The question of how Donald Trump won the 2016 election looms over all of the many controversies that continue to swirl around him to this day. In particular, was his victory the result of Russian meddling in our political system? Up until now, the answer to that has been equivocal at best given how difficult it is to prove. Trump has vociferously denied it, as has Vladimir Putin himself. Even the famous intelligence reports establishing that the Russians interfered hold back from saying whether the interference tipped the scales in the outcome. In Cyberwar, however, the eminent scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who sifted through a vast amount of polling and voting data, is able to conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty that Russian help was crucial in elevating Trump to the Oval Office. Put simply, by changing the behaviour of key players and altering the focus and content of mainstream news, Russian hackers reshaped the 2016 electoral dynamic. At the same time, Russian trolls used social media to target voting groups indispensable to a Trump victory or Clinton defeat. There are of course many arguments on offer that push against the idea that the Russians handed Trump his victory. Russia's goal was fomenting division, not electing Trump. Most of the Russian ads reportedly did not reference either the election or a candidate. Nor did they differ much from U.S.-based messaging that was already in play. Russian intervention did not surgically target Trump in key states. Finally, if WikiLeaks' releases of stolen email had truly affected the vote, Clinton's perceived honesty would have dropped in October. Jamieson, drawing from her four decades of research on the role of media in American elections, dispenses with these arguments through a forensic tracing of both Russian hackers' impact on media coverage as well as the ebbs and flows of Trump's polling support over the course of the campaign. To be sure, it is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that the Russians handed the election to Trump because there is too much that we don't know. That said, the lessons of a half century of research on the role of media framing in elections strongly suggests that many voters' opinions were altered by Russia's wide-ranging and coordinated campaign-including at least seventy eight thousand votes in three key states. Combining scholarly rigour with a bracing argument, Cyberwar shows that we can now be reasonably confident that Russian efforts helped put Trump in the White House.
Industry Reviews
"A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by hackers and trolls were decisive." - 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, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American President." -- Andrea Mitchell, NBC
News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, MSNBC Anchor
"Kathleen Hall Jamieson has performed a great service not just for politicians, journalists and curious citizens, but most important, for American democracy, by taking a scholar's approach to answering one of the most urgent and gnawing questions of our time: how did Russia try to influence the U.S. elections of 2016 and how much difference did that make? This is a must read for everyone who cares about the future of the American electoral system." --
Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor, The PBS NewsHour
"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. Drawing on her expertise in presidential elections and how messages are received, she shows how the hacked emails influenced the media's focus and traces the powerful synergies between what the trolls were saying and what voters were ready to believe. 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, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, Columbia University
"Offers a detailed and compelling case" -- The Washington Post
"Jamieson's illuminating, timely Cyberwar is a major step forward in trying to understand the 'new' media order -- and how open this digital landscape is to malicious exploitation." -- Nature
"Necessary reading for those interested in the democratic process and its enemies." -- Kirkus
"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, using data analytics to achieve maximum impact. Her masterful study provides a compelling answer to the question of whether Russia likely helped elect an American Presiden
"Jamieson's expertise in US political communications allows her to unfold what issues were raised, made important, gained traction, and mattered in the back and forth between candidate messaging, media coverage, and voter engagement. Her very title announces the severity and malign intention of the activities she describes." --Katherine Voyles, Public Books
