Screenshot of the title page of a journal article in Information, Communication & Society by Ross Dahlke and coauthors. The article is titled “Style and substance on The Alex Jones Show predict InfoWars sales: a multi-modal analysis of a media empire.” The abstract explains that the study combines daily InfoWars sales data from 2016 to 2018 with linguistic, auditory, and topical features from Alex Jones’s radio show and online articles, finding that some styles and topics predict next-day sales.

Image description Line chart showing daily InfoWars sales in dollars from January 2016 through December 2018. Sales are highly volatile, with frequent spikes, but generally rise from relatively low levels in early 2016 to a higher and more sustained range through 2017 and 2018, often around $100,000 to $300,000 per day, with occasional peaks approaching $1 million.

Image description Multi-panel figure showing daily trends in selected themes and styles in Alex Jones radio shows and InfoWars news articles from 2016 to 2018. The left column tracks radio show content including Power, Bio, Achieve, Focus Future, and Money; the right column tracks article content including Power, Achieve, Money, Anger, and Focus Future. Gray daily values are overlaid with smoothed trend lines, showing that some themes shift gradually over time while others remain fairly stable.

Image description Multi-panel figure showing daily trends in major topics in Alex Jones radio shows and InfoWars news articles from 2016 to 2018. Radio show panels include Nationalism, Politicians, Show Slogans, Promotions, and Fake News; article panels include Trump, Scientific Discoveries and Controversies, Media and Politics, Attacking Democrats, and Global Conflicts. Smoothed trend lines show modest but noticeable changes over time, including persistent attention to Trump and politics in articles and nationalism and political messaging in radio content.

New from me, @yunkangyang.bsky.social @jolukito.bsky.social @jasong.bsky.social @m-dot-brown.bsky.social @beccalew.bsky.social: analyzing sales data released from InfoWar's court case, we find that certain styles (linguistic and auditory) used by Alex Jones on his radio show predict next-day sales

Style and substance on The Alex Jones Show predict InfoWars sales: a multi-modal analysis of a media empire Alex Jones, a prominent conspiracy theorist, has garnered substantial influence and wealth through his InfoWars media empire, which includes The Alex Jones Show and InfoWars.com. This study leverag...

Oh man, I've been waiting so long for this to be out in the world!

This is an incredible study. Must read.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thank you AJ for your support! Yes, it took a long time but finally came out!

And I just got @yunkangyang.bsky.social’s wonderful new book, Weapons of Mass Deception!

based upon shared assumptions about the press's unwillingness or inability to adequately convey lived reality."

My favorite quote is "making the liberal media illuminates a vital mechanism in the reproduction of conservatism as a political identity whose breadth otherwise defies neat social categorization or ideological definition. It suggests that conservatives come to identify with one another in part ...

I got @ajbauer.bsky.social 's new book! The book explains the origin of a key theme that has animated US rightwing media for decades, namely their critical disposition towards the press.

Thank you Joey for the kind words! Glad that you enjoyed reading our article.

Use promo code AUFLY30 to get 30% off my book — valid on both paperback and hardcover!

So sorry about the rejection of the grant. Take at least a week off and don't think about it for the rest of 2025!

I am so happy to see this published! (And delighted that my excellent coauthors went along with my suggested title of 'Candidates be Posting')

Far-right challenges to liberal democratic press norms: “indexing by proxy” in a German immigration debate Abstract. This study examines the mechanisms by which illiberal politics make the news by disrupting democratic systems. During the late 20th century, a li

✨NEW PAPER OUT✨
“Far-right challenges to liberal democratic press norms: ‘indexing by proxy’ in a German immigration debate”
together with Lance Bennett & @ulrikeklinger.bsky.social in
@journal-of-comm.bsky.social.
Why do far-right issues keep making the news? 🧵⤵️
academic.oup.com/joc/advance-...

If you work in higher-ed, please read this interview with @dkreiss.bsky.social.
I believe the types of public signals to the sector he points to here have direct ramifications beyond the US.

Title and abstract of paper

On Friday at 17:00 (1A.10) I'll present "The Logic of Connective Faction: How Far-Right Media and Digitally-Networked Elites Radicalize Politics" (co-authored w/@curdknupfer.bsky.social & @yunkangyang.bsky.social) on panel "Politics, Media, and Radicalization" #EPSA2025

Paper: tinyurl.com/38czxhh6

Thrilled to announce that my new book Weapons of Mass Deception: How Right-Wing Media Wage Information Warfare and Undermine American Democracy is now available for preorder from Oxford University Press! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

First of two of my #ICA25 talks in Denver: a paper co-authored with @yunkangyang.bsky.social and @mikecowburn.bsky.social, wherein we theorize how ideological digital networks might radicalize elites and political factions.

Pictured: me attempting to explain a visual metaphor... 😅🤷‍♂️

@curdknupfer.bsky.social presenting our co-authored work (w/ @yunkangyang.bsky.social) about connective factions

Read the paper here: mikecowburn.com/wp-content/u...

Going to be in Berlin in 2 weeks, to speak about
"The Logic of Connective Faction"

...a project I've been working on with @yunkangyang.bsky.social and @mikecowburn.bsky.social.

Looking forward to see all my old friends & colleagues at the @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social 🫶

a group of power rangers standing next to each other with the words `` super team '' above them . ALT: a group of power rangers standing next to each other with the words `` super team '' above them .

Proud to work with an amazing team: @yunkangyang.bsky.social , Ramesh Paudel, Jordan McShan, @matthindman.bsky.social , and Howie Huang.

And grateful to the Knight Foundation for supporting work on transparent methods for information integrity.

Full paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Great movie to watch on the plane!

Look at the rainbow! Just the best city giving ✨