Social Media and Politics Folgen

Matt Gielen, founder of Little Monster Media Co and former Director of Audience Development at Frederator, joins the podcast to share is research and insights about how the YouTube algorithm works. Matt explains some of the factors that YouTube's algorithm takes into account when suggesting content to users, and we discuss the implications this filtering might have on public opinion and political campaigning during elections. Other topics touched upon are YouTube monetization, digital advertising, the importance of being authentic on YouTube to build an audience, and the future of live video streaming on social media like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Dr. Heath Brown, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York Graduate Center, joins the show to share his research on the political activity of nonprofit organizations serving immigrants and their communities. We discuss how these immigrant serving NGO's use - or shy away from - political action and the role that social media plays in their communication strategy. Dr. Brown highlights that the low resources of these NGO's, the diversity of their communities, and perceptions of authenticity as key factors motivating their social media adoption and strategy. You can read more about Dr. Brown's research on this topic in his new book, Immigrants and Electoral Politics: Nonprofit Organizing in a Time of Demographic Change.

This episode is all about bots on social media with guest Samuel Woolley, Director of Research of the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. We discuss exactly how users make bots, and the ways they are deployed on Facebook and Twitter to influence politics through, for example, spreading fake news or disrupting protests. Sam explains how bots are difficult to trace, since they are often geotagged in misleading locations or used for digital marketing. We also talk about bots in the latest 2016 US Presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as well look forward a bit into how bots might evolve in the future. You can follow Sam on Twitter @Samuelwoolley, and check out the Computational Propaganda Project at www.politicalbots.org. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes to the Social Media and Politics Podcast at: https://t.co/7Sdk88P86U Tweet us on Twitter: @SMandPPodcast Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/socialmediaandpoliticspodcast