Kaelan Wong Professor Gina Gemmel English 161 December 12, 2017 Social Media’s Victory in the 2016 Presidential Election There has been a lot of talk since the 2016 presidential election because of how unique it was compared to all the previous ones. Only recently has social media started to play a significant role in political campaigns, which can clearly be seen with Donald trump’s campaign in the 2016 election. This paper examines articles written by Michael Barbaro and Christine Lagorio-Chafkin for the New York Times alongside academic journals written by Gunn Enli and Frida Ghitis for the European Journal of Communications and the World Politics Review, respectively. Regarding social media, many tend to focus on its rise in popular culture, the following of people of people that it tends to bring, and its use by the candidate or its political party. Although there are people who argue that Trump’s political views and ideologies are what gave him an advantage, Trump’s social media is what led him to victory. For one thing, it is clear that social media is generally on the rise in society, today. A majority of researchers would agree that the rise of social media has been prominent in these past few years. Michael Barbaro, author of “Pithy, Mean, and Powerful: Donald Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016,” states how social media is free and can relay information to the public in a quick way. Barbaro points out how this can be useful, especially as it slowly substitutes for “costly, conventional” methods. As an example, Barbaro mentions how rival campaigns acknowledge the advantage Trump has because of his millions of Twitter followers and how he gets more mentions and retweets compared to other candidates. Gunn Enli, author of “Twitter as Student 2 Arena for the Authentic Outsider: Exploring the Social Media Campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election,” takes this further, believing that social media can easily reach the masses and serve as a main source of information. Enli reminds us that new platforms have emerged while existing ones have expanded. Christin Lagorio-Chafkin, author of “Reddit and the God Emperor of the Internet,” has a more specific focus on social media, claiming that Reddit has become one of the most significant websites on the internet. Lagorio-Chafkin observes how Trump’s subreddit “The_Donald” has gained around 300,000 members (It has over half a million now as of October 2017). On the other hand, Frida Ghitis, author of “Trump’s Victory Was Aided by Russia’s Weaponized Social Media Campaign,” takes on a different focus: WikiLeaks. Arguably a type of social media, WikiLeaks grew to a significant size such that it could be used to weaponize information. While all four authors believe that social media is on the rise, Barbaro and Enli focused on Twitter’s rise. On the other hand, Lagorio-Chafkin puts his focus on Reddit’s ...

1. Kaelan Wong
Professor Gina Gemmel
English 161
December 12, 2017
Social Media’s Victory in the 2016 Presidential Election
There has been a lot of talk since the 2016 presidential election
because of how unique it
was compared to all the previous ones. Only recently has social
media started to play a
significant role in political campaigns, which can clearly be
seen with Donald trump’s campaign
in the 2016 election. This paper examines articles written by
Michael Barbaro and Christine
Lagorio-Chafkin for the New York Times alongside academic
journals written by Gunn Enli and
Frida Ghitis for the European Journal of Communications and
the World Politics Review,
respectively. Regarding social media, many tend to focus on its
rise in popular culture, the
following of people of people that it tends to bring, and its use

2. by the candidate or its political
party. Although there are people who argue that Trump’s
political views and ideologies are what
gave him an advantage, Trump’s social media is what led him to
victory.
For one thing, it is clear that social media is generally on the
rise in society, today. A
majority of researchers would agree that the rise of social media
has been prominent in these past
few years. Michael Barbaro, author of “Pithy, Mean, and
Powerful: Donald Trump Mastered
Twitter for 2016,” states how social media is free and can relay
information to the public in a
quick way. Barbaro points out how this can be useful, especially
as it slowly substitutes for
“costly, conventional” methods. As an example, Barbaro
mentions how rival campaigns
acknowledge the advantage Trump has because of his millions
of Twitter followers and how he
gets more mentions and retweets compared to other candidates.
Gunn Enli, author of “Twitter as
Student 2

3. Arena for the Authentic Outsider: Exploring the Social Media
Campaigns of Trump and Clinton
in the 2016 US Presidential Election,” takes this further,
believing that social media can easily
reach the masses and serve as a main source of information.
Enli reminds us that new platforms
have emerged while existing ones have expanded. Christin
Lagorio-Chafkin, author of “Reddit
and the God Emperor of the Internet,” has a more specific focus
on social media, claiming that
Reddit has become one of the most significant websites on the
internet. Lagorio-Chafkin
observes how Trump’s subreddit “The_Donald” has gained
around 300,000 members (It has
over half a million now as of October 2017). On the other hand,
Frida Ghitis, author of “Trump’s
Victory Was Aided by Russia’s Weaponized Social Media
Campaign,” takes on a different
focus: WikiLeaks. Arguably a type of social media, WikiLeaks
grew to a significant size such
that it could be used to weaponize information. While all four
authors believe that social media is
on the rise, Barbaro and Enli focused on Twitter’s rise. On the
other hand, Lagorio-Chafkin puts

