Social Media and Politics

Tom Lillywhite, founder of Wilder Digital and the digital campaigning tool ' Pack ', joins the podcast to discuss how political campaigns and organizations can mobilize supporters to increase organic reach on social media. We discuss how crowdsourcing ardent supporters can increase organic reach on Facebook and Twitter, as well as how Pack is currently being used for advocacy groups and the Camden...

Craig Dwyer, co-founder of the Transparent Referendum Initiative , discusses targeted Facebook advertising ahead of the Irish constitutional referendum on abortion on May 25th. The TRI collects "dark" Facebook posts and is building an openly accessible database of targeted political ads. We discuss some of the major issues surrounding the referendum, the difficulties in discerning when a...

Don't forget to sign up for the free Axios newsletter , and tag your best and worst examples of government social media posts with #SMandPwins and #SMandPfails on Twitter! Simon Day, co-founder of Apptivism, discusses how chatbots are used to increase civic engagement. By interacting with a chatbot on Facebook Messenger, citizens can give their opinion on policies from their computers or smartphon...

Hey! Don't forget to sign up for the free Axios newsletter , and tag your best and worst examples of government social media posts with #SMandPwins and #SMandPfails on Twitter ;) Thomas Peters, founder and CEO of uCampaign , discusses how mobile apps can be powerful tools to drive engagement for political campaigns and advocacy groups. uCampaign has developed apps for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and t...

Help us out by signing up to the free Axios newsletter to get your daily dose of tech and politics! Hanneke Bruinsma, local politician for the green party GroenLinks in the Netherlands, joins the show to discuss how her party is using social media in the upcoming Dutch municipal elections. We discuss how GroenLinks party members in the Overbetuwe municipality are using Facebook and Twitter to camp...

James Moulding, co-founder of Games for the Many, joins the podcast to discuss the success of Corbyn Run, and online political game that went viral during the 2017 British elections. We discuss the development of the game, the role of social media in promoting it, and the potential for online games to spur political engagement in youth. You can play the game here . ...And, help us land a special g...

Give a small gift to the podcast by signing up for the Axios newsletter - it's free! Here are the year in review reports from Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram . Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Assistant Professor in European Studies and Lund University, returns to the podcast to recap the biggest moments and trends in social media and politics from 2017. We discuss social media's transnationaliza...

Please sign up for the Axios Newsletter and help promote the pod! Dr. Daniel Kreiss, Associate Professor at the School of Media and Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joins the podcast to discuss the role of data, social media, and technology in contemporary electoral campaigning. We discuss Dr. Kreiss' recent book, Prototype Politics , and dig into how Republicans and...

Please sign up for the Axios Newsletter to help promote the podcast! Check out the CAST IT podcast, hosted by Dr. Husfeldt. Dr. Husfeldt's talk on algorithms mentioned in the episode. Dr. Thore Husfeldt, Associate Professor in computer science at IT University of Copenhagen and Professor in computer science and Lund University, is an algorithms theorist who joins the show to discuss the implicatio...

Ciphas, an anonymous web blogger who writes about the dark web, joins the podcast to discuss what types of social networks are on the dark web. We discuss what type of social media are on the Tor browser, as well as why they might not be as popular as social networks on the clearnet. We also share experiences about being on the dark web, as well as where political discussions might be taking place...

Johan Farkas, Lecturer and Researcher at the IT University of Copenhagen, joins the show to discuss his research on "cloaked Facebook pages" that spread propaganda through false identities. We talk about how cloaked Facebook pages have been used in Denmark to spread hate speech about Muslims, how a Facebook group of activists formed to combat these accounts by reporting them to Facebook,...

Sergei Samoilenko, co-founder of the Character Assassination and Reputation Politics (CARP) Research Lab at George Mason University, shares his insights on how social media is used as a tool for defamation and crisis communication. We also discuss the state of the internet and social media in Russia, bots and trolls, and the Ukranian crisis. Check out their report: Character Assassination in Theor...

