Comparison of Online Maneuvers by Authentic and Inauthentic Local News Organizations

Abstract: Inauthentic local news organizations, otherwise known as pink slime, have become a serious problem exploiting the trust of local news since their creation ahead of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. In this paper, we apply the BEND framework, a methodology of classifying social media posts as belonging to sixteen network and narrative maneuvers, to compare and contrast how pink slime sites and authentic local news sites are shared on Facebook Pages. It finds that pink slime sites implemented more positive narrative maneuvers than those of local news sharers. Both news types utilized distraction but to fulfill separate goals - pink slime used it against local and state elections while authentic local news focused on national elections and figureheads. Furthermore, local news employed the neutralize tactic in order to reduce positive sentiment around national politicians.