Kec71

You will never get citation for that. I've been following those two communities for last three months before election happened (and few months after) and what I can state is onyl empirical. The things they do are amazing. More than 25k+ people working 24/7 to elect Trump is big influence. Note that they were all unpaid and did it by their free will. They even had paid members from opposition (ShariaBlue) to influence their opinions and destroy hegemony of site, but they failed. What do you think who financed this study? You think they were bored so decided to study /pol/ just so they have something to do?

Pro Donald sites had much bigger influence in election than most of people will ever realize. Trump himself acknowledges them and his team follows them because news get there fastest.

Nevertheless, /pol/ and r/the_donald were one of main factors why Donald Trump got elected. This crowdsurfing phenomenon holds tremendous amount of power.