Social Media and Politics

Dr. Solomon Messing, Chief Scientist at ACRONYM and Affiliated Researcher at Georgetown University, shares his insights on data science across academia, the tech industry, and political campaigning space. We discuss how computational social science methods have changed over time, and how system architectures can be built to protect social media users' privacy. We also chat about current trends that Dr. Messing is observing at ACRONYM relating to the persuasiveness and cost of political ads on social media. Here's the paper we discuss on differential privacy, and the Facebook URLs Dataset Codebook. 

Dr. Andreas Jungherr, Assistant Professor for Social Science Data Collection and Analysis at the University of Konstanz, guests to discuss his latest book, "Retooling Politics: How Digital Media are Shaping Democracy." We chat about the state of social media research in political science and political communication, and what we currently know about echo chambers, polarization, and election prediction. We also discuss how digital media is shaping political campaigning and the role it might play for campaigns in the future. 

Ned Howey, CEO of Tectonica, discusses the international firm's approach to digital organizing for progressive campaigns. We focus on how Tectonica's digital solutions integrate with NationBuilder, some key principles of website design, and how to engage supporters with an authentic strategy and tone. 

James MacGregor, Managing Director at Bakamo Public, discusses the main narratives in social media conversations around Black Lives Matter in the UK, Turkey, and Hungary. We break down how key themes from the US protests are translated into these different national contexts, as well as how the online debate has evolved since the protests started. 

Dr. Brahim Zarouali, Assistant Professor in Persuasive Communication at the University of Amsterdam, discusses his research on social media political ads and their effectiveness on different personality types (introverts and extroverts). We break down the findings from two experiments, which try and replicate the psychometric targeting techniques of firms like Cambridge Analytica  by appealing to users' psychological traits and emotions. We also discuss the de-polarization potential of chatbots, based on a study Dr. Zarouali conducted that presents participants with pro- or anti-attitudinal news on immigration. 

Maria and Ian are co-founders of Blue Wave Voiceover, a collective of professional voiceover actors lending their voices to Democratic campaigns. We discuss the role of voices in political ads, the back-end of reading political copy, and some of the differences between commercial and political voiceovers. We also demo the script reading process with real political ads, and change their tone to showcase what voiceover actors can do! Here's the final version of the ads we discuss in the episode: Mike Bloomberg | Ellen Lipton

Dr. Leticia Bode, Associate Professor at Georgetown University, discusses her research on social media and health misinformation correction. We break down several experiments that test the effectiveness of digital misinformation correction in the context of the Zika virus. We also talk about what the findings might mean for public health organizations' social media strategy in times of crisis. Towards the end, we also look at some of Dr. Bode's ongoing research investigating the coronavirus conversation on Twitter. The studies we discuss in this episode are:See Something, Say Something: Correction of Global Health Misinformation on Social MediaI Do Not Believe You: How Providing a Source Corrects Health Misperceptions on Social MediaA First Look at COVID-19 Information and Misinformation Sharing on Twitter

Stefan Smith, former Online Engagement Director at Pete for America, discusses the role of social media in digital organizing and campaigning during the 2020 Democratic Primaries. We break down two of Stefan's grassroots initiatives -- the Digital Captains program and Digital Door Knocking program -- and how they contributed to the overall campaign. We also talk about the political viability of Pinterest and Reddit, alongside more traditional platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

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. 

Lord David Puttnam and Dr. Kate Dommett guest to discuss the work on the British House of Lords select committee "Democracy and Digital Technologies."The committee seeks to investigate the pros and cons of digital technologies around six key areas: transparency in political campaigns; privacy and anonymity; misinformation; the effects of digital technology on public discourse; how technology can facilitate democracy; and the development of effective digital literacy. We discuss the motivations behind forming the committee, the status of the inquiry so far, as well as get into a broader discussion about policy recommendations for the potential regulation of digital and social media companies in the UK and elsewhere in the European Union. For links mentioned during the episode, check out: The website of the committee, and follow their latest updates on Twitter @HLDemoDigital. Dr. Dommett's study "Data-driven Political Campaigns in Practice" in Internet Policy Review.