Evaluation of "Propaganda Through Media": Exercise One

The content is relevant (expect I might add to the talk page to remove the section on college recruiting section because it doesn't seem like propaganda). The content is not up to date, only up to 2018 and the talk page only one entry on June 2020. Everything else looks good (tone, balance, neutral view, images and media, links work and impression is fine).

QAnon

QAnon is a group of people that believe an underground cabal of Satan-worshipping, sex-trafficking pedophile ring is entwined in the US government. They believe the members of this ring largely consist of leftist elites that have a ‘globalist agenda’. QAnon members believe President Trump “serves as a secular savior who will expose and punish entrenched elites who have hitherto controlled society for their own perverted needs during a cataclysmic period of revelation known as ‘the Storm’” (Matthews). QAnon has evangelical overtones where there is a good vs. evil mentality.

Members of QAnon are devout to the Q account, named for their claim to have top security Q clearance. The Q account puts out messages, known as Qdrops, and members have to find the meaning of these Qdrops. Q believes in the connectedness of everything; therefore, members must work to find how the information connects to current events. Since QAnon's followers give meaning to these Qdrops, they are creating their own believes; therefore, their beliefs are constantly changing and morphing to the beliefs of the followers.

QAnon got its start on “an internet image (chan) board called 4chan, created by the computer programmer Christopher Poole in the early 2000s” (Beene and Greer). This website is set up as message boards organized by themes. Users post anonymously and are therefore called ‘anons’. Members of QAnon moved over to 8chan, launched by Fredrick Breannan in 2012. 8chan allowed users to make ‘SubBoards’. In 2015, 8chan was then bought by Jim Watkins who owned 2chan. Watkins is known as a conspiracy theorist as he was already operating a “right-wing media conglomerate out of the Philippines” (Beene and Greer). This purchase led him to own the Q account, although there is only speculation regarding to what extent Watkins is involved in the Q account. Over the following years, QAnon moved onto Youtube, Reddit (where many of their boards were shut down), Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Members used vague, harmless sounding hashtags like “Save the Children” to spread information on these social media platforms without being flagged. In 2017, Q leaked information from ‘inside the Trump administration’ revealing secret directives to expose “a global cabal of political and cultural elites engaging in pedophilia, child trafficking, organ harvesting, and Satanic worship” (Matthews). Q explains this cabal operated under the Obama administration without punishment.

Characterizing QAnon: Analysis of YouTube comments presents new conclusions about a popular conservative conspiracy. by Daniel Taninecz Miller analysizes Youtube comments made by QAnon members. This provides information on what kind of conversations QAnon members are having and what beliefs they are spreading. Most comments regarding QAnon on Youtube were regarding women/children/sex, women/sickness/evil, and Jews/Justice Ginsburg. This is to spread the information that Democrats are involved in a Satan-worshipping pedophile ring that sex-traffics children. The second most popular topic was concerning time, love, greatness, hope including the “wwg1wga” mantra, which is “where we go 1, we go all”. These words are used to spread nationalistic ideas. The third most popular topic included “Christian symbolism such as God, Jesus, evil, Christ, lord, word, bible, etc., but also referring to the act of watch[ing] and to YouTube itself” (Miller). A very popular topic among QAnon members is Christianity. This group has a lot of evangelical Christian overtones. When Miller looked at popular comments that received 10 or more ‘likes’, the second most prominent word group consisted of President Trump, God, blessings, truth, family and patriots/patriotism/country. There was a close association between the words 'President Trump' and 'God'. The fourth most popular topics included words regarding Trump, money, government, results, America, whiteness, country, war and military words. Overall, QAnon members use vocabulary that is very nationalistic and frequently connect current events to the religion Christianity.

Pizzagate

Pizzagate started on 8chan as well. Child pornography, shortened to ‘CP’ was a joke on the website. In 2016, Clinton and Podesta’s emails were hacked and included this shortening of ‘CP’ when referring to 'Comet Ping Pong' and 'cheese pizza'. Comet Ping Pong is a pizza parlor in Washington D.C where Podesta would often organize campaign events. Members of 8chan joked that when ‘CP’ was written in the emails, Podesta was referring to child pornography. This led to many members of the community believing this to be true. One of those members was Egdar Maddison Welch, who brought an AK15 to Comet Ping Pong with the idea that he was going to free enslaved sex-trafficked children.

