Foreign Interference and Social Media Networks: A Relational Approach to Studying Contemporary Russian Disinformation

Abstract The use of disinformation to disrupt the domestic politics of other states has become a staple of contemporary global politics. How these campaigns operate at a microlevel of individual users and network communities, however, remains undertheorized. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework to analyze how states leverage existing social media networks strategically for that purpose. Drawing from social network theory, we argue that the spread of disinformation in the digital age is best understood by examining how actors achieve and maintain access to the existing social media networks via a process of cultural keying—mimicking the cultural cues of the target network to camouflage their intentions and attract followers. While this activity is usually limited in scale and scope, it may be amplified to seize on critical domestic and international events. To demonstrate these arguments, we examine the Twitter behavior of the Kremlin-linked news outlets RT and Sputnik during and after the 2017 French presidential election. We first analyze their presence and salience in a network of accounts interested in French politics. We then use structural topic modeling to identify thematic overlap between the outlets and our panel of users. Our analysis suggests that Kremlin-linked outlets are indeed active in local networks and repeatedly key on salient themes such as Islamophobia and Euroscepticism to blend in.