Social Media and Politics

A moderator of Reddit's The Donald guests to discuss the notorious subreddit community, and the new pro-Trump online forum: TheDonald.win . We discuss the role of memes in these online forums, how memes are used for redpilling, and the steps Reddit has taken to limit the reach of pro-Trump social networks. 

Prof. Travis Ridout , Distinguished Professor of Government and Politics at Washington State University, guests to discuss a new study examining American campaigns' political advertising on Facebook and television in the 2018 US midterm elections. We break down some of the key differences between the two media in terms of who is more likely to use Facebook advertising, when and where online ads ar...

Misha Leybovich , Organizer for Warren's Meme Team , guests to discuss how memetic templates can be used for grassroots political campaigning. We break down the plan for Warren's Meme Team, its focus on augmented reality (AR) lenses, and what the response to the initiative has been like so far. Read the full plan here .

Dr. Dan Lane , Assistant Professor of Communication at UC Santa Barbara, guests to discuss his research on how political self-expression influences citizens' perceptions of their political selves as citizens. We also talk about how certain design features of social media seem to affect youth political expression, and how different acts of self-expression can influence political self concepts to va...

Dr. Sebastian Valenzuela , Associate Professor of Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, guests to discuss two studies on how social media impact political participation. The first study demonstrates how both Facebook and Twitter contribute to protest participation, but they do so through different pathways that relate to strong and weak tie social networks. The second study...

Chris Dick , Director of Applied Data Science at Civis Analytics , guests to discuss how data science approaches are being used to increase participation in the 2020 US Census. We talk about some of the political and financial challenges facing the census, what types of data are being used models of hard-to-count communities, and how different types of messaging can either increase or decrease Cen...

Neal Rothschild , Associate Director of Growth at Axios, guests to discuss the Axios-NewsWhip 2020 Attention Tracker . The attention tracker monitors candidate and issue mentions across Facebook and Twitter, and we talk about how the technology is used in Axios's reporting of the 2020 Democratic Primaries.

Dr. Bente Kalsnes , Associate Professor of Communication at Kristiania University College, guests to discuss her new book " Fake News: Lies, Disinformation, and Propaganda in the Digital Public Sphere ." We also break down politicians' social media campaigning in Norway, how this campaigning is changing ahead of the 2019 local elections, and look at some early Norwegian social media site...

Carpe Donktum , the pseudonym for a citizen who makes memes to support Donald Trump, guests to discuss his work. We talk about some of the memes that the President has retweeted on Twitter, as well as differences in meme making cultures across Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. Here are the memes discussed in the episode: NPC Infowars Winner State of the Union Biden Meme Acosta Meme And, a link to my paper...

Dr. Leon Derczynski , Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the IT University of Copenhagen, guests to discuss how natural language processing and computational linguistics can be applied to social media data. We break down several of Dr. Derczynski's EU-funded research projects, from detecting the informativeness of tweets in crisis communication to assessing the veracity of claims through c...

José van Dijck , Distinguished Professor in Media and Society at Utrecht University, guests to discuss her latest book, The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World (Oxford University Press). We break down key concepts from the book, including Platform Societies and Platform Power. We discuss the importance of public values in the Platform Society, and how these values might differ ac...

Alexandra Ekkelenkamp , Advisor to the Director of Media and Communications at the Council of the European Union, discusses how the EU Council uses social media for strategic communication. Alexandra shares her insights about how social media campaigns reflect the Council's work, how that creates authenticity, and how to incorporate local versus European narratives when communicating to the EU pub...

Loren Merchan and Jonathan Barnes guest to discuss the concept of authenticity and authentic campaigns in US elections. We break down the concept of authenticity, and discuss how digital and social media can be leveraged to make a candidate seem more authentic during a campaign. Find out more about Authentic Campaigns here!

Kata Füge , Social Media Analyst at Bakamo Social , discusses Bakamo's latest study charting citizens' online discussions about immigration across Europe. We break down the main findings of the study, the main narratives used by EU citizens to discuss migration in online spaces, as well as the methodology behind it. Click here to see the study's interactive dashboard, and find out what narratives...

Dino Amenduni , Political Strategist and Partner at Proforma , guests to discuss his work campaigning for Partito Democratico (PD) in Italy. We talk about the role of social media in digital campaigning for Italian politics, the enduring importance of television, and differences between local, national, and European elections.

Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten , Assistant Professor of European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss a live breakdown of the EU election results. We talk about the election results, the European Parliament's digital campaign, and what it all means for Europe. Here's the 2019 European Parliament's promo video: Choose your Future. And the 2014 video: Act. React. Impact.

Dr. Ben O'Loughlin , Professor of International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, guests to discuss how diplomats use strategic narratives in managing international relations. We break down the concept of strategic narrative, which includes paying attention to the media environment. Dr. O'Loughlin explains the relationship between narrative and digital media, while providing examp...

Jennifer Stromer-Galley , Professor of Information Studies at Syracuse University, guests to share her research on American presidential campaigns and their digital media use since 1996. We discuss her award-winning book, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age , as well as its upcoming second edition, which includes a chapter on the 2016 election. Professor Stromer-Galley breaks down how Ame...

Brian Lyle , Vice President of Digital Strategy at On Message, Inc., and AAPC 2019 Digital Strategist of the Year, guests to discuss his Pollie award-winning work during the 2018 US Midterms. We discuss On Message's approach to political campaigning - advertising, organic growth, and fundraising - and the role of digital media in each. We also break down differences in campaigning between challeng...

Mikhail Fedorov, Chief Digital Strategist for Volodymyr Zelensky, joins the podcast to discuss digital campaigning ahead of the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential Elections. We discuss how Zelensky, the election's frontrunner, is using tools like Facebook, YouTube, and Telegram to grow a support base and coordinate volunteers' canvassing efforts. We also talk about bots, trolls, and fake news in Ukraine...

Bill Ottman , Founder and CEO of Minds , discusses how decentralized social media platforms may be the response to privacy concerns surrounding big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We talk about Minds' peer-to-peer cryptocurrency model, how blockchain technology is used on the platform, and online censorship.

Ray Serrato , Social Media Analyst at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, discusses how social media data is used in the context of human rights violations. Ray breaks down the attacks against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, and we discuss the role of social media in these attacks. Lastly, we talk about what the closing down of social media APIs means for future human rights work.

Adam Meldrum , Founding and Managing Partner at Ad Victory , guests to discuss the cutting-edge trends in American digital campaigning. We look at some best practices and innovations from the 2018 Midterm Elections around ad buys, booking inventory, OTT campaigns, and Facebook Messenger chatbots. And of course, how social media fits into the modern political campaign apparatus.

Dr. Alice Marwick , Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, guests to discuss the findings of her research report: Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Dr. Marwick breaks down how far-right groups use the internet and social media to promote their ideologies. We also talk about radicalization, conspiracy theories, and differences in online...

Dr. Rachel Gibson , Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester, discusses British political parties' digital campaigning from websites to social media. We take a longitudinal dive into the development of digital campaigning in the UK, and compare it to campaigning practices in the US. Then, we examine how citizens' political participation is evolving through their use of digital communi...