4. his focus on Reddit’s development, and Ghitis puts her spotlight
on WikiLeak’s potential
because of its size. With its unsurpassable ability for
communication, it is not surprising that
social media has become one of the internet’s forefronts.
All the authors portrayed their own opinion on social media’s
popularity; my personal
opinion coincides with their general idea: that social media is
on the rise. The authors differ in
that they each focus on one of social media’s many different
aspects. Barbaro notes how its
ability to quickly relay information can be useful and cheap; I
can send a snap on snapchat or
direct message an individual on Instagram, and the message
would be delivered instantaneously
on the recipient’s mobile device. Enli takes this further, stating
how social media can even be the
main source of information for many individuals. I agree with
Enli’s extension based on results
found by the Pew Research Center. This organization found that
two-thirds of U.S. adults get
Student 3

5. news from social media rather than regular news outlets or
newspaper, which were the former
methods of obtaining information. Lagorio-Chafkin takes a
closer look at the rise of a specific
social media: Reddit. Likewise, Ghitis points to a specific
social media: WikiLeaks. Lagorio-
Chafkin and Ghitis focus more on a specific outlet within social
media, while Barbaro and Enli’s
view the social media’s rise in general. Overall, I agree with all
the authors. In this day and age,
social media is inevitably rising. Taking a step back from the
evidence that these authors point
out, it was clear to see how social media has taken a hold of
society. When I was young, a
portion of my peers were just using Facebook. Now, not only
are more people on social media,
there are more social media to choose from such as Snapchat,
Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook,
Twitter, etc. The list continues to grow. Not only are more
people using social media, the amount
of social media outlets is rising as well.
Social media’s sphere of influence is clearly large, and Trump
has shared in some of its

6. success, as indicated by the supporters through one of his social
media, Twitter. The number of
followers a user has usually reflects the popularity of that
individual in a particular social media
outlet. Enli simply shows us the vast size of Trump’s Twitter
following. She notes how Trump
has over 17.6 million followers compared to The New York
Times, which only has 1.2 million
online subscribers. Barbaro agrees and describes these
supporters, pointing out how this team
backs Trump even when his tweets were clearly inappropriate.
Barbaro describes Trump’s
following on Twitter as a “SWAT team of devoted supporters.”
This loyalty, he claims,
originates from Trump’s candidness and style. Barbaro
illustrates this extreme loyalty by
pointing out Gary Forbes, who recruited volunteers to send out
daily e-mails, emphasizing
Trump’s messages. The two authors would clearly agree with
each other about the importance of
Trump’s Twitter supporter’s growth.
Student 4

7. It is objectively true when both Barbaro and Enli claim that
Trump’s following on
Twitter is growing. Barbaro describes their loyalty with
interacting with Trump’s tweets through
likes and retweets. I think that whether this loyal interaction is
agreeing and retweeting or
disagreeing and retweeting, the publicity that Trump gets is
good for his campaign. There is a
famous saying that says that no publicity is bad publicity.
According to Alan Sorensen, an
economics professor at Stanford, this is partly true. Getting his
name out puts some attention on
him. Although some might learn about him and decide not to
vote for him, it is still better than
being ignored as an unknown name on the ballot. The bad
publicity only aided Trump since he
was not well known before the campaign. However, Sorensen
explains bad publicity is bad for
individuals if they are well known. Because Trump is now the
United States president, he falls in
the latter category, as shown by current presidential approval
ratings. During the campaign,
Twitter’s count of followers undeniably shows the growth. I

8. agree with both authors that
Trump’s Twitter following grew, which shows his popularity on
social media, helping him make
his name known during the campaign.
Even within the growing number of Trump supporters in social
media, there are different
types of these followings that exist over the internet. Lagorio-
Chafkin asserts that the sizable
following on Trump’s subreddit has created a community
amongst themselves. Many of these
supporters identify as Islamophobic, troll liberals, and/or
consistently bash Hillary Clinton. They
even had their own slang words and inside jokes that only the
community understood such as
“MAGA” (Make America Great Again), “God Emperor”
(Trump), memes, and nicknames like
“Pedes.” Trump supporters called themselves “pedes” which is
short for centipedes. Because of
this terminology’s casualness, the origin is unclear as Trump
supporters are seemingly describing
themselves in a derogatory way. Even supporters themselves do
not know the origin; they are

9. Student 5
simply following the herd mentality. Many Reddit users
speculate that they are perhaps
referencing the human centipede, where individuals acted as one
unit. Whatever the origin, these
words and many others create a jargon much like a loaded
language. Lagorio-Chafkin describes
the subreddit as having the ability to serve as a safe space for
Trump supporters. He notes that at
some point, this following was like a cult. Ghitis identifies
another social media on the other side
of the spectrum. She suggests that WikiLeaks is not as much of
a community and is more used as
a weapon because of its ability to reveal information to the
masses, which hardly come together
to interact with each other through this platform. Although
these two sources are at completely
opposites ends of the spectrum regarding the interaction
between people who follow social
media, there are social media outlets exist somewhere within
the spectrum.
The interaction spectrum in social media can be seen through
Lagorio-Chafkin and