QAnon and COVID-19

QAnon members pushed the ‘Chinese virus’ narrative, encouraged the use of disinfectants to combat COVID-19 and pushed misinformation.

Q pushed the idea that COVID-19 was entirely political. A few of Q’s beliefs were: COVID-19’s purpose as an attempt to hinder former President Trump’s re-election and ruin Trump’s economy, mainstream media reason for pushing COVID-19 was to secure the electoral wins for Democrats and the purpose of quarantine mandates were to destabilize the 2020 election and to protect Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate.

Q pushed the distrust with medical professionals and organizations trying to combat and contain the virus through pushing skepticism. Q supported hydroxychloroquine and pushed members to pursue ‘key information’ of why Democratic governors banned hydroxychloroquine. Q believed the Democratic Party to be the equivalent of the “People’s Republic of China” because of their ‘anti-hydroxychloroquine narratives’. Later suggesting the Democratic Party was “trying to ‘squash all hope for a cure’” (Matthews).

Bibliography:

Beene, Stephanie, and Katie Greer. “A Call to Action for Librarians: Countering Conspiracy Theories in the Age of QAnon.” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 47, no. 1, Jan. 2021, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102292. doc/A649911184/ITOF?u=csuci&sid=ITOF&xid=2c733003.Accessed 3 Mar. 2021.

Su, Zhaohui, et al. "Mental health consequences of COVID-19 media coverage: the need for effective crisis communication practices." Globalization and Health, vol. 17, no. 1, 2021, p. NA. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A650588219/AONE?u=csuci&sid=AONE&xid=9450adad. Accessed 21 Mar. 2021.

Hannah, Matthew. “QAnon and the Information Dark Age.” First Monday, vol. 26, no. 2, Feb. 2021, p. 1. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5210/fm.v26i2.10868.

Miller, Daniel Taninecz. “Characterizing QAnon: Analysis of YouTube Comments Presents New Conclusions about a Popular Conservative Conspiracy.” First Monday, vol. 26, no. 2, Feb. 2021, p. 1. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5210/fm.v26i2.10168.

This will be added under the section titled "Social Media"

Imageboards are online messaging boards that largely consist of images that sometimes includes complementary text. These websites are used to discuss various topics.

4chan is an imageboard website created by Christoper Poole in the early 2000s.^[1] 4chan is set up as message boards organized by themes. Users post anonymously and are therefore called ‘anons’.

4chan's anonymous nature and fundamentalist belief in free expression leads to a unique group of people using the website to spread information. 4chan is known for their fundamentalist belief in free expression. This has "lead it [4chan] to evolve into a more reactionary community, fighting online ‘culture wars’ against left-wing ‘Social Justice Warriors’ (SJWs) and becoming associated with the Alt-Right." ^[2]

4chan's imageboard style allows an easy way for users to spread disinformation. 4chan's imageboard style allows website users create "images of information", they "collect these images into evidence collages", which can also be used to spread disinformation.^[3] Since these message boards on 4chan can get rather long, 4chan has limits of how long threads can be. If the threads are too long then they will disappear. This causes a "dynamic environment" as a new "original posters" can reinitiate the discussion around the subject in a new thread; this can lead to "narrative reframing" akin to the game of telephone, which can lead to the spread of disinformation.^[3]

This combination of the Alt-Right using 4chan and the act of spreading disinformation being so easy leads to the creation and spread of conspiracy theories. One of the most notable conspiracy theories born on 4chan is QAnon. QAnon is a 'conspiratorial worldview', members believe an underground cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles whose participants largely comprised of leftist elites with globalist agendas exist and is embedded within the U.S. government. ^[1]

1. Beene, Stephanie, and Katie Greer. “A Call to Action for Librarians: Countering Conspiracy Theories in the Age of QAnon.” Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 47, no. 1, Jan. 2021, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102292. doc/A649911184/ITOF?u=csuci&sid=ITOF&xid=2c733003.Accessed 3 Mar. 2021.^[1]
2. Krafft, P. M., and Joan Donovan. “Disinformation by Design: The Use of Evidence Collages and Platform Filtering in a Media Manipulation Campaign.” Political Communication, vol. 37, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 194–214. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10584609.2019.1686094.^[3]
3. Colley, Thomas, and Martin Moore. “The Challenges of Studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: ‘Come on in the Water’s Fine’.” New Media & Society, Sept. 2020, p. 1. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1461444820948803.^[2]

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