United States
#103: What American History Teaches us about Political Communication, with Dr. Ben Epstein
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.
#96: Pro-Trump Social Networks: The Donald on Reddit and TheDonald.win
A moderator of Reddit’s The Donald guests to discuss the notorious subreddit community, and the new pro-Trump online forum: TheDonald.win.
We discuss the role of memes in these online forums, how memes are used for redpilling, and the steps Reddit has taken to limit the reach of pro-Trump social networks.
#95: Political Advertising on Facebook and Television, with Prof. Travis Ridout
Prof. Travis Ridout, Distinguished Professor of Government and Politics at Washington State University, guests to discuss a new study examining American campaigns’ political advertising on Facebook and television in the 2018 US midterm elections. We break down some of the key differences between the two media in terms of who is more likely to use Facebook advertising, when and where online ads are most likely to occur, and how the topics and tone of ads across the two media differ.
Read the full study here!