Social Media and Politics

Dr. Rob Eschmann, Associate Professor of Social Work at Columbia University, discusses his latest book When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age (University of California Press). 

We cover how social media works to unmask everyday experiences of racism, and how this affects student life at American universities. Dr. Eschmann also shares his research on social media, racial microaggressions, and Black Twitter; thoughts on TikTok and algorithmic bias; and how resisting racism requires engaging in conversation. 

Prof. Kate Dommett, Professor of Digital Politics at the University of Sheffield, and Dr. Simon Kruschinski, Postdoctoral Researcher in Communication at the University of Mainz, discuss their new book: Data-Driven Campaigning and Political Parties.

We discuss the book's theoretical framework on how system-level, regulatory-level, and party-level factors explain variation in data-driven campaigning across five democracies: the US, UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia. 

Prof. Dommett and Dr. Kruschinski also break down their findings on how data, analytics, targeting, and personnel differ across these five cases, and how regulation might need to focus on broader structures in the electoral system to minimize the potential harms of campaign practices. 

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. 

The 8th Annual Social Media and Politics Year in Review! 

This year, we cover the platforms' year in review reports, AI for political communication, the creator economy, and EU concerns around disinformation and cyberattacks. 

Here are links to resources discussed in the episode, and see you in 2024!

Platform Reports:

Meta
Instagram
TikTok
Reddit
Pinterest
Snap
Twitch
Google
YouTube
Pornhub Insights

Jimmie Åkesson's Arabic Deepfake

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 measuring the political effects of persuasive information. We discuss how political persuasion affects voters holding different viewpoints, the durability of these effects over time, and how much political ads seem to affect voters' political attitudes. 

Here are Dr. Coppock's research studies discussed in the episode: 

Persuasion in Parallel: How Information Changes Minds about Politics (2022)

The small effects of political advertising are small regardless of context, message, sender, or receiver (2020)

Does digital advertising affect vote choice? Evidence from a randomized field experiment (2022)

The impact of digital advertising on turnout during the 2020 US presidential election (Pre-print, 2022)

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: 

1.  Are Campaigns Getting Uglier, and Who Is to Blame? Negativity, Dramatization and Populism on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns (2023)
2. From the fringes into mainstream politics: intermediary networks and movement-party coordination of a global anti-immigration campaign in Germany (2022)
3. Delegated Regulation on Data Access Provided for the Digital Services Act (2023)
4. Political Communication Special Issue: Digital Campaigning in Dissonant Public Spheres (2023)

Zach Fang, Head of Sales and Business Development at Vocal Media, shares how the start-up is building a database of social media influencers to connect with political campaigns and organizations. We discuss what makes TikTok influencers a different type of political advertising and how their costs stack up to traditional broadcast and social media. Zach also shares what's happening with influencers on Twitch, Discord, and YouTube shorts, and how influencers may turn from awareness raising to organizing. 

Here's a link to the study mentioned in the episode. 

Russell Mindich, political consultant and author of the 2022 Political Tech Landscape Report, shares his insights on the role of social media in political campaigning. We discuss social media influencers and how campaigns are connecting to them on TikTok, the move towards politicla advertising on streaming services, and the potential uses of ChatGPT and other generative AI for politics.

 Here's a link to the Analyst Institute, mentioned in the episode. 

Jenny Reich, Fellow at the Georgetown Law Center on National Security, discusses the Center's recent report entitled Social Media: The Canary in the Coal Mine. We dive into the potential security risks posed by digital technology developments as well as the report's recommendations for addressing them at the levels of government, the tech industry, and civil society. The report brings together various stakeholders to shed insight on the core democratic values of the United States, the major threats posed by technological advancements, and first steps toward developing regulatory frameworks and civil society resilience to meet these threats in ways that safeguard democracy and American national security interests. 

Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, shares his trade association's goals for progressive advocacy in the tech sector. We discuss the politicization of 'Big Tech' and  recent opinion polls about Midterm voters' attitudes towards tech regulation. We also discuss how First Amendment rights apply to tech companies, misperceptions of the techlash, and partisan differences in moderating misinformation and free speech. 

Extra Links:

President Biden's op-ed in WSJ

Adam's presentation on Chamber of Progress' Midterm Poll

Episode #49 on CCIA and Tech Trade Associations

Prof. Sanne Kruikemeier, Professor of Digital Media and Society at Wageningen University & Research, discusses her latest research on political targeting. We discuss how political targeting differs in EU and US contexts, how perceptions of targeting affect voters' democratic perceptions, and what types of issues parties strategically communicate during election campaigns. 

Here are the studies discussed in the episode: 

Data-driven campaigning and democratic disruption: Evidence from six advanced democracies (2022)

Understanding the democratic role of perceived online political micro-targeting (2022)

(Tar)getting you: The use of online political targeted messages on Facebook (2022)

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 2022

Instagram: 2023 Instagram Trend Report

Google: Year in Search

TikTok: 1)  Year on TikTok: 2022, truly #ForYou
TikTok: 2) What's Next 2023 Trend Report

Pinterest: Pinterest Predicts 2022

Reddit: Reddit Recap 2022

Snapchat: Year End 2022

Pornhub: 2022 Year in Review

And the two clips played in the episode: 

SNL BeReal Skit

Zelensky Deepfake

See you in January for new episodes! 

Share your thoughts or questions @SMandPPodcast

Keep 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 War

How Critical Race Theory went from Conservative Battle Cry to Mainstream Powder Keg

And here's Aleszu's talk on tracking politics with data journalism - highly recommend!