Social Media And Politics

Prof. Bruce Mutsvairo, Professor of Media and Politics at Utrecht University, shares his insights on the role of social media and politics on the African continent. We discuss digital activism across countries, how structures like data bundles might lead to surveillance, and the growing role of influencers as reporters of news. The Special Issue call for citizen journalists is here.Here are the studies we discuss in the episode:The Janus face of social media and democracy? Reflections on Africa (2020)Is citizen journalism dead? An examination of recent developments in the field (2020)

Zac McCrary, Partner at Impact Research and host of the Pro Politics podcast, shares his insights on how American campaigns leverage polling and focus groups to craft a winning message. We discuss the upcoming 2022 US midterm elections, the (still) dominant role of television in political advertising, how social media fits into the picture, and how smart phones have changed polling into a multimodal endeavor. 

In this episode, it's just me! I present a recently published study, co-authored with Rasmus Schmøkel and published in Political Communication, that analyzes US Presidential campaigns' emotion expression across Facebook and Instagram. I'll explain the theoretical backdrop of the study, give an overview of the state-of-the-art on visual political communication, and communicate the study's methods and key results. Hope you enjoy this one-on-one episode! Here's a link to the study (feel free to share around): Cross-Platform Emotions in Social Media Political Campaigning: Comparing Candidates' Facebook and Instagram Images in the 2020 US Election (2022)  

Aleszu Bajak, Senior Data Reporter at USA Today, discusses his reporting on social media and politics using computational methods. We talk about the types of data that data journalists are working with, how they acquire it (e.g., Freedom of Information Requests), and how they approach reporting results in a way that tells an engaging story. We also dive into some of Aleszu's recent reporting, such as Parler reactions to Donald Trump's speech on January 6th, inequalities in Covid vaccinations, and the polarization of Congressional political rhetoric on social media over time. Here are some links to the stories we discuss in the episode: 'Hope' is out, 'Fight' is in: Does Tweeting Divide Congress, or Simply Echo its Divisions? When Trump Started his Speech before the Capital Riot, Talk on Parler turned to Civil WarHow Critical Race Theory went from Conservative Battle Cry to Mainstream Powder KegAnd here's Aleszu's talk on tracking politics with data journalism - highly recommend! 

Dr. Nils Gustafsson, Senior Lecturer of Strategic Communication at Lund University, discusses the run-up to the 2022 Swedish Elections and then findings from his research. First, we chat about the main political issues that Swedes are voting on, as well as how political parties and party leaders are digital campaigning on social media. Then, Dr. Gustafsson shares findings from three of his research projects. We discuss how Facebook was viewed as a tool for participation when it first became widely adopted in Sweden, how rejection sensitivity might affect political expression online, and how media narratives about polarization in Swedish media have changed over time. Here are links to the two published studies we discuss in the episode: The Subtle Nature of Facebook Politics: Swedish Social Network Site Users and Political Participation (2012)A Social Safety Net? Rejection Sensitivity and Political Opinion Sharing among Young People in Social Media (2018)

Prof. Vincent Hendricks, Professor of Formal Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, discusses his new book The Ministry of Truth: Big Tech's Influence over Facts, Feelings, and Fictions.Prof. Hendricks shares how social media are like investment banks in the attention economy, how information is packaged and sold, and what Big Tech's growing influence on critical infrastructure means for politics and society. 

Dr. Tom Paskhalis, Assistant Professor in Political and Data Science at Trinity College Dublin, shares his research on applying machine learning to the Facebook URLs Dataset from Social Science One. The project develops a model to label whether a news domain is credible or not based on Facebook interactions data. We discuss the Facebook URLs dataset, what types of machine learning techniques were applied to it, and how the model performed across the US and EU countries. 

