2024 U.S. ELECTIONS RAPID RESEARCH BLOG This is part of an ongoing series of rapid research blog posts and rapid research analysis about the 2024 U.S. elections from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.

Key Takeaways

• After the assassination attempt on presidential candidate Donald Trump, people converged online to make sense of available information in a process known as collective sensemaking.
• Collective sensemaking has two core components: assembling potential evidence and framing. The available evidence helps us select the frames we use, and the frames shape which evidence we focus on and how we interpret it.
• Early sensemaking focused on determining who the shooter was and why he had done it. We expect continued speculation online about the shooter’s motives, along with selective evidence sharing and continued framing contests.
• We also observed three politically-coded frames emerge: On one anti-Trump side, conspiratorial framing that the assassination attempt was “staged” for political gain; on the pro-Trump side, equally conspiratorial framing of the assassination attempt as an “inside job;” and in between, framing that criticized the Secret Service for failing to adequately protect the former President.
• Savvy creators are also utilizing AI to make content, memes, and product listings in response to the attempted assassination, including AI-generated imagery and commemorative merchandise listings.”