Episodes

#71: Russian Disinformation and Social Media in Ukraine, with Kateryna Kruk

January 31, 2019 Civil Society

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. Finally, Kateryna 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.

#70: News Finds Me Perception and Social Media, with Dr. Homero Gil de Zúñiga

January 25, 2019 Academics

 

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.

#69: Protests and Demonstrations in Northern Ireland, with Dr. Paul Reilly

January 13, 2019 Academics

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 union flag protests in 2013 and the Ardoyne parade dispute in 2014. The discussion highlights how much of the contemporary 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:

  1. Researching protest on Facebook: developing an ethical stance for the study of Northern Irish flag protest pages
  2. Tweeting for peace? Twitter and the Ardoyne parade dispute in Belfast, July 2014

#68: Private and Public Sector Digital Campaigning in the EU, with Marta Albertini

January 13, 2019 Digital Strategists

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.

#67: Social Media and Politics 2018 Year in Review, with Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten

December 22, 2018 Academics

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! Each presents 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!


#66: Crisis Communication, Social Media, and European Political Campaigning, with Marco Ricorda

December 16, 2018 Digital Strategists

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.

#65: The Logics of Datafication, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence, with Dr. Jakob Svensson

November 25, 2018 Academics

Dr. Jakob Svensson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication at Malmö University, guests to share his research on the logics that drive how digital media operate. 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

#64: Platform API Lockouts, Occupy Wall Street, and Transnational Activism, with Dr. Dan Mercea and Dr. Shawn Walker

November 17, 2018 Academics

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.

#63: Brexit Botnets and Hyperpartisan News Sharing on Twitter, with Dr. Marco Bastos

November 4, 2018 Academics

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.

The studies we discussed in the episode are:

The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News

The Public Accountability of Social Platforms: Lessons from a Study on Bots and Trolls in the Brexit Campaign

#62: P2P Texting for Democrats in the 2018 Midterm Elections, with Naseem Makiya

October 28, 2018 Digital Strategists

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.