outlets’ rise in prominence but did play a role in lending the outlets a sense of legitimacy. Importantly, the ability to lend this sort of mainstreaming legitimacy to illiberal, far-right outlets is not limited to former president Trump. As the authors assert, “Trump serves simply as a case of an anti-democratic, populist leader who manipulated presidential norms for illiberal means...he set the stage for future leaders to further wreak havoc on democracies from the inside.”