Overview

The question of how Donald Trump won the 2016 election looms over all of the many controversies that continue to swirl around him to this day. In particular, was his victory the result of Russian meddling in our political system? Up until now, the answer to that has been equivocal at best given how difficult it is to prove. Trump has vociferously denied it, as has Vladimir Putin himself. Even the famous intelligence reports establishing that the Russians interfered hold back from saying whether the interference tipped the scales in the outcome. In Cyberwar, however, the eminent scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who sifted through a vast amount of polling and voting data, is able to conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty that Russian help was crucial in elevating Trump to the Oval Office. Put simply, by changing the behaviour of key players and altering the focus and content of mainstream news, Russian hackers reshaped the 2016 electoral dynamic. At the same time, Russian trolls used social media to target voting groups indispensable to a Trump victory or Clinton defeat. There are of course many arguments on offer that push against the idea that the Russians handed Trump his victory. Russia's goal was fomenting division, not electing Trump. Most of the Russian ads reportedly did not reference either the election or a candidate. Nor did they differ much from U.S.-based messaging that was already in play. Russian intervention did not surgically target Trump in key states. Finally, if WikiLeaks' releases of stolen email had truly affected the vote, Clinton's perceived honesty would have dropped in October. Jamieson, drawing from her four decades of research on the role of media in American elections, dispenses with these arguments through a forensic tracing of both Russian hackers' impact on media coverage as well as the ebbs and flows of Trump's polling support over the course of the campaign. To be sure, it is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that the Russians handed the election to Trump because there is too much that we don't know. That said, the lessons of a half century of research on the role of media framing in elections strongly suggests that many voters' opinions were altered by Russia's wide-ranging and coordinated campaign-including at least seventy eight thousand votes in three key states. Combining scholarly rigour with a bracing argument, Cyberwar shows that we can now be reasonably confident that Russian efforts helped put Trump in the White House.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Professor of Communication, Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 21.10cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 14.70cm
Weight:   0.517kg
ISBN:  

9780190915810

ISBN 10:   0190915811
Pages:   336
Publication Date:   22 November 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

PrologueIntroductionPart One: Who Did It, Why, and How It May Have MatteredChapter One: How Do We Know that the Russians Meddled in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election?Chapter Two: A Theory of Communication that Posits EffectsPart Two: The Pre-Requisites of InfluenceChapter Three: Pre-Requisite One: Widespread MessagingChapter Four: Pre-Requisite Two: Messages Aligned with Trump's Electoral InterestsChapter Five: Pre-Requisite Three: Messages to Mobilize Veterans and White Christians, Demobilizing Blacks and Sanders' Supporters, Shifting Liberals to SteinChapter Six: Pre-Requisite Four: Well-Targeted ContentChapter Seven: Pre-Requisite Five: Persuasive AppealsPart Three: Exposure: How the Russians Affected the News and Debate Agendas in the Last Month of the Campaign Chapter Eight: The Russian Effect On Press Coverage in OctoberChapter Nine: The Effect of the Stolen Emails on the Last Two Presidential DebatesChapter Ten: The Russian Effect on the Media Agenda in the Last Days of the ElectionPart Four: What We Don't, Can't, and Do Know About How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect Donald J. TrumpAfterword: LessonsAppendicesAppendix One: Changes in Perceptions of Clinton and Trump in OctoberAppendix Two: Debate 2 and Debate 3 Exposure Effect on Candidate Trait EvaluationsAppendix Three: Association between Perception Changes and Vote IntentionsReferences

Reviews

In Cyberwar, Kathleen Jamieson Hall details with intelligent research the impact the cyberattacks had on democratic dialogue and in shaping both the media and political narrative of the 2016 presidential election. The book confirms what DHS and DNI refused to conclude: the Russian information warfare campaign helped to discredit Hillary Clinton and ultimately progress the electoral outcome in the election of Donald Trump. * Donna Brazile, former Interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee * Kathleen Hall Jamieson has performed a great service not just for politicians, journalists and curious citizens, but most important, for American democracy, by taking a scholar's approach to answering one of the most urgent and gnawing questions of our time: how did Russia try to influence the U.S. elections of 2016 and how much difference did that make? This is a must-read for everyone who cares about the future of the American electoral system. * Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor, The PBS NewsHour * In her breakthrough new book Cyberwar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson applies her legendary skills to a forensic examination of the Russian hackers, trolls and bots who reshaped American public opinion through social media platforms, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President. * Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent MSNBC Anchor *

