Social Media And Politics

Adam Meldrum, Founding and Managing Partner at Ad Victory, guests to discuss the cutting-edge trends in American digital campaigning. We look at some best practices and innovations from the 2018 Midterm Elections around ad buys, booking inventory, OTT campaigns, and Facebook Messenger chatbots. And of course, how social media fits into the modern political campaign apparatus.

Dr. Alice Marwick, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, guests to discuss the findings of her research report: Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Dr. Marwick breaks down how far-right groups use the internet and social media to promote their ideologies. We also talk about radicalization, conspiracy theories, and differences in online activity between the far-right and far-left. Check out the report here. And don't forget to sign up for the Social Media and Politics newsletter!

Dr. Rachel Gibson, Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester, discusses British political parties' digital campaigning from websites to social media. We take a longitudinal dive into the development of digital campaigning in the UK, and compare it to campaigning practices in the US. Then, we examine how citizens' political participation is evolving through their use of digital communication technologies.

Kateryna Kruk, Analyst at StopFake and Special Fellow at the European Values Think-Tank, discusses the development and strategies of Russian disinformation in Ukraine. Kateryna shares her experiences using Twitter to promote awareness about the Euromaidan protests, and we dig deeper into the role social media played in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. We then discuss how Russian used digital media to spread disinformation around the annexation of Crimea and armed conflict in Donbass. Kateryna also shares her insights into how to use social media for government communication, based on her work with the Ukrainian Parliament. Other topics include deep fakes and disinformation ahead of the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential elections.

Dr. Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna, guests to discuss the "News Finds Me Perception" and the role of social media in it. Citizens who believe that the news will simply find them are heavy users of social media, and Dr. Gil de Zúñiga's research shows that this negatively impacts political interest and political knowledge. In the episode, we parse out the effects and implications of News Finds Me for democracy. The two articles discussed in the episode are: News Finds Me Perception and Democracy Multi-Platform News Use and Political Participation Across Age Groups

Dr. Paul Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Social Media and Digital Society at the University of Sheffield, shares his research on the role of social media in protests in Northern Ireland. We first discuss the "Irish Border Question" in relation to Brexit, and then hone in on two demonstrations in Northern Ireland. The discussion highlights how much of the contemporary political debates around Facebook and Twitter (e.g., disinformation, propaganda, and user privacy) have roots much earlier than the 2016 US election. The two articles covered in the episode are: Researching protest on Facebook: developing an ethical stance for the study of Northern Irish flag protest pages Tweeting for peace? Twitter and the Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast, July 2014

Marta Albertini, Digital Strategist at GPLUS, joins the podcast to share her experiences in digital campaigning across private and public sectors. We discuss differences in using social media in a B2B environment versus an institutional one, some of the challenges in running pan-European campaigns, and how generational differences matter when communicating policy online. Marta also shares her insights on what's changed in the (social) media landscape between the 2014 and 2019 European Parliament Elections.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University, joins host Michael Bossetta for the 3rd Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review! We each present three "gifts": nuggets of knowledge that look back to the key trends in social media and politics in 2018 or what to expect in 2019. We discuss politicians as influencers, most shared items on social media, artificial intelligence, clickbait, and much more! Here are some extra resources from the episode. Facebook Livestream Platform Year in Reviews: Facebook Twitter Instagram Pornhub Nike "Dream Crazy" Commercial Pizza Hut "Lines" Commercial Alex Stubb v. Manfred Weber Campaign Laurel v. Yanny: Trump Edition Now This video poking fun at Congress

Marco Ricorda, Social Media Manager for the European Parliament's President, joins the podcast to discuss livestreaming from the Parliament during last week's terrorist attack in Strasbourg. From there, we discuss the state of digital campaigning in European politics, the role of data and data analysis for social media campaigns, and the upcoming 2019 European Parliament elections. Check out the EuroPCom Podcast! Here's Marco's Medium post discussed in the episode.

Dr. Jakob Svensson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication at Malmö University, guests to share his research on the logics that drive digital media. We discuss how algorithms and datafication are shaped by developers, and the types of biases that can occur as a result. We also talk about the political implications of artificial intelligence. The two studies referenced in the episode are: Study 1 (2015): The Emergence of Network Media Logic in Political Communication: A Theoretical Approach Study 2 (2018): The End of Media Logics? On Algorithms and Agency

Dr. Dan Mercea, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City University of London, and Dr. Shawn Walker, Assistant Professor in Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College at Arizona State University, guests to discuss the current state of social media research in an environment where researcher are "Locked Out" of access to platform APIs. We also talk about how social media is used in protest movements, particularly Dr. Walker's work on Occupy Wall Street and Dr. Mercea's work on transnational serial activists.