10. Ghitis’ juxtaposition of the two different supporter types that
can be found on either end of this
spectrum. Lagorio-Chafkin describes the followers of
The_Donald, a subreddit, in which there is
a lot of interaction within the group, mimicking a community.
On the contrary, Ghitis describes
how WikiLeaks’ followers interact with one another to a much
lesser degree. Again, both claims
by Lagorio-Chafkin and Ghitis have evidence and do not seem
faulty. I believe that they are both
right. I view these two examples as merely polar opposites of a
gradient in which many other
social media outlets lie. For example, with Snapchat, there is
more interaction between users
than WikiLeaks. However, Snapchat is typically used for one-
on-one communication, so there is
less interaction than a subreddit where everyone interacts with
everyone else in a group setting.
Neither Lagorio-Chafkin or Ghitis are wrong; they are simply
two ends of a continuous
spectrum. Social media with more interaction have more of a
lasting impacting than social media
with less interaction. WikiLeaks, an outlet with low interaction,
affected the election at one point

11. Student 6
in time: the release of the e-mails; however, with The_Donald,
there was continuous discussion
about the e-mails and what they can discover from them. The
community was even discussing
the e-mails on election day. Trump chose to be very involved
with Twitter, a social media outlet
known for its many possibilities of interaction such as retweets,
likes, and mentions. It was this
choice of social media and its lasting effects that gave Trump an
edge during the presidential
campaign.
By now, it is quite clear that social media is rising, and Trump
has risen along with it.
There are even different types of individuals who support
Trump in terms of their involvement
levels. Still, there are some individuals that may argue that
Trump’s great policy promises, rather
than his use of social media, allowed him to rise to power. One
such person is Armstrong
Williams, an author for The Hill, who states how America was
concerned about its decline, the

12. economic despair from a decade of recession, and the Islamic
fundamentalism’s rise as a credible
challenge to Western hegemony. Williams claims that in this
time of economic and political
stagnation, Trump’s bold promises seemed to be a “strong
wind,” and for the Americans, it
seemed as though any direction was better than no direction. An
example of this can be seen in
an article written by Michael Burleigh, a writer for the Daily
Mail. Burleigh claims that Trump’s
promise to only militarily intervene in the United States’
interest would make us a “new,
multipolar, world order.” That is not to say that the United
States would not intervene to aid
other nations. However, the implication of such changes would
be a decrease in military activity
and therefore, a reduce in its budget. It is interesting to note
that despite these statements made
during his campaign, the United States military budget has only
increased since his election.
During the presidential campaign, some opponents truly
believed that the Trump’s success was

13. Student 7
due to his great policies and his willingness to provide direction
when the country was in a time
of stagnation and recession.
It is true that America was not in the best of positions at the
time of the election;
however, the nation assumed that Trump was the only candidate
that offered direction.
Therefore, it may have seemed as though William’s claim of
Trump’s promises to make America
great again were a determinant to his rise to power; in fact,
Burleigh most likely voted for Trump
due to his plans for the allocation of government funding.
Despite this, I disagree that policies
are what made Trump so successful. Hillary Clinton had solid
policy plans as well. Clinton
aimed to provide free education for the poor, create paths to
citizenships for immigrants, fight for
equal pay, keep middle-class taxes stagnant, raise the minimum
wage, expand background
checks for gun sales, and increase federal infrastructure
funding. If policies were the case, it
would be a simple count of Democrats and Republicans.

14. Democrats and Republicans have their
own ideology, and certain candidates’ policies usually represent
their party’s ideologies. Instead,
Trump was successful through the delivery of his plans for
policies. Clinton had a very
professional and traditional way of expressing her plans through
advertisements. Trump
manipulated social media in such a way as to gain more voters
to his side of the campaign.
No matter how well social media is growing in this society or
how strongly connected the
following that it brings is, Trump’s application through
manipulation greatly altered the success
in his political campaign. Authors Barbaro and Enli researched
Trump’s Twitter during the 2016
election. However, they have different juxtaposed opinions on
Trump’s Twitter usage. Barbaro
asserts that his tweets in these past years have been pithy and
mean, but powerful. Barbaro
reminds us of the time Trump tweeted about Kim Novak’s,
Arianna Huffington’s, and Bette
Midler’s lack of physical attractiveness. Yet, his dominance is
still prominent with eight times as

15. Student 8
many mentions as other Republican rivals and twice as many
retweets as Clinton. On the other
hand, there is Enli’s view of Trump’s Twitter. She claims that it
can be viewed as him being
amateur, authentic, and non-professional, which can be a
counter-trend in the political campaign.
Enli views this as a positive thing to see in a politician. Enli
sees Trump’s tweets as a
combination of gut-feeling impulses rather than the
professionalism shown in Clinton’s tweets, a
way to be understood and connected to the people. Enli admires
this different approach to
Twitter as a social media. She states how these actions showed
that Trump “knew how to get
media coverage.” Either way, both Barbaro and Enli see how
Trump’s utilized the respective
techniques that the researchers identified to gain more exposure
in mainstream news. Trump’s
methods on Twitter were more focused on his own political
campaign.
At first glance, it may seem that Barbaro and Enli have alternate
views on Trump's

