Right-wing think tanks are a major source of partisan knowledge. Their influence is rooted in their strategic hybridity, namely their ability to use the resources of fields outside politics to promote their partisan messages. This strategic hybridity is especially powerful in relation to the academy, as arguments can be framed with the trappings of scholarship without first passing muster in the scholarly community. This article documents how strategic hybridity has deepened online as the organization PragerU embraces a new tactic—the influencer-intellectual—and a new genre—social media ads—to advance its right-wing cause. To illustrate this new complexity, I analyze ads PragerU ran on Meta platforms that attacked the 1619 Project and had at least 20 million impressions. Beyond reconceptualizing hybridity, I review the shortcomings of Meta’s Ad Library while making the case for its value in tracking the spilling of partisanship from formal politics into culture.

中文翻译：

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影响者知识分子策略和社交媒体广告：PragerU 如何推进党派知识


右翼智库是党派知识的主要来源。他们的影响力植根于他们的战略混合性，即他们能够利用政治以外的领域资源来宣传他们的党派信息。这种战略上的混合性在学术界尤其强大，因为论点可以用学术的外衣来构建，而不需要首先在学术界通过。本文记录了随着 PragerU 组织采用一种新策略（影响者-知识分子）和一种新类型（社交媒体广告）来推进其右翼事业，战略混合性如何在网上加深。为了说明这种新的复杂性，我分析了 PragerU 在 Meta 平台上投放的广告，这些广告攻击了 1619 项目，至少有 2000 万次展示。除了重新概念化混合性之外，我还回顾了 Meta 广告库的缺点，同时说明了它在追踪党派之争从正式政治到文化方面的价值。