Speaking in Code

December 12, 2018 Communication | Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities

Communication students catalog Russian propaganda.

"'Racial tensions.' 'REAL AMERICA.' 'can’t trust the Clintons.' 'Stop Refugees.' These are some of the tags UMD students used to code about 3,000 Facebook advertisements planted by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

"With help from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, these ads are now publicly searchable in an online database in which they’re categorized by content and theme.

"'These hand-coded tags give us a much sharper sense of what kinds of themes the Russian propagandists thought would be effective,' said communication Associate Professor Damien Pfister, who taught the 'Interpreting Strategic Discourse' class."

Read the complete article in Maryland Today.

Image via Maryland Today.