16. Twitter use; however, I believe that they are simply describing
two perspectives of the same
entity. Barbaro sees Trump using Twitter to mock and tease, so
he describes him as being pithy
and mean. I agree that some of his tweets can be categorized in
such a way. On the other hand,
Enli observes Trump using Twitter to speak his mind, so he
views him as being an authentic non-
professional, which she argues should be appreciated in a
politician. I concur with Enli’s
evidence, but not necessarily with the appreciation for it.
Because both positions have evidence
that supports these ideas, in my opinion, Trump is all of what is
described above. Trump is pithy,
mean, and authentic. However, I disagree with Enli's positive
interpretation of Trump's
authenticity. Often, philosophers define authenticity as one who
lives life according to one's
reasoning, thereby exhibiting one's identity (Talbot-Zorn). This
closely resembles stubbornness
and narcissism, which is not a good trait for someone in a
leadership position. Both Barbaro’s

17. Student 9
and Enli’s claims are structurally sound. They only seem
contrary to one another because they
are describing two sides of the same coin.
Trump’s social media use also resulted in attacking the
opposing political rival. Lagorio-
Chafin describes how the tightly bonded community created by
Trump’s subreddit on Reddit
could work together to make great progress in his campaign.
Lagorio-Chafkin emphasizes that
when Clinton’s thousands of e-mails were released to the public
by WikiLeaks, the subreddit
community combed through them to look for the e-mails that
could be incriminating and/or give
Clinton a bad image. Furthermore, although it is impossible to
ever find out, Lagorio-Chafkin
thinks that it is not hard to believe that these hundreds of
thousands of individuals spent a few
minutes at the polls after spending months discussing about it.
Similarly, Ghitis views
WikiLeaks as a method of attack on the opposing political rival;
however, this attack has less of
a direct connection to Trump. The thousands of e-mails’ source

18. released by WikiLeaks is
Russia’s Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack. Ghitis
claims that this country’s
intervention was a key factor to Donald Trump’s presidential
election victory. She reports that
Trump set out to win over Bernie supporters, utilizing their
acrimony towards the Democratic
Party after it was revealed by the e-mails that the party was
favoring Clinton. The party was
further wounded when the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman
Schultz, was forced to resign because
of the hack. Ghitis explains that since the e-mails’ release,
Trump’s many conspiracy theories
gained the impression of believability, further blurring the lines
between fact and fiction, giving
the Democratic Party a worse reputation. Social media is not
just a one-way street where
information is laid out to the public who reacts to it. Social
media can also be used to progress
towards a political party’s goals.
Student 10

19. I noticed changes in social media and its tendency to attack
political rivals as the 2016
presidential election was nearing. Through my own experience
of the election, it is clear that
both Lagorio-Chafkin and Ghitis are correct in that social media
has the power to be used as a
weapon in a presidential campaign beyond just the passive
method of distributing propaganda.
An example of a political party’s active attack with social
media that Lagorio-Chafkin would
point to is the use of “The_Donald” followers to scan through
the thousands of e-mails released
by WikiLeaks to look for incriminating material against Hillary
Clinton. Similarly, Ghitis would
exhibit the way that WikiLeaks allowed for Bernie supporters’
transformation to Trump’s side
and Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s resignation. I would agree
with both authors that social media
can be used to aggressively attack an opponent to gain political
power. Personally, I spend some
time on YouTube each day. I distinctly remember that as the
time was nearing election day, most
ads on videos were aggressive political ads by Donald Trump or
Hillary Clinton. As opposed to

20. earlier ads where candidates bolstered their own image, I
clearly remember Clinton having ads
attacking Trump and the words that he had said in the past.
With political influence being seen
on Reddit, WikiLeaks, and YouTube, it is not hard to believe
that social media can be used to
take an aggressive approach in a political campaign.
Nicola Sturgeon, who is the first woman to hold both the
position of the First Minister of
Scotland and the Scottish National Party leader, states that
“Social media is natural to me, and
it’s a very immediate way of saying something. It’s the way
politics are done these days. In
modern politics, you can’t ignore that even if you wanted to. I
can’t imagine doing politics
without it.” Although an election’s typical influences are the
voter’s background and
identification with the candidates, the voter’s party
identification, the voter’s view of the
incumbent’s previous performance, and the candidates’
ideologies, social media outlets are on
Student 11

21. the rise as a big influence on voting behavior. A lot of
researchers really accentuated social
media’s importance on the election. Social media is clearly on
the rise and Trump, whether he
initially had planned it or not, took full advantage of it, as
evidenced by the skyrocketing
numbers of supporters he had during the campaign. While some
opponents may argue that
despite this, his strong policies led him to victory, it is obvious
that social media was not a
passive assistance to his campaign; in fact, Trump used social
media to gain territory and wound
his opponents. While this paper mainly focused on social
media’s influence of the election, it
may be important to note how the analysis of other influences of
voting behavior may be
advantageous for further research that relates to Trump’s
success.

