Episodes

#149: Social Media, Information Markets, and the Attention Economy, with Prof. Vincent Hendricks

September 3, 2022 Academics

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. 

#148: Machine Learning the Facebook URLs Dataset to Study News Credibility, with Dr. Tom Paskhalis

August 21, 2022 Academics

 

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. 

#147: Anti-immigration YouTube Videos: Tactics and Narratives, with Shauna Siggelkow

August 7, 2022 Civil Society

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.

#146: Social Media Influencers and Politics, Environmental Behavior, and Covid Misinformation, with Dr. Desirée Schmuck

June 19, 2022 Academics

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 Influencers Affect Youth’s Perceived Simplification of Politics, Political Cynicism, and Political Interest (2022)

Responses to Social Media Influencers’ Misinformation about COVID-19: A Pre-Registered Multiple-Exposure Experiment (2022)

#145: Political Tech Incubators in American Digital Campaigning, with Eric Wilson

May 29, 2022 Digital Strategists

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! 

#144: Technology Disruption, Democracy, and Principles of Platform Regulation, with Prof. Lance Bennett

May 16, 2022 Academics

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. 

#143: Challenging Covid Vaccine Misinformation on Private Social Media, with Prof. Andrew Chadwick

May 1, 2022 Academics

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.

#142: Comparing Digital Political Communication across Countries and Time, with Prof. Anders Olof Larsson

April 24, 2022 Academics

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 PM’S face on it’ – A longitudinal study of Norwegian party Facebook engagement strategies (2020)

‘Coherent clusters’ or ‘fuzzy zones’ – Understanding attention and structure in online political participation (2019)

Winning and losing on social media: Comparing viral political posts across platforms (2019)

#141: Rating News Credibility with Algorithms, with Arjun Moorthy

April 17, 2022 Civil Society

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

#140: Social Media and the War in Ukraine, with Prof. Joshua Tucker

April 7, 2022 Academics

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 Elections

Russian Disinformation and Social Media in Ukraine