Digital astroturfing in politics: Definition, typology, and countermeasures

Abstract

In recent years, several instances of political actors who created fake grassroots activity on the Internet have been uncovered. We propose to call such fake online grassroots activity digital astroturfing, and we define it as a form of manufactured, deceptive and strategic top-down activity on the Internet initiated by political actors that mimics bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals. The goal of this paper is to lay out a conceptual map of the phenomenon of digital astroturfing in politics. To that end, we introduce, first, a typology of digital astroturfing according to three dimensions (target, actor type, goals), and, second, the concept of digital astroturfing repertoires, the possible combinations of tools, venues and actions used in digital astroturfing efforts. Furthermore, we explore possible restrictive and incentivizing countermeasures against digital astroturfing. Finally, we discuss prospects for future research: Even though empirical research on digital astroturfing is difficult, it is neither impossible nor futile.

Sorting the Healthy Diet Signal from the Social Media Expert Noise: Preliminary Evidence from the Healthy Diet Discourse on Twitter

“…These can be used to generate spam tweets independently of each other or as a single retweeting tree or retweet chain [ 59 ]. We know that, in other contexts, particularly in political discourse, there is increasing and widespread evidence of bots to influence opinion or distract the general public through a variety of practices, including (i) astroturfing, a form of manufactured top-down activity on the Internet that is designed to mimic bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals with the intent to deceive the public at large that the activity is real [ 61 ]; (ii) smoke screening, where a bot network uses a high volume of content, replete with related hashtags and keywords, to de-emphasise or obscure some other type of activity or content [ 62 ]; and (iii) misdirection, where a bot network uses a high volume of content, to get the public to focus elsewhere [ 59 , 62 ]. Ultimately, these practices all serve to confuse the general public by presenting a particular viewpoint as being more popular or widely accepted than it is in reality by spreading misinformation, and/or distract them from authentic evidence-based messages by generating noise.…”

Followers, Spread the Message! Predicting the Success of Swiss Politicians on Facebook and Twitter

“…Since "manipulations" are an established part of offline political communication (e.g., orchestrated audiences or lobbyists), it is not surprising that they happen online as well. However, they need to be kept in mind and should be further investigated (Kovic, Rauchfleisch, & Sele, 2016). In addition, political actors might outsource their followership management and may not (regularly) monitor their online presence themselves.…”

An Examination of the Impact of Astroturfing on Nationalism: A Persuasion Knowledge Perspective

“…Many of the aforementioned misleading online efforts can be referred to as digital astroturfing. Kovic et al (2016) define digital astroturfing as "a form of manufactured, deceptive and strategic top-down activity on the Internet initiated by political actors that mimics bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals" (p. 4). This definition suggests that in order to avail of effective digital astroturfing, it might be good that five conditions are fulfilled; namely, astroturfing should be on the internet, politically initiated, manufactured, strategic, and deceptive (Kovic et al 2016).…”

“…Kovic et al (2016) define digital astroturfing as "a form of manufactured, deceptive and strategic top-down activity on the Internet initiated by political actors that mimics bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals" (p. 4). This definition suggests that in order to avail of effective digital astroturfing, it might be good that five conditions are fulfilled; namely, astroturfing should be on the internet, politically initiated, manufactured, strategic, and deceptive (Kovic et al 2016). The authors of this definition also make a distinction between traditional and digital astroturfing through the fact that different genuine grassroots components are part of regular astroturfing while digital astroturfing is more simply structured.…”