Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior

This study investigates the relationship between exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency's (IRA) foreign influence campaign on Twitter during the 2016 US election and the political attitudes and voting behavior of US social media users. Using longitudinal survey data linked to Twitter feeds, the researchers find that exposure to IRA accounts was highly concentrated among a small percentage of users (1% accounted for 70% of exposures), primarily those strongly identifying as Republicans. Despite the apparent scale of the campaign, exposure to IRA content was significantly less than exposure to domestic news media and politicians. Crucially, the study finds no meaningful relationship between exposure to the IRA campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.

Gregory Eady, Tom Paskhalis, Jan Zilinsky, Richard Bonneau, Jonathan Nagler, Joshua A. Tucker