Social Media and Politics

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.

Neil Brown, President of the Poytner Institute for Media Studies, discusses the challenges facing journalism. We discuss the concept of media trust, changing revenue models, and the challenges for journalism posed by digital fragmentation. Neil also shares his thoughts on fact-checking and Politifact.com, and we end with a discussion of AI's implications for journalism. 

Dr. Michael D. Cohen, CEO of Cohen Research Group and author of Modern Political Campaigns, shares how artificial intelligence is impacting political campaigns. We discuss how AI is like an automated staffer, and what types of human involvement is still needed to craft a winning strategy. We also examine AI's role in generating copy like social media posts and speeches, as well as how it can be used for qualitative data analysis such as focus groups. In addition, we consider how AI relates to trending concepts such as authenticity and political polarization. Get a copy of the 2nd edition of Modern Political Campaigns on Amazon or directly through the publisher.And you can listen to a broader discussion of the book in an earlier episode. 

Doug Kaplan, President of Kaplan Strategies, discusses the utility of political polling for local, state, and national races. We discuss the value of polls when partisanship is high, the changing political communication landscape, and Florida as a Republican stronghold (for now). 

Dr. Johan Farkas and Dr. Marcus Maloney discuss how the language used to describe digital media frames our understanding and the actions of policymakers. We break down how terms like "toxic", "trolls", and "filter bubbles" are often used uncritically and limit how we understand the relationships between digital media and social problems like misogyny, racism, and harassment. Here's a link to the book discussed in the episode: Digital Media Metaphors: A Critical Introduction (2024)

The 9th Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review! This year, we cover the platforms’ year in review reports, election interference in Romania, the battle over text and the "eXodus", and social media bans for teenagers. Here are links to resources discussed in the episode, and see you in 2025!Platform Reports:MetaTikTokSnapPinterestTwitchGooglePornhub

Ryan Davis, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at People First, guests for a debrief on content creators in the 2024 US election. We discuss content creator strategies between the two parties, how influencers have become professionalized, and what this means for communications and elections going forward. Advertising, authenticity, and power flows are constantly in flux in this environment, and the very conceptions of old and new media are being challenged. A space to watch!Check out People First's Substack to keep in the loop, and Ryan's Travel Podcast just for fun :)