22. Student 12
Works Cited
Barbaro, Michael. “Pithy, Mean and Powerful: How Donald
Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016.”
The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015.
Burleigh, Michael. “The Great Escape from Globocop:
MICHAEL BURLEIGH on How Donald
Trump’s Rise to Power Could Be America and the West’s
Salvation.” Daily Mail Online,
Associated Newspapers, 12 Nov. 2016.
Carroll, Lauren. “Hillary Clinton’s Top 10 Campaign
Promises.” PolitiFact, 22 July 2016.
Enli, Gunn. “Twitter as Arena for the Authentic Outsider:
Exploring the Social Media
Campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential
Election.” Sage Pub,

23. European Journal of Communication, 2017.
Ghitis, Frida. “Trump’s Victory Was Aided by Russia’s
Weaponized Social Media Campaign.”
World Politics Review, World Politics Review, 10 Nov. 2016.
Greenwood, Shannon. “In 2017, Two-Thirds of U.S. Adults Get
News from Social Media.” Pew
Research Center’s Journalism Project, Pew Research Center, 5
Sept. 2017.
Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine. “Reddit and the God Emperor of the
Internet.” The New York Times,
The New York times, 19 Nov. 2016.
Shemzu. “Why Do Trump Supporters Call Themselves
Centipedes? r/EnoughTrumpSpam.”
Reddit, Reddit, June 2017.
Shontell, Alyson. “Really, There Is No Such Thing As Bad PR.”
Business Insider, Business
Insider, 28 Feb. 2011.
Talbot-Zorn, Justin, and Leigh Marz. “Donald Trump is Not
‘Authentic’ Just Because He Says
Things.” Time, Time, 10 Oct. 2016.
Student 13

24. Williams, Armstrong. “The Moral Origins of Donald Trump’s
Rise to Power Part One.” The
Hill, The Hill, 23 Aug. 2016.
Kaelan Wong
Gina Gemmel
English 161
October 20, 2017
Social Media and the 2016 Election: A Literature Review
There had been a lot of talk during and after the 2016 election
because of how unique it
was compared to all the previous ones. Only recently has social
media started to play a
significant role in political campaigns, which can clearly be
seen with Donald trump’s campaign
in the 2016 election. One main argument is that the use of social
media by Trump is what led
him to victory; however, others may disagree, stating that his
political views and ideology is
what gave him the advantage. This review examines articles

25. written by Michael Barbaro and
Christine Lagorio-Chafkin for the New York Times alongside
academic journals written by
Gunn Enli and Frida Ghitis for SAGE journals and the World
Politics Review, respectively.
Regarding social media, many tend to focus on its rise in
popular culture the following of people
of people that it tends to bring, and its utilization by the
candidate or its political party.
[Lit Review Paragraph One: Rise of Social Media (Barbaro,
Enli, Lagorio-Chafkin, Ghitis)]
Generally, the clear majority agrees that the rise of social
media has been prominent in
these past few years. Michael Barbaro, author of “Pithy, Mean,
and Powerful: Donald Trump
Mastered Twitter for 2016,” states how social media is free and
can relay information to the
public in a quick way. Barbaro points out how this can be
extremely useful, especially as it
slowly substitutes for “costly, conventional” methods. As an
example, Barbaro mentions how
rival campaigns acknowledge the advantage that Trump has
because of his millions of Twitter
followers and how he gets more mention and retweets compared

26. to other candidates. Gunn Enli,
author of “Twitter as Arena for the Authentic Outsider:
Exploring the Social Media Campaigns
Student 2
of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election,”
takes this further, believing that
social media can easily reach the masses, serving as a main
source of information. Enli reminds
us that new platforms have emerged while existing ones have
expanded. Christin Lagorio-
Chafkin, author of “Reddit and the God Emperor of the
Internet,” has a more specific focus on
social media, claiming that Reddit has become one of the most
significant websites on the
internet. Lagorio-Chafkin observes how Trump’s subreddit
“The_Donald” has gained around
300,000 members (It has over half a million now as of October
2017). On the other hand, Frida
Ghitis, author of “Trump’s Victory Was Aided by Russia’s
Weaponized Social Media
Campaign,” takes on a different focus: WikiLeaks. Arguably a
type of social media, WikiLeaks

27. grew to a significant size such that it could be used to
weaponize information. While all four
authors believe that social media is on the rise, Barbaro and
Enli focused on depicting the rise of
Twitter. On the other hand, Lagorio-Chafkin puts his focus on
Reddit’s development, and Ghitis
puts her spotlight on WikiLeak’s potential because of its size.
[Lit Review Paragraph Two: Trump’s Following on Social
Media (Enli, Barbaro)]
The following that social media spurs usually reflects the
popularity of the social media
and the structure of the outlet. Enli simply shows us the vast
size of this following. She notes
how Trump has over 17.6 million followers compared to The
New York Times, which only has
1.2 million online subscribers. Barbaro agrees and describes
this following, pointing out how this
team supports Trump even when his tweets were very
inappropriate. Barbaro describes Trump’s
following on Twitter as a “SWAT team of devoted supporters.”
This loyalty, he claims,
originates from Trump’s candidness and style. Barbaro
identifies this loyalty to the extreme with

28. Gary Forbes, who recruited volunteers to send out daily e-mails,
emphasizing Trump’s
messages. The two authors would clearly agree with each other
about the importance and growth
of Trump’s Twitter supporters.
Student 3
[Lit Review Paragraph Three: Different Kinds of Social Media
Sites (Lagorio-Chafkin, Ghitis)]
There are different types of followings that exist over the
internet. Lagorio-Chafkin
asserts that the sizable following on Trump’s subreddit have
created a community amongst
themselves. Many of these supporters have identified as
Islamophobic, trolled liberals, and/or
consistently bashed Hillary Clinton. They even had their own
slang with words inside jokes that
only the community understood such as “MAGA” (Make
America Great Again), “God
Emperor” (Trump), memes, and nicknames like “Pedes.”
Lagorio-Chafkin describes the
subreddit as having the ability to serve as a safe space for
Trump supporters. He notes that at

