Style and substance on The Alex Jones Show predict InfoWars sales: a multi-modal analysis of a media empire

Alex Jones, a prominent conspiracy theorist, has garnered substantial influence and wealth through his InfoWars media empire, which includes The Alex Jones Show and InfoWars.com. This study leverages a dataset of daily sales data from InfoWars.com spanning 2016 to 2018, released during his defamation lawsuits. This dataset provides an unprecedented view into the Alex Jones media empire’s finances. By combining this dataset with a time series analysis of linguistic and auditory features and topics from Jones’s radio show and online articles, we show that specific linguistic styles – such as the use of swear words – and auditory features in the radio show (specifically pitch and intensity), as well as specific topics discussed on the show, predict next-day sales. Furthermore, we find a bidirectional relationship, as sales predict future content style and topics. This study advances our conceptualization of media empires by highlighting the economic incentives behind producing mis/disinformation and underscores the importance of content in developing media empires.

Recommended citation: Dahlke, R., Yang, Y., Lukito, J., Greenfield, J., Chen, B., Brown, M. A., & Lewis, R. (2026). Style and substance on The Alex Jones Show predict InfoWars sales: a multi-modal analysis of a media empire. Information, Communication & Society, 29(4), 1386–1405. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2642851
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