Social Media and Politics

Megan Clasen, Partner at Gambit Strategies, shares her insights into digital political advertising for persuasion and mobilization. We discuss the role of social media ads relative to CTV and OTT advertising, as well as how political ads compete with corporate brands for inventory on these services. Megan also shares her experiences with Facebook's ad 'blackout' period during the 2020 campaign and how the Biden campaign responded to countering Trump's advertisements. ...And much more! 

The 7th Annual Social Media and Politics Podcast Year in Review! A Mega Episode with lots of knowledge bombs - you'll simply have to listen to hear them all!Here is a gift of all the platform year in review reports: Facebook: Protecting People from Online Threats in 2022Instagram: 2023 Instagram Trend ReportGoogle: Year in SearchTikTok: 1)  Year on TikTok: 2022, truly #ForYouTikTok: 2) What's Next 2023 Trend ReportPinterest: Pinterest Predicts 2022Reddit: Reddit Recap 2022Snapchat: Year End 2022Pornhub: 2022 Year in ReviewAnd the two clips played in the episode: SNL BeReal SkitZelensky DeepfakeSee you in January for new episodes! Share your thoughts or questions @SMandPPodcastKeep downloading,  listening, and learning! <3

Prof. Bruce Mutsvairo, Professor of Media and Politics at Utrecht University, shares his insights on the role of social media and politics on the African continent. We discuss digital activism across countries, how structures like data bundles might lead to surveillance, and the growing role of influencers as reporters of news. The Special Issue call for citizen journalists is here.Here are the studies we discuss in the episode:The Janus face of social media and democracy? Reflections on Africa (2020)Is citizen journalism dead? An examination of recent developments in the field (2020)

Zac McCrary, Partner at Impact Research and host of the Pro Politics podcast, shares his insights on how American campaigns leverage polling and focus groups to craft a winning message. We discuss the upcoming 2022 US midterm elections, the (still) dominant role of television in political advertising, how social media fits into the picture, and how smart phones have changed polling into a multimodal endeavor. 

In this episode, it's just me! I present a recently published study, co-authored with Rasmus Schmøkel and published in Political Communication, that analyzes US Presidential campaigns' emotion expression across Facebook and Instagram. I'll explain the theoretical backdrop of the study, give an overview of the state-of-the-art on visual political communication, and communicate the study's methods and key results. Hope you enjoy this one-on-one episode! Here's a link to the study (feel free to share around): Cross-Platform Emotions in Social Media Political Campaigning: Comparing Candidates' Facebook and Instagram Images in the 2020 US Election (2022)  

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 WarHow Critical Race Theory went from Conservative Battle Cry to Mainstream Powder KegAnd here's Aleszu's talk on tracking politics with data journalism - highly recommend! 

Dr. Nils Gustafsson, Senior Lecturer of Strategic Communication at Lund University, discusses the run-up to the 2022 Swedish Elections and then findings from his research. First, we chat about the main political issues that Swedes are voting on, as well as how political parties and party leaders are digital campaigning on social media. Then, Dr. Gustafsson shares findings from three of his research projects. We discuss how Facebook was viewed as a tool for participation when it first became widely adopted in Sweden, how rejection sensitivity might affect political expression online, and how media narratives about polarization in Swedish media have changed over time. Here are links to the two published studies we discuss in the episode: The Subtle Nature of Facebook Politics: Swedish Social Network Site Users and Political Participation (2012)A Social Safety Net? Rejection Sensitivity and Political Opinion Sharing among Young People in Social Media (2018)

Prof. Vincent Hendricks, Professor of Formal Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, discusses his new book The Ministry of Truth: Big Tech's Influence over Facts, Feelings, and Fictions.Prof. Hendricks shares how social media are like investment banks in the attention economy, how information is packaged and sold, and what Big Tech's growing influence on critical infrastructure means for politics and society. 

Dr. Tom Paskhalis, Assistant Professor in Political and Data Science at Trinity College Dublin, shares his research on applying machine learning to the Facebook URLs Dataset from Social Science One. The project develops a model to label whether a news domain is credible or not based on Facebook interactions data. We discuss the Facebook URLs dataset, what types of machine learning techniques were applied to it, and how the model performed across the US and EU countries. 

Shauna Siggelkow, Director of Digital Storytelling at Define American, discusses a new report on anti-immigration YouTube videos: 'Immigration will Destroy Us and Other Talking Points.'We break down the report, which identifies a network of viral YouTube videos promoting narratives associated with the Great Replacement Theory. Shauna also shares findings from experiments that test how different genres, animation styles, and messengers can effectively communicate political issues. Check out the toolkit for communicating pro-immigration messages (and other types of political content) on digital and social media.