29. some point, this following was like a cult. Ghitis, identifies
another social media on the other
side of the spectrum. She suggests that WikiLeaks is not as
much of a community and is more
used as a weapon because of its ability to reveal information to
the masses, which hardly come
together to interact with each other through this platform.
Although these two sources are at
completely opposites ends of the spectrum regarding the
interaction between people who follow
social media, there are social media outlets that find a happy
medium.
[Lit Review Paragraph Four: The Influence of Trump’s Usage of
Twitter (Barbaro, Enli)]
No matter how well social media is growing in this society or
how strongly connected the
following that it brings is, the application of it by Trump can
greatly alter the success in his
political campaign. Both Barbaro and Enli researched Trump’s
Twitter during the 2016 election.
However, they have different juxtaposed opinions on Trump’s
actual usage of it. Barbaro asserts
that his tweets in these past years have been pithy and mean, but
powerful. Barbaro reminds us

30. of the time Trump tweeted about the lack of physical
attractiveness of Kim Novak, Arianna
Huffington, and Bette Midler. Yet, his dominance is still
prominent with eight times as many
mentions as other Republican rivals and twice as many retweets
as Clinton. On the other hand,
there is Enli’s view of Trump’s twitter. She claims that it can be
viewed as him being amateur,
Student 4
authentic, and non-professional, which can be a counter-trend in
the political campaign. Enli sees
Trump’s tweets as a combination of gut-feeling impulses rather
than the professionalism shown
in Clinton’s tweets. Either way, both Barbaro and Enli see how
Trump’s utilized the respective
techniques that the researchers identified to gain more exposure
in mainstream news. These
methods that Trump’s used on his Twitter were more focused on
his own political campaign.
[Lit Review Paragraph Four: The Influence of Others’ Usage of
Social Media (Lagorio-Chafkin,

31. Ghitis)]
Trump’s usage of social media also resulted in the attacking of
the opposing political
rival. Lagorio-Chafin describes how the tightly bonded
community created by Trump’s subreddit
on Reddit could come work together to make great progress in
his campaign. Lagorio-Chafkin
emphasizes that when the thousands of Clinton’s e-mails had
been released to the public by
WikiLeaks, the subreddit community combed through them to
look for the e-mails that could be
incriminating and/or give a bad image of Clinton. Furthermore,
although it is impossible to ever
find out, Lagorio-Chafkin thinks that it is not hard to believe
that these hundreds of thousands of
individuals spent a few minutes at the polls after spending
months discussing about it. Similary,
Ghitis’ view on WikiLeaks is an attack on the opposing political
rival; however, this attack hkas
less of a direct connection to Trump. Ghitis claims that Russia’s
intervention was a key factor to
Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. The source of the
thousands of e-mails released by
WikiLeaks is Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National

32. Committee (DNC). Ghitis reports that
Trump set out to gain the support of Bernie supporters, utilizing
their acrimony towards the
Democratic Party after it was revealed by the e-mails that the
party was favoring Clinton. The
party was further wounded when the DNC chair, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, was forced to
resign because of the hack. Ghitis explains that with the release
of the -mails, the many
conspiracy theories of Trump gained the impression of
believability, further blurring the lines
Student 5
between fact and fiction, giving the Democratic Party a worse
reputation. Social media is not just
a one-way street where information is laid out to the public who
reacts to it. Social media can
also be used to progress towards the goals of the political party.
Although the typical influences of an election are the voter’s
background and
identification with the candidates, the voter’s party
identification, the voter’s view of the

33. incumbent’s previous performance, and the ideology of the
candidates, social media outlets are
on the rise as a big influence on voting behavior. All the
authors really accentuated the
importance of social media on the election. Barbaro and Enli
had similar views, really focusing
on the size of the following; meanwhile, Lagorio-Chafkin
described the subreddit family, and
Ghitis juxtaposed that with a description that of WikiLeaks. The
prior two authors also analyzed
two different perspectives of Trump on Twitter and the latter
two discussed the different ways
that social media users personally influenced the election. In
general, it is agreeable between all
the sources and myself that social media is on the rise and is
played a great role in the election of
Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. While the
sources mainly focused on social
media’s influence of the election, it may be important to note
how the analysis of other
influences of voting behavior may be advantageous for further
research that relates to Trump.

34. Student 6
Works Cited
Barbaro, Michael. “Pithy, Mean and Powerful: How Donald
Trump Mastered Twitter for 2016.”
The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015.
Enli, Gunn. “Twitter as Arena for the Authentic Outsider:
Exploring the Social Media
Campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential
Election.” European
Journal of Communication, vol. 32, no. 1, 2017, pp. 50-61.
Ghitis, Frida. “Trump’s Victory Was Aided by Russia’s
Weaponized Social Media Campaign.”
World Politics Review, World Politics Review, 10 Nov. 2016.
Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine. “Reddit and the God Emperor of the
Internet.” The New York Times,
The New York times, 19 Nov. 2016.

