Facebook

#58: Facebook’s Political Ad Archive and Web Scraping to Improve It, with Søren Pedersen

September 16, 2018 Civil Society

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.

Click here to check out the official Facebook Ad Archive.

#56: Facebook Ad Targeting in the 2017 British General Election, with Dr. Nick Anstead

September 2, 2018 Academics

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!

#46: Mobilizing the Pack for Political Campaigns and Advocacy, with Tom Lillywhite

May 7, 2018 Digital Strategists

Tom Lillywhite, founder of Wilder Digital and the digital campaigning tool ‘Pack‘, joins the podcast to discuss how political campaigns and organizations can mobilize supporters to increase organic reach on social media. We discuss how crowdsourcing ardent supporters can increase organic reach on Facebook and Twitter, as well as how Pack is currently being used for advocacy groups and the Camden Labour Party.

#45: Facebook Ads Transparency in the Irish Abortion Referendum, with Craig Dwyer

April 22, 2018 Digital Strategists

Craig Dwyer, co-founder of the Transparent Referendum Initiative, discusses targeted Facebook advertising ahead of the Irish constitutional referendum about abortion on May 25th. The TRI collects “dark” Facebook posts and is building an openly accessible database of targeted political ads. We discuss some of the major issues surrounding the referendum, the difficulties in discerning when a Facebook ad is “political,” and targeted political advertising on other platforms like Google and Youtube.

The Medium post mentioned in the episode.

ForaChange: Craig’s digital campaigning toolkit.

#42: WhatsApp-ening in the Netherlands? Social media, GroenLinks, and the 2018 Dutch Local Elections, with Hanneke Bruinsma

March 11, 2018 Politicians

Hanneke Bruinsma, local politician for the green party GroenLinks in the Netherlands, joins the show to discuss how her party is using social media in the upcoming Dutch municipal elections. We discuss how GroenLinks party members in the Overbetuwe municipality are using Facebook and Twitter to campaign, and in particular we focus on WhatsApp as a new medium to encourage activism – or “Apptivism” – among local residents.

#41: Political Campaigning Games: Corbyn Run and the 2017 British Elections, with James Moulding

January 1, 2018 Digital Strategists

James Moulding, co-founder of Games for the Many, joins the podcast to discuss the success of Corbyn Run, a political campaigning game that went viral during the 2017 British elections. We discuss the development of the game, the role of social media in promoting it, and the potential for online games to spur political engagement in youth.

You can play Corbyn Run here.

#40: 2017 Year in Review: Social Media and Politics, with Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten

December 17, 2017 Academics

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Assistant Professor in European Studies and Lund University, returns to the podcast to recap the biggest trends in social media and politics from 2017. We discuss social media’s transnationalization potential, the most shared content this year on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as phishing cyberattacks and chatbots.

Here are the year in review reports from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

#39: Data, Democracy, and the Role of Technology in Politics, with Dr. Daniel Kreiss

November 26, 2017 Academics

Dr. Daniel Kreiss, Associate Professor at the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joins the podcast to discuss the role of data, social media, and technology in contemporary electoral campaigning. We discuss Dr. Kreiss’ recent book, Prototype Politics, and dig into how Republicans and Democrats have built up their data infrastructures over time. We talk about the relationships between campaigns and representatives at tech firms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, Russian intervention in US democracy, and whether regulation from governments is needed in this space moving forward.

#33: Policing through Facebook: Social Media and Law Enforcement, with Kenneth Hampton

August 13, 2017 Civil Society

Kenneth Hampton, former Chief of Police in Tchula, Mississippi, joins the podcast to discuss his style of law enforcement, which draws heavily on the use of Facebook. Kenneth discusses how he’s used Facebook successfully to curb crime, the controversy he faced surrounding his social media use, and how important his Facebook community is to his job.

You can check out Kenneth’s Facebook pages, New Southern Justice and Tchula Police Department.

The article from the Guardian featured in the intro can be found here.