Social Media and Politics

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Vice Dean of Research at Lund University, dives into the crossroads of social media, politics, and AI. She reviews 2025's trends, from regulatory changes in the EU regarding political ads to the rise of a synthetic public sphere driven by AI. They discuss platforms opting out of political discourse and the implications for democracy. Anamaria highlights the challenges and opportunities of transparency in online advertising and warns of the consequences of marginalized human voices in the digital arena.

Ivan Pardo, Founder of Solidarity Tech, shares how tech can solve organizing bottlenecks for political campaigns. We discuss how Solidarity Tech was used for digital organizing in Zohran Mamdani's mayoral campaign in New York and Catherine Connelly's presidential win in Ireland. Beyond tech functionality, we discuss how CRM platforms can give campaigns a human touch, how tech integrates with the culture of a campaign, and the potential downsides of gamification for volunteer organizing. You can read more about Solidarity Tech's origins and functionality here. 

Dr. Kevin Munger, an expert in computational social science at the European University Institute, delves into the fascinating concept of temporal validity and its impact on social media research. He explains why rapid changes in platforms challenge traditional research methods and argues for the importance of forecasting in evaluating findings. Munger also critiques the Meta 2020 Election Research partnership and discusses how the pace of digital evolution demands new theoretical frameworks and innovative research approaches to remain relevant in political communication.

Frank A. Spring, founding partner at Altum Insight, delves into the transformative power of storytelling in politics. He reveals how qualitative methods and AI-moderated interviews uncover citizens' personal narratives about democracy. Discussing the Montana Democracy Project, he identifies key narratives that shape political identities. Spring emphasizes the ethical responsibilities of storytelling and how cultural context influences narratives. He also explores how political candidates should align their personal and community stories for effective communication.

Explore innovative teaching initiatives in political communication, featuring a unique database for course materials. A fun role-play game simulates real-world oversight board decisions, prompting critical debates among students. Discover how counterfactual assignments encourage creative thinking about historical events and social media’s influence. The podcast emphasizes the importance of debriefing exercises to deepen understanding and enhance learning outcomes, making education not just informative but also engaging and interactive.

Join Professor Matthew Wall, a political scientist focused on election forecasting, and Dr. Louis Bromfield, a researcher in gamification, as they delve into the fascinating world of election prediction. They explore the effectiveness of prediction markets like Polymarket, discussing how they can outshine traditional polls and subtly influence voter behavior through bandwagon effects. The duo also reveals insights on gamifying forecasting to boost political engagement, sharing their experiences with Fantasy Forecast and the impacts observed in recent elections.

Thomas Hughes, CEO of Appeals Centre Europe, explains out-of-court dispute settlement bodies (ODS bodies) and the role they play in the Digital Services Act. We discuss Appeals Centre Europe's first Transparency Report*, which provides an initial glimpse into how Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are handling requests from ODS bodies. We cover some top line descriptives from the Centre's first year: how many disputes were submitted, from which platform, and what types of content they were about. We also talk about 'signposting' and how the platforms are communicating their digital rights to users.*Just a friendly heads up that the report is 25MB, so you may want to download it on WiFi! 

Jakub Szymik, Founder of CEE Digital Democracy Watch, discusses the EU's ongoing initiatives to fight disinformation, regulate political advertising, and protect election integrity on social media. Jakub shares his insights on the Digital Services Act, the European Democracy Shield, and how these initiatives relate to digital political advertising on social media. We also discuss the latest Polish Presidential elections in terms of digital ad spending, Gen AI content, and political influencers.Links:CEE Digital Democracy Watch has just published a new report outlining how 60 stakeholder from CEE countries perceive the effectiveness of EU tech regulation and what challenges remain moving forward.Read more about CEE Digital Democracy Watch's proposed policy actions for the European Democracy Shield, including the disinformation monitoring service mentioned in the episode. 

Dan Brahmy, Co-Founder and CEO at Cyabra, discusses the cutting-edge in disinformation monitoring. Dan shares some of Cyabra's work around the new pope, the tariff war, and narratives following the Trump assassination attempt. We discuss how monitoring works technically, what type of attributes are used to classify accounts as inauthentic, and how source attribution can be identified through patterns. Special thanks to Jill Burkes, PR and Communications lead at Cyabra, for setting up and contributing to the episode!  Here's the link to Cyabra's newsletter.

Dr. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik and Dr. Ioana Literat share research from their new book Not Your Parent's Politics: Understanding Young People's Political Expression on Social Media.We discuss how young people use social media such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to experiment with their political identity, even if they are too young to vote.  Examples from the 2016 US election, Black Lives Matter protests, and climate anxiety help illustrate the various ways that youth express their political opinions across social media platforms. We also discuss how to approach these expressions from a democratic and citizenship perspective. Dr. Kligler-Vilenchik is Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Dr. Literat is an Associate Professor in the Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University.