Social Media and Politics Folgen

Prof. Lance Bennett, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Communication at the University of Washington, discusses the types of principled values that should guide platform regulation. We reflect on the disruptive ethos of tech companies and what that means for democracy. We also discuss theories of capitalism, recent changes in data privacy and third-party tracking, as well as the connection between digital technologies and protest parties. The article we discuss in the episode is Killing the Golden Goose: A Framework for Regulating Disruptive Technologies. 

Prof. Andrew Chadwick, Professor of Communication at Loughborough University, shares insights from his new public research report: Covid Vaccines and Online Personal Messaging: The Challenge of Challenging Everyday Misinformation. The report explores how British citizens use private social messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and in particular how they experience and engage with coronavirus misinformation across private group chats on these platforms. We discuss the hybrid character of this engagement, the role of qualitative research in project designs, and person-centered solutions to countering misinformation on private social media.

Prof. Anders Olof Larsson, Professor of Communication at Kristiania University College, shares his comparative social media research on party communication. We start out with a macro-level look at political parties' adoption of Facebook and Instagram across Europe, before focusing more specifically on Scandinavia. Prof. Larsson discusses the pros and cons of political merch contests in driving engagement, and how hashtag network structures have evolved over time on Facebook and Instagram in Norway. We also discuss post virality and Prof. Larsson's work comparing viral posts in Norway across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Here are the studies mentioned in the episode: Longitudinal studies of European party communication: Picture-perfect populism: Tracing the rise of European populist parties on Facebook (2022)The rise of Instagram as a tool for political communication: A longitudinal study of European political parties and their followers (2021)Studies using Norwegian data:‘Win a sweater with the PM’S face on it’ – A longitudinal study of Norwegian party Facebook engagement strategies (2020)‘Coherent clusters’ or ‘fuzzy zones’ – Understanding attention and structure in online political participation (2019)Winning and losing on social media: Comparing viral political posts across platforms (2019)