Dr. Marco Bastos, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at City University of London, discusses his research on Twitter bots and botnets in the 2016 Brexit Referendum. We talk about how to identify bots on Twitter, what these bots were sharing, and how the content they share on social media relates to the activity of human users. Later in the episode, we discuss the ethics behind researching bots and whether recent automated account crackdowns by Facebook and Twitter will improve political debates on social media. Below are links to the studies we discussed in the episode: Study 1: The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News Study 2: The Public Accountability of Social Platforms: Lessons from a Study on Bots and Trolls in the Brexit Campaign

Naseem Makiya, founder and CEO of Outvote, guests to discuss the peer-to-peer texting technologies available to Democrats ahead of the 2018 Midterm Elections. We break down the features of Outvote and what sets it apart from other P2P platforms. In particular, we focus on the "Swing District" feature, a focus on contacting friends, and the use of emojis to signify a friend's previous voting history. We also talk about the results generated from the platform during the primaries, and the P2P landscape for political campaigning now as well as in the future.

Ruurd Oosterwoud, co-founder of DROG, guests to discuss inoculation techniques against disinformation on social media platforms. Ruurd shares the several initiatives DROG has been working on to educate the public about fake news and disinformation: the Bad News Game, student workshops to increase media literacy about disinformation, and a one day event to create the "biggest Dutch troll army" ahead of the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Dr. Galen Stocking, Computational Social Scientist at Pew Research Center, discusses political polarization and how it relates to social media use. We take a deep dive into how Pew Research Center measures polarization empirically, how polarization has changed over time, and how widening partisan gaps relate to citizens' traditional and social media habits. Dr. Stocking also discusses the role of computational methods in survey research, using one of his recent studies on media sources shared on Twitter during immigration debates as a case. We also talk about Reddit, which has a relatively low user base in the United States compared to other social media platforms. Yet, Dr. Stocking's research has uncovered that Reddit users are highly active in consuming news on the site. Pew Research Center sources cited in the episode: Graphic Illustration of Political Polarization 1994-2017 Political Polarization and Media Habits (2014) Sources Shared on Twitter: A Case Study of Immigration (2018) News Use across Social M

Bruce Schneier, Chief Technology Officer at IBM Resilient, guests to discuss his new book, Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World. We discuss how the Internet of Things opens up new possibilities for catastrophes, how social media companies and governments follow a model of surveillance capitalism, and how the Internet can be made more secure moving forward.

Søren Pedersen, a Danish software developer working for Extra Bladet, joins the podcast to discuss his project uspolads.com. Søren used web scraping technology to build a website that presents data from the Facebook political ad archive ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections. We talk about Søren's motivations in building uspolads, as well as discuss some his previous work using Facebook and Twitter data to reveal insights about politics and tech addiction. You can check out the Facebook Ad Archive here.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss the 2018 Swedish Elections and social media's role in the political campaigning leading up to the election. We break down the election results and talk about what it means for Sweden as well as the European Union. Here are the links to the studies discussed in the episode: Moe & Larsson's 2014 study on Swedish politicians' Facebook use Jakob Svensson's study on Swedish campaigning between elections Kragh & Åsberg's study on Russian disinformation via Facebook in Sweden ComProp's study of "junk news" during the Swedish election

Dr. Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in Media and Communications at the LSE, guests to discuss his new research on British parties' Facebook ad targeting during the 2017 election. Using a data from the Chrome browser created by Who Targets Me, Dr. Anstead and his team compare the content, tone, personalization, and calls to action used in these ads. We discuss the findings of that study, as well as outline three challenges for academics studying Facebook ad targeting moving forward: the epistemological, the conceptual, and the systematic. Read the full study here!

Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, joins the podcast to discuss his new book "Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy" (Oxford University Press). We discuss the impact of Facebook, Google, and other tech platforms on politics and society. We also examine the ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, how their technologies are used around the globe, and look ahead to why smart speakers are increasingly becoming the battleground for FANG companies.