The question of how Donald Trump won the 2016 election looms over his presidency. In particular, were the 78,000 voters who gave him an Electoral College victory affected by the Russian trolls and hackers? Trump has denied it. So too has Vladimir Putin. Others cast the answer as unknowable. Drawing on path-breaking work in which she and her colleagues isolated significant communication effects in the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, the eminent political communication scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson marshals the troll posts, unique polling data, analyses of how the press used the hacked content, and a synthesis of half a century of media effects research to argue that, although not certain, it is probable that the Russians helped elect the 45th president of the United States.
“A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by hackers and trolls were decisive.”
- The New Yorker
“‘Cyberwar’ doesn’t simply document Russia’s hacking and social-media campaigns. It also pinpoints another, less well-known, instance of Russian sabotage, and Jamieson argues that this dirty trick, in combination with the actions of trolls and hackers, may have changed the course of the 2016 campaign.”
- Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
“In her breakthrough new book Cyberwar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson applies her legendary skills to a forensic examination of the Russian hackers, trolls and bots who reshaped American public opinion through social media platforms. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President.”
- Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, NBC News
“Kathleen Hall Jamieson mounts a strong challenge to the conventional wisdom that the Russia interference in the 2016 presidential race did not affect the outcome. It is hard to imagine a better application of careful scholarship to a central question for our country and deserves a wide readership.”
- Robert Jervis, Professor of International Politics, Columbia University
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of its Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Among her award-winning Oxford University Press books are Packaging the Presidency, Eloquence in an Electronic Age, Spiral of Cynicism (with Joseph Cappella), and The Obama Victory (with Kate Kenski and Bruce Hardy).
