Dr. Patricía Rossini, Derby Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool, discusses her latest research on informal political talk online. We break down differences between incivility and intolerance in online discussions, as well as misinformation sharing across Facebook and WhatsApp.
The two studies we discuss in the episode are:
Dr. Terri Towner, Professor of Political Science at Oakland University, discusses her research on political campaigning and information on Instagram. We also give first impressions from the last presidential debate between Trump and Biden, and break down some poll results about citizens’ social media use during the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are the two studies we discuss in the episode:
The Image is the Message: Instagram Marketing and the 2016 Presidential Primary Season
Instagramming Issues: Agenda Setting During the 2016 Presidential Campaign
Dr. Mark Pack, President of the Liberal Democrats, guests to discuss his new book: “Bad News: What the Headlines Don’t Tell Us.“
We talk about some of the flaws of election campaign coverage and how to be better consumers of news using social media. Dr. Pack also shares his insights on digital campaigning in Britain, where he ran digital operations for the LibDems in the 2001 and 2005 general elections.
Sinan Aral, David Austin Professor of Management at MIT and Director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, discusses his new book “The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health—and How We Must Adapt.”
Prof. Aral breaks down key theoretical concepts from the book, which outlines some of the fundamental mechanisms for how social media platforms operate. We also discuss the science behind these concepts and they implications they have for elections, politics, and society.
Dr. André Haller (University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tyrol) and Simon Kruschinski (University of Mainz) share their research into data-driven political campaigning in Germany. We discuss the key political, legal, and cultural factors that influence German politicians digital campaigning, differences in organic posts versus paid advertisements, and how social media platforms have been used by fringe political actors.
Here’s the research paper we discuss in the episode: Restrictions on Data-Driven Political Micro-targeting in Germany.
Dr. Solomon Messing, Chief Scientist at ACRONYM and Affiliated Researcher at Georgetown University, shares his insights on data science across academia, the tech industry, and political campaigning space. We discuss how computational social science methods have changed over time, and how system architectures can be built to protect social media users’ privacy. We also chat about current trends that Dr. Messing is observing at ACRONYM relating to the persuasiveness and cost of political ads on social media.
Here’s the paper we discuss on differential privacy, and the Facebook URLs Dataset Codebook.
Dr. Andreas Jungherr, Assistant Professor for Social Science Data Collection and Analysis at the University of Konstanz, guests to discuss his latest book, “Retooling Politics: How Digital Media are Shaping Democracy.”
We chat about the state of social media research in political science and political communication, and what we currently know about echo chambers, polarization, and election prediction. We also discuss how digital media is shaping political campaigning and the role it might play for campaigns in the future.
Dr. Brahim Zarouali, Assistant Professor in Persuasive Communication at the University of Amsterdam, discusses his research on social media political ads and their effectiveness on different personality types (introverts and extroverts). We break down the findings from two experiments, which try and replicate the psychometric targeting techniques of firms like Cambridge Analytica by appealing to users’ psychological traits and emotions. We also discuss the de-polarization potential of chatbots, based on a study Dr. Zarouali conducted that presents participants with pro- or anti-attitudinal news on immigration.
Dr. Ben Epstein,
Associate Professor of Political Science at DePaul University, guests
to discuss the role of history in understanding contemporary political
communication.
We take a deep dive in Dr. Epstein’s book The Only Constant is Change: Technology, Political Communication, and Innovation over Time, published by Oxford University Press.
Dr.
Epstein explains how the development of newspapers, the radio, and
Internet fundamentally changed political communication practices for
political campagins, social movements, and interest groups. We then
discuss how television and social media were novel technologies for
their time, but did not fundamentally establish new political
communication orders.