35. Saif Al Katheeri
Dr. Gina Gemmel
English 161
July, 15th 2019
Literature review: Online crime
Cybercrime has increased rapidly over the years, and wrangling
debates are surrounding the issue. It has become part of
everyday life. Different scholars have thoroughly examined the
causes, prevalence, and potential solutions to cyber-crime. One
of the most challenging issues for researchers is the increased
penetration of the internet, increased use of smartphones and
computers in a society with very naive users of online
platforms. This is expected to lead to increased cybercrime
cases. With the recent trends in online crime, most scholars in
this field have dedicated their research to focus on the users of
online platforms, the safety of personal information, and
unauthorized privacy invasion. The review of literature from
Academic sources will examine the prevalence of cybercrimes
focusing on the soft targets of cyber-attack, unauthorized
privacy invasion, characteristics of cybercrime victim,
cybercrime trends globally and network intrusion facilitated
through social engineering: which basically means using
manipulation as an art figure to make a person do something or
reveal confidential information. While all the sources reviewed
agree that cybercrimes are a severe problem, they as well differ
on the various ways to solve the problem.
For instance, some authors attribute the severity of
cybercrimes to the inability of internet providers to protect their
websites, while others claim that the personality of cybercrime
victims often make them susceptible to attacks. In their article
on Cybersecurity: Risks, Vulnerabilities, and Countermeasures
to prevent Social Engineering Attacks, Conteh and Schmick
(2016) explain that most soft targets for cyber-attack are as a
result of various online platforms lacking the proper capacity to

36. protect their IT infrastructure from hackers focusing on stealing
personal details of users. Conteh and Schmick (2016) also
attribute the increasing number of cyber-crime cases to social
engineering. They depict that the attacks are aimed at making
victims disclose private information. In contrast to these claims,
other researchers attribute cybercrimes to the personal traits of
internet users. For instance, Van de Weijer and Leukfeldt
(2017) in their article The Big Five Personality Traits of
Cybercrime Victims, discuss that the personal qualities of
extraversion, sociability, conscientiousness, emotional stability,
and openness can contribute to vulnerability to attacks.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the severity of cybercrimes
is due to the inability of service providers to protect their
systems and also the personal traits of victims.
Looking at the works of most researchers, naivety has been
identified as one of the factors that cyber attackers rely on to
get their victims. In their article Individual Information
Security, User Behavior and Cyber Victimization: an Empirical
Study of Social Networking Users, Saridakis, et al. explain that
traditional cyber-crimes relate so much to attacks done,
targeting naïve users who have only fundamental skills in the
use of IT infrastructure. The empirical analysis shows that there
exists a connection between online abuse and user’s action and
sensitivities of private details security on social networks,
which forms the basis of the naivety of online users. This view
is also clearly brought out in Marwick’s discussion, where he
states that lack of experience, skills, and judgment, are the most
fundamental cause for frequent cases of cyberbullying is
naivety. In addition, Marwick also argues that women are the
most common victims of certain gender centered violations,
which range from consumer profiling to video voyeurism and
revenge porn. Therefore, it can be concluded that naivety makes
people susceptible to cyber attacks.
Privacy invasions are another form of today’s cybercrime
activities. According to Marwick, privacy invasion cases are on
the rise. Marwick elaborates more on unauthorized privacy

37. invasion due to lack of solid personal security knowledge. She
discusses one massive privacy breach which occurred in August
2014 with a vast number of celebrity nudes posted to the social
site called 4Chan. This illustrates privacy breach due to lack of
personal security knowledge (Marwick,1). Different methods
are used to perpetrate privacy breach crimes including; revenge
porn, which involves non-consensually sharing of intimate
images belonging to another person and Reddit and Geek
masculinity which includes downloads done by other users
without consent. This is itself unauthorized, and the privacy of
an individual is compromised. This is usually due to lack of a
limit on the online free search and the prevalence of openly
sexist annotation on the internet.
Similarly, Saridakis et al., 4, explains that unauthorized privacy
invasion has increased due to the use of social media sites.
Illegal privacy invasion is accomplished by clicking links on
social media, which further redirect users on those sites to
upload photos without personal consent. This technical ploy
deceives the user to key in a username and password, which
then make it easy for the attackers to gather information.
Conteh & Schmick (2016) also agree with these views. This,
therefore, points to more sophisticated strategies which have led
to increased unauthorized privacy invasion.
Regardless of the increase in unauthorized privacy invasion,
users have deployed adequate defenses to lower their
vulnerability (Conteh & Schmick, 33). They explain that
hackers are getting wittier and manipulative in carrying out
social engineering attacks. They emphasize that attackers can
obtain crucial details which can cause damage to the
individual’s reputation with others employing the use of
photoshop to achieve their intentions (Conteh &Schmick, 32).
They attribute an increase in these scandals to lack of
successful convictions and lack of resources to undertake the
process. In a similar view, Van de weijer emphasizes that
personality also contributes to unauthorized access to privacy
(Van de Weijer et al., 4). They indicate that users with lower

