“Fake it till you make it (violent)” : A qualitative cross-case comparison of disinformation and electoral violence during the American Presidential Elections in 2008 and 2020

Sammanfattning

Disinformation has become a more and more common phenomenon in politics. As violence has been connected to disinformation online this text seeks to answer the research question: Does disinformation spread by political candidates during an election cycle influence the presence of electoral violence? It starts out with reviewing previous literature on the causes and effects of both electoral violence and disinformation. Furthermore, it presents a theoretical argument to explain the relationship between disinformation and electoral violence as a combination of underlying conditions of in-and out groups structures, and disinformation as the trigger. Utilizing the Structured Focused Comparison, it reviews two election cycles in the United States of America. The study confirms a correlation between electoral violence and disinformation, although it concludes with potential alternative explanations and limitations that can discredit the result. Finally, it promotes further research to draw any causal conclusions about the relationship between disinformation and electoral violence.