Social Media and Politics Folgen

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.

Dr. Desirée Schmuck, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication at KU Leuven, shares her research on social media influencers and their effects on users' political attitudes and behavior. We break down three of Dr. Schmuck's studies. The first focuses on how exposure to political influencer content affects young social media users' behavior, both in terms of formal electoral participation and environmental sustainability. The second examines how influencers might affect users' perceived simplification of politics, and how that perception influences users' political cynicism and interest. The third study is an experiment that seeks to understand how misinformation from lifestyle influencers could affect female social media users' attitudes toward covid and trust in public health information. Here are links to the studies we discuss in the episode: The Mobilizing Power of Influencers for Pro-Environmental Behavior Intentions and Political Participation (2022)Politics–Simply Explained? How Influencers Affect Youth’s Perceived Simplification of Politics, Political Cynicism, and Political Interest (2022)Responses to Social Media Influencers’ Misinformation about COVID-19: A Pre-Registered Multiple-Exposure Experiment (2022)And if you're interested in political influencers, check out our episode on political influencers in the Biden 2020 campaign.

Eric Wilson, Managing Partner at Startup Caucus and Host of The Business of Politics Show, discusses political tech incubators and their emerging role in US digital campaigning. We chat about how the Republican and Democratic Party need different tech solutions for different campaigning styles, the need for start-up campaigning firms, and the potential impact of Web3 on future political campaigns. Here's the link to Eric's blog post on Web3. Subscribe to The Business of Politics Show!