Troll Tracking: Examining Rhetorical Circulation of Anti-Intellectual Ideologies in Right-Wing Media Attacks

Abstract

This case study proposes a method of troll tracking to analyze how right-wing media attacks circulate and contribute to increasing anti-intellectualism in the United States. Given the increase in right-wing political "news"sites as originators of trolling activity and their propensity to espouse anti-intellectualism, we are interested in understanding more deeply how particular instances of this targeted outrage become rhetorical. Our analysis reveals how metaknowledge circulates misinformation through commentary that carries anti-intellectual ideologies rapidly across time and space. This process of detachment reveals important implications about the (re)production of anti-intellectual ideologies, the evocation of collective outrage that manifests as sexism and transphobia, and the gatekeeping of academic knowledge production.