In her breakthrough new book Cyberwar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson applies her legendary skills to a forensic examination of the Russian hackers, trolls and bots who reshaped American public opinion through social media platforms, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President. -- Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent MSNBC Anchor Kathleen Hall Jamieson has performed a great service not just for politicians, journalists and curious citizens, but most important, for American democracy, by taking a scholar's approach to answering one of the most urgent and gnawing questions of our time: how did Russia try to influence the U.S. elections of 2016 and how much difference did that make? This is must reading for everyone who cares about the future of the American electoral system. -- Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor, The PBS NewsHour In Cyberwar, Kathleen Jamieson Hall details with intelligent research the impact the cyberattacks had on democratic dialogue and in shaping both the media and political narrative of the 2016 presidential election. The book confirms what DHS and DNI refused to conclude: the Russian information warfare campaign helped to discredit Hillary Clinton and ultimately progress the electoral outcome in the election of Donald Trump. -- Donna Brazile, former Interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee

In her breakthrough new book Cyberwar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson applies her legendary skills to a forensic examination of the Russian hackers, trolls and bots who reshaped American public opinion through social media platforms, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President. -- Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent MSNBC Anchor Kathleen Hall Jamieson has performed a great service not just for politicians, journalists and curious citizens, but most important, for American democracy, by taking a scholar's approach to answering one of the most urgent and gnawing questions of our time: how did Russia try to influence the U.S. elections of 2016 and how much difference did that make? This is must reading for everyone who cares about the future of the American electoral system. -- Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor, The PBS NewsHour

In Cyberwar, Kathleen Jamieson Hall details with intelligent research the impact the cyberattacks had on democratic dialogue and in shaping both the media and political narrative of the 2016 presidential election. The book confirms what DHS and DNI refused to conclude: the Russian information warfare campaign helped to discredit Hillary Clinton and ultimately progress the electoral outcome in the election of Donald Trump. * Donna Brazile, former Interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee * Kathleen Hall Jamieson mounts a strong challenge to the conventional wisdom that the Russia interference in the 2016 presidential race did not affect the outcome. Drawing on her expertise in presidential elections and how messages are received, she shows how the hacked emails influenced the media's focus and traces the powerful synergies between what the trolls were saying and what voters were ready to believe. It is hard to imagine a better application of careful scholarship to a central question for our country and deserves a wide readership. * Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, Columbia University * Kathleen Hall Jamieson has performed a great service not just for politicians, journalists and curious citizens, but most important, for American democracy, by taking a scholar's approach to answering one of the most urgent and gnawing questions of our time: how did Russia try to influence the U.S. elections of 2016 and how much difference did that make? This is a must-read for everyone who cares about the future of the American electoral system. * Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor, The PBS NewsHour * In her breakthrough new book Cyberwar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson applies her legendary skills to a forensic examination of the Russian hackers, trolls and bots who reshaped American public opinion through social media platforms, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President. * Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent MSNBC Anchor * Illuminating, timely, Cyberwar is a major step forward in trying to understand the 'new' media order ... Jamieson provides perhaps the first authoritative account and synthesis of the copious amounts of data surrounding the 2016 attack ... the result is perhaps the clearest-cut glimpse of what an information war looks like... Cyberwar is more powerful for what it is not... * Alexander Kimburg, Nature *

Author Information

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of its Annenberg Public Policy Center. Among her award winning Oxford University Press books are Packaging the Presidency, Eloquence in an Electronic Age, Spiral of Cynicism (with Joseph Cappella), and The Obama Victory (with Kenski and Hardy).

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