Lukito, J., Zhang, Y., Chen, B., Prochaska, S., Pruden, M. L., Yang, Y., Zhong, W., Brown, M. A., Dahlke, R., Greenfield, J., Suk, J., & Borah, P. (2026). Cross-platformization: How U.S. right-leaning media curate their posts on Twitter and Truth Social. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261470889
Summary
This paper introduces the concept of cross-platformization to describe how right-leaning media outlets adapt their content distribution across different social media platforms. Focusing on seven U.S. right-leaning media organizations during the 2022 midterm election, the authors examine how these outlets curate posts differently on Twitter (a mainstream platform) versus Truth Social (an alt-tech platform). The central argument is that partisan media do not simply broadcast identical content everywhere; instead, they engage in platform-specific curation, tailoring both the volume and packaging of stories to each platform’s distinct audience and environment.
Key Contributions
- Introduces and applies the concept of cross-platformization to partisan media’s social media practices.
- Provides empirical insight into how right-leaning outlets curate content differently across mainstream and alternative platforms.
- Offers a mixed-methods framework for studying multi-platform media distribution during a major U.S. election.
Methods
The authors collected social media posts and content from seven right-leaning media organizations on both Twitter and Truth Social during the 2022 U.S. midterm election period. They employed a mixed-methods design combining computational and qualitative analysis, structured around two analytic dimensions: content volume and story packaging.
Findings
- Outlets shared only a small proportion of their total stories across both Twitter and Truth Social, indicating selective, platform-tailored curation rather than uniform distribution.
- Content curation and story packaging varied meaningfully between the two platforms, reflecting strategic adaptation to each platform’s audience and environment.
Connections
This work sits within research on partisan media, platformization, and the alternative media ecosystem, particularly the rise of alt-tech platforms like Truth Social. It connects to broader studies of politically motivated content curation and coordinated media behavior such as Prochaska2025-ef and Starbird2025-jj, and speaks to the wider literature on partisan media and polarization represented by Arceneaux2026-xk and Lukito2026-nb.