Bennett and Livingston 129
If we are to understand the rise of undemocratic or ‘illiberal’ politics preying on the
weakness of core institutions, understanding the proliferation of communication chan-
nels is a good place to begin (Zakaria, 1997). Compared to the mass media era, the cur-
rent age displays a kaleidoscopic mediascape of television networks, newspapers and
magazines (both online and print), YouTube, WikiLeak, and LiveLeak content, Astroturf
think tanks, radical websites spreading disinformation using journalistic formats, Twitter
and Facebook among other social media, troll factories, bots, and 4chan discussion
threads, among others. Also important but nearly impossible to study, because of the
inaccessibility of data, are Snapchat, Tor-protected websites, and messaging and com-
munication platforms such as WhatsApp, Signal messaging and Voice-over-Internet
Protocol, Telegram Messenger, and Proton Mail. While some are billion-dollar media
empires, others are billionaire-backed and heavily trafficked websites such as the US
sites Breitbart, backed by early Trump supporter Robert Mercer, and The Daily Caller,
backed by Charles Koch and other far right players to promote a broad anti-government
agenda (Gold, 2017). Other sites such as InfoWars depend on sales of often-bizarre prod-
ucts such as Survival Shield X-2 Next Level Nascent Iodine (US$39.95 per ounce)
hawked by CEO and anchor Alex Jones (Brown, 2017; Reed, 2017).
In the case of the United States, these visible, heavily trafficked, and often networked
media link in and out of broader networks of political foundations, think tanks, grass
roots and Astroturf political organizations, communication professionals and political
organizers. This complex set of organizations advances an agenda that mixes tax and
regulatory benefits for the wealthy, with disinformation about climate change, immigra-
tion, refugees, government waste and ineptitude, and a host of other issues aimed at stir-
ring political crowds. Those larger publics provide political cover and electoral power
for the political agendas of those attempting to manage these unwieldy political assem-
blages (Mayer, 2016; Skocpol and Hertel-Fernandez, 2016). The different publics and
political agendas running through the sprawling networks of the radical right in America
suggest that there are various tensions and political fault lines around race, anti-Semitism
and various conspiracy theories. However, these networks can also display remarkable
coherence of organization, reflecting the ‘hybridity’ that Chadwick (2013) describes in
various political communication processes associated with a post-bureaucratic order. For
example, it is clear that high levels of framing coherence and audience reach assisted the
Trump election in 2016. Moreover, right-wing media networks also played a role in set-
ting the mainstream media agenda for that election (Faris et al., 2017). It has also become
clear that foreign agents such as Russian hackers like Fancy Bear, trolls and bots spread
partisan disinformation to many voters, adding another layer of complexity to national
disinformation orders (Brustein, 2016).
Trump was in many ways both a creature and an assembler of these motley networks,
navigating the fault lines both before and after his election by communicating with neo-
Nazis, White nationalists, anti-globalist conspiracy networks interspersed with dis-
courses about immigrants, refugees, Islam and terrorists. During the election, he fired up
discontented voters, both Republicans and Democrats, with his populist promises to
‘drain the swamp’ of corruption in Washington. Trump’s continuous twitter blasts broke
the mould for presidential communications and press government relations, directly
reaching his large following of real, fake and bot accounts (20 million in January 2017