Steering the Crowd: Overt Pro-Government Messaging During Mass Protest

Presented by Anita Gohdes, Professor of International and Cyber Security at the Hertie School in Berlin How do overt influence campaigns cue partisans during mass protest? Existing research on online influence campaigns has largely focused on covert operations, yet little is known about the use of overt accounts and their role in partisan communication. We argue that overt pro-government accounts function as partisan cue providers and that these commentators are especially valuable during contentious political periods to help increase the reach and salience of partisan narratives. Focusing on the 2020–2022 Indian farmers' protests, we investigate the use of the BJP IT cell, a group of clearly identifiable pro-government users employed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in communic