38. levels of self-discipline are at higher risk of becoming victims
of certain types of cybercrime (Van de Weijer et al., 3). A meta-
analysis on the same shows that self-discipline is the most
common indicator of vulnerability to cybercrime.
On various characteristics of cybercrimes, various scholars
express their take on this and agree that cybercrimes aim at
either embarrassing or harassing its victims. According to
Conteh and Schmick, cybercrime falls into multiple types like
phishing, pretexting, tailgating, and baiting as vital strategies
employed by attackers exploiting vulnerabilities of IT systems
(Conteh &Schmich, 32). Some of the characteristics that they
look at include; access to restricted areas, impersonation
leading to unauthorized access and attempts to gain personal
information such as names, addresses, and passwords (Conteh
&Schmich, 32). Similarly, Marwick adds on the same stating
that cyber-crime is intended to bring about harassment to
women and something like revenge porn, is a contemporary
issue that is both profoundly gendered and a gross violation of
privacy (3). This allows a closer examination of how gender
functions in a popular privacy discourse (Marwick, 3). Women
are particularly susceptible to online harassment and sexual
violence as a result of social Media’s networked properties,
particularly women of color and queer women.
Van de Weijer et al. also examines the cause of increased
cases of cyber-crime. Victimization of traditional crime is
linked to conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness
(Van de Weijer et al., 3). This is in line with the common types
of cyber-crimes given by Conteh and Schmick. However, only
extraversion and openness to experience were significantly and
positively related to the victimization as well as both harsh and
mild cyberbullying (Van de Weijer et al., 4). They describe the
main characteristic of cyberbullying as the crimes aimed at
information technology and committed through its use,
especially hacking. They also explore whether victims of
cyber-enabled crimes that is online intimidation, online

39. consumer fraud, and identity theft differ from victims of cyber-
dependent crimes (Van de Weijer et al., 3).
Similarly, Saridakis views the primary characteristic of
cybercrime as social networks cybercrime victimization. He
associates high usage of social media to be responsible for
increasing the risk of online victimization (Saridakis et al., 4).
This is based on the premise of RAT; it becomes easier for
criminals to find potential victims on social networks.
Conteh and Schmick also touch on cybercrime trends globally
stating that various factors that define most loopholes exploited
by cyber criminals include; network guidance, education and
training, technical procedures, and physical guidance (34). Lack
of proper check into these issues is seen to increase cyber-
attack incidences (Conteh & Schmich,34). Similarly, Marwick,
states that women harassment is as a result of “widespread use
of sexist language, sexual objectification, and aggressive
performances of masculinity” (Marwick, 13). “Thus, when a
photo leaks; it is justified from within the culture of normalized
sexism and the dehumanization and devaluation of women”
(Marwick, 13).
To make more comparison on the subject matter of global
trends of cyber-crime, Van der weijer et al., emphasizes a study
done among 572 young adults Facebook users (6). It was found
that global trends on cyber-crimes are usually influenced by
significant relationships between personality traits and online
behavior such as frequency of internet use, number of Facebook
friends and posting indiscrete content (Van de Weijer et al., 6).
The global crime trends postulated by Van der are similar to the
directions outlined by other scholars. Saridakis also denotes
identical take on the rise of cybercrime. He discusses the factors
that make cybercrime accessible in the current generation
(Saridakis et al., 4). These include easy target, motivated
offender, and absence of guardianship. This provides quite a
different view of what Conteh and Schmick examine.
A network intrusion is facilitated through social engineering.
Network intrusion and social engineering work hand in hand as

40. long as cybercrimes are concerned. Conteh and Schmick
emphasize that social engineering is critical in divulging
confidential information and is successful in its attempt due to
exploiting personality vulnerabilities (Conteh & Schmich, 33).
Similarly, Marwick depicts that gender privacy is compromised
by network intrusion. This is because; through the network,
secrets data is hacked, thus facilitating exposure of nude
(Marwick, 13). Making a comparison of the same, Van der
Weijer, denotes that, network intrusion and various traits of
personality complement each other. This is because networking
brings about different attributes; may it be the stability of
emotions, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Van de Weijer
et al.,6). Similarly, Saridakis postulates that social networking
sites are discussed as significant points of initiating attacks on
innocent users, further facilitating network intrusion.
As seen in the review of literature, each author identifies the
problems that are brought about by cyber-crime. Several issues
have also been covered, ranging from soft targets of cyber-
attack, unauthorized privacy invasion, characteristics of
cybercrime victims, cybercrime trends globally, and network
intrusion facilitated through social engineering. Although no
initiatives have been discussed on how to mitigate the
cybercrime problems, further study may be done to uncover
entirely new solutions unexamined here due to various research
limitations.

41. Works Cited
Alice E. Marwick (2017); Scandal or sex crime? Gendered
privacy and the celebrity nude photo leaks
George Saridakisa, Vladlena Bensona, Jean-Noel Ezingeardb,
Hemamali Tennakoona (2015): Individual information security,
user behavior and cyber victimisation: An empirical study of
social networking users
Nabie Y. Conteh and Paul J. Schmick (2016); Cybersecurity:
risks, vulnerabilities and countermeasures to prevent social
engineering attacks
Steve G.A, Van de Weijer, and E.Rutgar Leukfeldt (2017); Big
Five Personality Traits Of Cybercrime Victims; Article