According to an academic paper entitled “Weaponizing The Haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation,” Russian trolls had a whole lot to do with the negative critcism launched at Rian Johnson’s middle chapter in the franchise’s trilogy sequel.
“Overall, 50.9% of those tweeting negatively [about the movie] was likely politically motivated or not even human,” author Morten Bay writes.
He determined only 21.9% of tweets about The Last Jedi had been unfavorable in the first place.
“A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls,” Bay continued.
Rian Johnson shared his enthusiasm to read the paper via his Tweet.
A bit of Morten’s research came out awhile ago and made some headlines – here’s his full paper. Looking forward to reading it, but what the top-line describes is consistent with my experience online. https://t.co/MTRgmPxGgZ— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 1, 2018
Read more at The Hollywood Reporter.
You can read the actual paper right here.