Social Media and Politics

Rhiannon Ruff, Wikipedia Expert and Founding Partner at Lumino, discusses how politicians and brands can effectively manage their Wikipedia presence. We discuss why Wikipedia is important for Google Search and AI like ChatGPT, and how the tone, norms, and editors of Wikipedia make editing your own page difficult. Rhi shares her tips on how to manage a Wikipedia page in the right way, and why that's crucial for politicians and political parties. Here's a list of links discussed in the episode:Rhi's book on Wikipedia and Crisis CommunicationsRhi's column on Why Wikipedia can be a PR Problem for Political CampaignsStanford Internet Observatory Report on Wikipedia and Elections in British ColumbiaA bit more on the infamous Alan MacMasters!

Discussing racism and resistance in the digital age, Dr. Rob Eschmann explores social media's role in unmasking everyday racism. Topics include racial microaggressions, Black Twitter's significance, impact of TikTok, and engaging in conversations to resist racism.

Prof. Kate Dommett and Dr. Simon Kruschinski discuss their new book on data-driven campaigning. They break down findings on data, analytics, targeting, and personnel in five democracies. The chapter explores the concept of data-driven campaigning and its components, the role of analytics, the use of apps in Germany, the role of personnel, and the complexity of data-driven campaigning.

Dr. Andrew W. MacDonald, Assistant Professor of Social Science at Duke Kunshan University, shares research from his new book Directed Digital Dissidence in Autocracies: How China Wins Online. We discuss the Chinese digital and social media context, citizens' perceptions of online propaganda, and how the state manipulates digital information to further its political interests. We also discuss survey methodology, how citizens circumvent the Great Firewall, and what affect using the internet and VPNs has on trust in the state. 

AI advancements in political communication, challenges accessing platform data for research, sustainability trends on social media impacting political orientations, monetization of controversial content on TikTok, Pornhub Insights report on online content consumption, integration of AI in election campaigns, evolution of content creation in social media, EU concerns on disinformation and cybersecurity legislation

Dr. Jennifer Forestal, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago, discusses how digital platforms can be approached from an architectural perspective. Dr. Forestal shares insights from her latest book, Designing for Democracy, where she evaluates digital platforms' democratic potential from the lens of political theory. The episode breaks down a framework for how to assess the democratic quality of social media platforms by examining their degrees of boundaries, durability, and flexibility. Dr. Forestal reveals how these properties can be illustrated by the cases of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. 

Dr. Mia-Marie Hammarlin, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Lund University, shares her research on vaccine hesitancy in Sweden. We discuss the major themes of coronavirus vaccine skepticism on the Swedish online forum Flashback, as well as Dr. Hammarlin's ethnographic research meeting with vaccine hesitant communities. Here are links to Dr. Hammarlin's research mentioned in the episode:COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Matters of Life and Death (2023)I bonded with COVID vaccine sceptics over saunas and Mother Earth rituals (2023)And check out HT-samtal, a podcast on humanities research from Lund! 

Dr. Alexander Coppock, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, shares his research on political persuasion and the effects of targeted social media ads. Topics discussed include the minimal impact of digital political ads, the logic and importance of randomized experiments, the use of persuasive information in politics, and the effectiveness of persuasion vs mobilization in political campaigns.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Associate Professor in Strategic Communication at Lund University, joins a discussion of cross-cutting expression and its implications for digital campaigning on Facebook. On the theory side, we discuss concepts of online self-expression and cross-pressures. We also discuss how political ideology can be inferred from Facebook reactions such as 'likes' and 'loves'. Finally, we discuss what topic models of the Brexit debate around Facebook can reveal about how and what Facebook users discussed around the referendum. Links to the paper and supplementary material: Reconceptualizing Cross-Cutting Political Expression on Social Media: A Case Study of Facebook Comments During the 2016 Brexit Referendum (2023)Supplementary Material

Prof. Ulrike Klinger, Professor for Digital Democracy at the European New School for Digital Studies at European University Viadrina, shares her latest research on negative campaigning on social media. We discuss some of the challenges in studying digital communication in the EU, as well as what explains a rise in negative campaigning across two European Parliament elections. Prof. Klinger also shares her research on the UN Global Compact for Migration, where extremist ideas from the Identitarian movement were picked up by the mainstream media. Lastly, we discuss Prof. Klinger's suggestions for increasing researcher data access ahead of the Digital Services Act. Here are links to the studies discussed in the episode:  Are Campaigns Getting Uglier, and Who Is to Blame? Negativity, Dramatization and Populism on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns (2023)From the fringes into mainstream politics: intermediary networks and movement-party coordination of a global anti-immigration campaign in Germany (2022)Delegated Regulation on Data Access Provided for the Digital Services Act (2023)Political Communication Special Issue: Digital Campaigning in Dissonant Public Spheres (2023)