Shauna Siggelkow, Director of Digital Storytelling at Define American, discusses a new report on anti-immigration YouTube videos: 'Immigration will Destroy Us and Other Talking Points.'We break down the report, which identifies a network of viral YouTube videos promoting narratives associated with the Great Replacement Theory. Shauna also shares findings from experiments that test how different genres, animation styles, and messengers can effectively communicate political issues. Check out the toolkit for communicating pro-immigration messages (and other types of political content) on digital and social media.

Dr. Desirée Schmuck, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication at KU Leuven, shares her research on social media influencers and their effects on users' political attitudes and behavior. We break down three of Dr. Schmuck's studies. The first focuses on how exposure to political influencer content affects young social media users' behavior, both in terms of formal electoral participation and environmental sustainability. The second examines how influencers might affect users' perceived simplification of politics, and how that perception influences users' political cynicism and interest. The third study is an experiment that seeks to understand how misinformation from lifestyle influencers could affect female social media users' attitudes toward covid and trust in public health information. Here are links to the studies we discuss in the episode: The Mobilizing Power of Influencers for Pro-Environmental Behavior Intentions and Political Participation (2022)Politics–Simply Explained? How Influ

Eric Wilson, Managing Partner at Startup Caucus and Host of The Business of Politics Show, discusses political tech incubators and their emerging role in US digital campaigning. We chat about how the Republican and Democratic Party need different tech solutions for different campaigning styles, the need for start-up campaigning firms, and the potential impact of Web3 on future political campaigns. Here's the link to Eric's blog post on Web3. Subscribe to The Business of Politics Show! 

Prof. Lance Bennett, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Communication at the University of Washington, discusses the types of principled values that should guide platform regulation. We reflect on the disruptive ethos of tech companies and what that means for democracy. We also discuss theories of capitalism, recent changes in data privacy and third-party tracking, as well as the connection between digital technologies and protest parties. The article we discuss in the episode is Killing the Golden Goose: A Framework for Regulating Disruptive Technologies. 

Prof. Andrew Chadwick, Professor of Communication at Loughborough University, shares insights from his new public research report: Covid Vaccines and Online Personal Messaging: The Challenge of Challenging Everyday Misinformation. The report explores how British citizens use private social messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and in particular how they experience and engage with coronavirus misinformation across private group chats on these platforms. We discuss the hybrid character of this engagement, the role of qualitative research in project designs, and person-centered solutions to countering misinformation on private social media.

Prof. Anders Olof Larsson, Professor of Communication at Kristiania University College, shares his comparative social media research on party communication. We start out with a macro-level look at political parties' adoption of Facebook and Instagram across Europe, before focusing more specifically on Scandinavia. Prof. Larsson discusses the pros and cons of political merch contests in driving engagement, and how hashtag network structures have evolved over time on Facebook and Instagram in Norway. We also discuss post virality and Prof. Larsson's work comparing viral posts in Norway across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Here are the studies mentioned in the episode: Longitudinal studies of European party communication: Picture-perfect populism: Tracing the rise of European populist parties on Facebook (2022)The rise of Instagram as a tool for political communication: A longitudinal study of European political parties and their followers (2021)Studies using Norwegian data:‘Win a sweater with the P

Arjun Moorthy, co-founder and CEO of The Factual, discusses how machine learning and natural language processing can rank news for credibility. Arjun breaks down the criteria underpinning The Factual's rating system as well as how it tries to minimize bias. We talk about some of the pitfalls of optimizing news for engagement, as well as how anonymity in a different incentive structure affects discourse around discussing news. Towards the end of the episode, we discuss the current state of AI in the newsroom, and how automation might affect news consumption in the future. Check out the Unbiased Podcast!And test out The Factual's engine at IsThisCredible.com

