When Journalists Fail to Engage, Bad Actors Fill the Vacuum

The Reactionary Right is better at building trust online than purveyors of facts

I read Rebecca Lewis’ recent report for Data and Society documenting how the “reactionary right” uses YouTube to spread a host of extremist political ideologies with a sinking feeling — and that was before horrific events like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting showed how online hate can mobilize real-world acts of terror.

Ideas as abhorrent as white nationalism are spreading in part because a lot of truly bad actors are following some of the same prescriptions for trust building that some of us in academia and journalism has been preaching for years.

In other words, we’ve left a gap in the digital information ecosystem that has made it easier for extremists to spread their message.

Many journalists continue to insist that that the path for winning back dwindling trust in news involves doubling down on some kind of vague, mythic, intellectually-naive form of objectivity. For example, Axios’ Jim VandeHei thinks that “news organizations should ban their reporters from doing anything on social media — especially Twitter — beyond sharing stories” lest any opinions or personality might sneak in.

Sadly, the purveyors of online hate are apparently more savvy about human nature and digital relationship building than many journalists.

“They build trust with their audiences by stressing their relatability, their authenticity, and their accountability to those audiences,” Lewis writes. Recognizing that most audiences are too smart to accept vague claims of objectivity, they reject it, instead embracing norms of participatory culture that favor transparency and responsiveness.

“The Alternative Influence Network engages directly with its audiences in a way that traditional news outlets do not — through comments and social media posts, but also directly in video content. Traditionally, legacy media outlets have used gatekeeping mechanisms and a level of distance from their audiences as a way to establish expertise and authority. In contrast, many political influencers explicitly court feedback in order to build trust and rapport with their audience.”

This is something I teach — how journalists should listen to the communities they hope to serve and use their ideas and feedback to shape and inform their work. How to report with communities rather than for or on them. How to use social media and other interactive tools in ways that are human and authentic — not sharing political opinions with every tweet, but also not just burping out links to their stories like they are little more than another bot, instead of a person with a history, perspective and personality.

The reactionary right also takes their YouTube strategies further, creating a kind of community among their fans. This is powerful from a political perspective because a sense of belonging to a “family” provides “a sense of identity, place, and belonging; emotional, social, and cultural support and security; and gives rise to political and social affiliations and beliefs,” as Lewis writes.

This sense of being part of a “family” among the reactionary right is built largely out of a false sense of persecution by the supposed “language police” or “PC culture.” But the bonds also form from a sense of shared identity in opposition to “mainstream news,” taking advantage of distrust of journalists, Lewis found. Members of the reactionary right often refer to themselves as “alternative media,” positioning themselves as opposed to “cultural elites” of liberal media, much as Fox News has been doing years.

But journalists are often missing the opportunity to nurture the opposite kinds of communities, ones that embrace equality and vibrant civic life. In addition to creating content, we can also do things that help bring people together in informed dialogue around solving common problems, whether that involves hosting an event or sparking and curating meaningful discussions in a Facebook group. In doing so, we are creating some common ground and sense of shared purpose, which is a powerful driver of trust.

It goes without saying the roots of hate are deep and complex in American history and culture, and you can’t put all the blame any one particular social media strategy in isolation for inspiring acts like mailing bombs to news organizations and political opponents. All of this is occurring in a larger context, including a president that not-so-tacitly encourages the demonization of others. And YouTube and the other platforms need to look harder at the ways they are incentivizing this behavior.

But I think every single one of us needs to take a harder look at what is happening in this country, ways in which we may be inadvertently enabling it and how we can work to combat it. As danah boyd’s research has showed, traditional reporting on hate groups can amplify their message and give it greater credibility. And as Mandy Jenkins points out, there are things we can learn from purveyors of disinformation.

I’m not sure journalists can do anything about those in the reactionary right that are already steeped in their ideologies, but I would argue that we make it harder for those ideas to grow and spread if we are able to give people more authentic, transparent, and responsive sources of information that incorporate listening and participation as key ingredients.