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Polarization and othering in the age of disinformation: Haitian pet-eating migrants and the construction of anti-immigration discourse

Demata, Massimiliano
2026-01-01
2026
This paper examines how the claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio had abducted, killed and eaten household pets became a focal point of ideological and discursive polarization in the 2024 US presidential campaign, reinforcing the prominence of immigration as one of its central issues. While this narrative constituted a blatant example of disinformation, described by some as a conspiracy theory, it was nevertheless deployed strategically by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his campaign to reinforce his anti-immigration message. The dis cursive and communication strategies employed both to support and to debunk the narrative construct conflicting versions of reality in digital environments. The paper analyses five key tweets posted on X (formerly Twitter) together with a corpus of the most visible comments they generated. These tweets and their comments crafted and disseminated the fake news story. They illustrate how strategies of “othering” and legitimation foreground the polarizing dimen sion of the narrative as it was spread among, as well as co-constructed by, social media users. Specifically, the narrative became the focus of polarization on two related levels: first between Trump supporters and the Haitian migrants, and then between Trump supporters and Trump opponents, who diverged over the truth value of the news story.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11769/737769
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