Joshua Tucker, Professor of Politics at NYU and Co-Director of the Center for Social Media and Politics, discusses social media's impact on the invasion of Ukraine. We talk about 'information theaters' of operation and how they differ across the West, Ukraine, Russia, and China. Prof. Tucker also shares his thoughts on Volodymyr Zelensky's teleconferencing, the Biden administration's pre-bunking strategy towards disinformation, multinational corporations' actions towards sanctions, and Vladimir Putin's isolation. And more! Here are links to prior episodes on Ukraine:Volodymyr Zelensky's Social Media Strategy in the 2019 Ukraine ElectionsRussian Disinformation and Social Media in Ukraine

Dr. Jenny Lindholm, University Teacher and Researcher in Political Science, Media, and Communication at Åbo Akademi University, discusses her research on visual political communication. First, we break down Dr. Lindholm's eye-tracking experiment on how party leaders' Instagram photos affect viewers' trait perceptions of leaders. The focus is on where viewers of these images give their visual attention, and whether that differs across public versus private photos as well as the gender of party leaders. Then, we discuss another study focusing on the emotion communication of the Finnish Prime Minister during coronavirus crisis communication in press conferences. Here are the two studies we discuss in the episode:See Me, Like Me! Exploring Viewers’ Visual Attention to and Trait Perceptions of Party Leaders on Instagram (2021)Emotionell räddning? Visuell kriskommunikation under coronakrisens inledande skede – fallet Finland (2021)

Dr. Jakob Ohme, Senior Researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute, discusses his research on mobile news consumption. Dr. Ohme breaks down how exposure to political news on a smartphone might differ from a desktop, and he breaks down results from a recent eye-tracking study exploring the topic. We also discuss how smartphones can be used for data collection, through Dr. Ohme's research using a smartphone media diary as well as data from the iOS Screen Time function. The studies discussed in the episode are: Mobile News Learning: Investigating Political Knowledge Gains in a Social Media Newsfeed with Mobile Eye Tracking (2021)Mobile Data Donations: Assessing Self-report Accuracy and Sample Biases with the iOS Screen Time Function (2020)Mobile but Not Mobilized? Differential Gains from Mobile News Consumption for Citizens’ Political Knowledge and Campaign Participation (2020)

Here we go! A deep dive into the year's latest trends in social media and politics, as well as predictions for the future. We cover various platforms' year in review recaps, Telegram and Belarus, Facebook's change to Meta and the Silicon Valley "Founder", artificial intelligence and the virtual politician, Web 3 and Parler, and the enduring role of newsletters. Here's the platform year in review stats and bonus links for the episode: Facebook Threat ReportGoogle Year in SearchTiktok Cultural PhenomenonsPinterest PredictsReddit RecapSnap Lens on the YearTwitter #OnlyOnTwitterArticle with chart on social media's impact on democracyThe greatest newsletter of all-time See you in January for new episodes!

Dr. Curd Knüpfer (Assistant Professor) and Mike Cowburn (PhD Candidate), from the JFK Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, discuss their research on right-wing alternative media. We start out by discussing what right-wing alternative media are, and how they are transnationally linked across Western democracies. Then, we explore Mike and Curd's ongoing work into how Members of Congress' social media engagement with these sites may be predictors of political positionality. We also look at how Republican Members of Congress' use of the fake news label also relates to their political ideology. The (published) studies discussed in the episode are: Beyond Breitbart: Comparing Right-Wing Digital News Infrastructures in Six Western DemocraciesToward a Transnational Information Ecology on the Right? Hyperlink Networking among Right-Wing Digital News Sites in Europe and the United StatesLegislator Adoption of the Fake News Label: Ideological Differences in Republican Representative Use on T

Juri Schnöller, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Cosmonauts & Kings, discusses the latest trends in German digital political communication. We chat about the role of digital political consultants in Germany, the important role of messenger apps like Signal and Telegram, and how social media influencers are impacting coronavirus communication. We also compare how features of the German electoral rules, political culture, and media system work to shape German digital campaigning. Extra links: Public Arena Playbook: Juri's Handbook for Digital Political CommunicationCivical: A Social Media Management Software for Politics