The 10th Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review!
This year, we cover the platforms’ year in review reports, the EU’s regulation on transparency of targeted ads, meta approaches to platforms, and implications of the synthetic public sphere.
Here are links to reports discussed in the episode, and see you in 2026!
Aleszu Bajak, Senior Data Reporter at USA Today, discusses his reporting on social media and politics using computational methods. We talk about the types of data that data journalists are working with, how they acquire it (e.g., Freedom of Information Requests), and how they approach reporting results in a way that tells an engaging story. We also dive into some of Aleszu’s recent reporting, such as Parler reactions to Donald Trump’s speech on January 6th, inequalities in Covid vaccinations, and the polarization of Congressional political rhetoric on social media over time.
Here are some links to the stories we discuss in the episode:
‘Hope’ is out, ‘Fight’ is in: Does Tweeting Divide Congress, or Simply Echo its Divisions?
When Trump Started his Speech before the Capital Riot, Talk on Parler turned to Civil War
How Critical Race Theory went from Conservative Battle Cry to Mainstream Powder Keg
And here’s Aleszu’s talk on tracking politics with data journalism – highly recommend!
Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten joins for the 5th Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review! We answer listener questions and present six gifts, each representing big events that shaped social media and politics this year.
25:18 – Platform Year in Review Reports
53:08 – Platforms and Activism (Belarus and Thailand)
1:16:26 – Political Ad Effectiveness
1:38:00 – Platform Regulation (Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act)
2:02:31 – Tweets from the Dead
2:17:00 – Platform Fragmentation
Here’s a list of each platform’s year in review reports:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Reddit, Reddit UK, Reddit Moderators, Pornhub Debate Night
Other supplementary material:
Margarethe Vestager on the Digital Services Act
Study Modelling Dead Social Media Accounts