Please take 5 minutes to take the Audience Survey ! And while you're at it, check out our episode on Podcast of the Day! Dr. Nico Carpentier, Professor at the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, guests on the podcast this week to discuss media, participation, and conflict in Cyprus. We discuss deliberative versus participatory democracy, as well as Dr. Carpentier's new book,...

Kenneth Hampton, former Chief of Police in Tchula, Mississippi, joins the podcast to discuss his style of law enforcement, which draws heavily on the use of Facebook. Kenneth discusses how he's used Facebook successfully to curb crime, the controversy he faced surrounding his social media use, and how important his Facebook community is to his job. You can check out Kenneth's Facebook pages, New S...

Karolina Dam, founder of the NGO Sons and Daughters of the World, joins the podcast this week to tell the story of her son, Lukas. Lukas is a Danish citizen who became radicalized in Copenhagen, fled to Syria, and joined ISIS. We discuss how Facebook groups are used to recruit potential terrorists, the role that social media can play in deradicalization, and the types of communication that take pl...

Dr. Scott Wright, Senior Lecturer in Political Communication at the University of Melbourne, joins the pod to discuss what citizens' everyday political talk on social media and other online forums means for democracy. D.r Wright shares findings from his research that the design of online forms, and the level of moderation on them, have a demonstrable impact on the quality of democratic debate that...

Gab is an upstart social network with over 200,000 users that does not censor its users' content. Utsav Sanduja, Gab's Chief Communications Officer and Global Affairs Director, joins the podcast to discuss what this social media is all about and addresses some of the recent controversies surrounding it. We discuss how Twitter and Facebook have been censoring users' content, the role of Gab in supp...

Dr. Joel Penney , Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, discusses his new book * The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age*. The book explores how everyday citizens actively assist in the promotion of political messages through their social media activity, following logics of viral marketing to enact persuasion a...

Samir Patel, Managing Director at Blue State Digital London, guests this week to discuss how the recent success of the Labour Party in the 2017 British elections was aided by a huge push in digital by the British Left. We discuss the role that Facebook data targeting played in the election - not just from Labour but also advocacy groups. Samir also explains how social media was used to mobilize th...

The Social Media and Politics Podcast is a podcast bringing you innovative, first-hand insights into how social media is changing the political game. Subscribe for interviews and analysis with politicians, academics, and leading industry experts to get their take on how social media influences the ways we engage with politics and democracy. Connect with us on Twitter @SMandPPodcast & Facebook:...

The Social Media and Politics Podcast is a podcast bringing you innovative, first-hand insights into how social media is changing the political game. Subscribe for interviews and analysis with politicians, academics, and leading industry experts to get their take on how social media influences the ways we engage with politics and democracy. Connect with us on Twitter @SMandPPodcast & Facebook: Soc...

Host Michael Bossetta and Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten discuss parties and citizens used social media to campaign in the 2017 UK General Elections, where Theresa May's gamble to call a snap election backfired on her Conservative Party. We break down the election results and their implications for Brexit. We also look at how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat were used by the major parties...

The Social Media and Politics Podcast is a podcast bringing you innovative, first-hand insights into how social media is changing the political game. Subscribe for interviews and analysis with politicians, academics, and leading industry experts to get their take on how social media influences the ways we engage with politics and democracy. Connect with us on Twitter @SMandPPodcast & Facebook:...

Eric Wilson, Digital Director for the Marco Rubio for President campaign, guests on the podcast to discuss how the Rubio campaign used social media in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. We focus on Snapchat and discuss how the platform was used to reach voters, how the campaign crafted Snapchat stories, and where Snapchat fit into the campaign's overall social media strategy. Eric also discusse...

Dr. Alan Rosenblatt, Director for Digital Research at Lake Research Partners and Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy at Turner4D, shares his insights into how politicians have historically used the internet to campaign, going back to the first campaign website. We discuss how social media influences campaigns and advocacy, the current state of opinion polling, and the 2016 U.S. elections bet...