French Election Social Media Landscape Report 2017

Key Facts

The study at a glance

Report

The final report of a three-phase study: non-traditional media map, social media sharing behaviour, and patterns of disinformation. 175 pages. (Report, pp. 3, 41, 175)

Period

November 1, 2016 to May 22, 2017. (Report, p. 5)

Sources

Public conversation on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forum sites, in French. (Report, pp. 5, 167)

Volume

More than 20 million social media conversations captured. Over 8 million shared links analyzed. 1,000+ media sources analyzed, 800 of them non-traditional. The research summary states that 50,000 social media posts were read and coded (p. 5); the methodology section describes 5,000 coded posts and 4,200 coded Facebook comments (p. 174). (Report, pp. 5, 174)

Team

Bakamo.Social and a team of over 20 analysts, with input from journalist Pierre Haski. Zsigmond (Fifou) Szabó, Balázs Berkovits and Blanka Réti contributed to the analysis. (Report, pp. 3, 5, 175)

Support

With support from The Open Society Foundation, which the report thanks for making the study possible. (Report, pp. 3, 175)

Tools

Talkwalker, a social media monitoring platform, for data collection. Posts and comments were coded manually, through human reading and interpretation. (Report, pp. 5, 167, 174)

Headline Findings

What the report found

1. 1

   57 percent of shared links pointed to traditional media or campaign sites. The other 43 percent pointed to non-traditional sources, which the report sorts into three sections: Extend (civic media adhering to journalistic standards), Reframe (sources aiming to counterbalance traditional media) and Alternative (publishers of conspiratorial and “confusionist” content). (Report, pp. 10–11)

2. 2

   The 800 non-traditional sources fell into 17 clusters. Three intertwined hard-right clusters resonated most: French Identity, Anti-Islam and Anti-Global Patriots. (Report, pp. 13–14)

3. 3

   There was virtually no common ground. Users overwhelmingly shared links from only one section of the media map. Of the top 100 sharers by number of followers, no more than 3 shared content across the divide between traditional media and Reframe and Alternative sources. (Report, pp. 17, 19, 86)

4. 4

   Four disinformation tactics were identified: credibility cloak, time shifting, fake polls and hoax sites. All aim to co-opt the trustworthiness of traditional media while undermining it. Sharing behaviour suggests these campaigns resonate on an emotional level. (Report, pp. 16, 90)

5. 5

   The only foreign influence detected among the media sources was Russian, seen in citations of broadcasters such as RT and Sputnik and in French-speaking Russian news blogs. The report notes that its approach identifies correlation, not causality. (Report, pp. 17, 51–52)