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Politics

Do Social Media Empower Weaker Political Groups?

The final speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Juho Vesa, whose interest is whether social media activity serves to empower traditionally weaker political groups, such as NGOs. Media success for such groups may simply mean media access, or also a greater involvement in agenda-building through their media presence.

The Facebook Presence of Female Israeli Politicians

The next speaker in this ICA 2018 is Moran Yarchi, whose interest is also in the uses of social media in election campaigns. But few recent studies have specifically examined the uses of social media by female politicians: much of the work on the role of women in politics still focusses on other matters, including mainstream media representation.

Social Media Uses by Populist Political Leaders

Up next in this ICA 2018 session is Augusto Valeriani, who undertook a study of the popularisation of political communication, examining the social media activities of 51 leaders across 18 Western democracies. Ordinary users may encounter such activities both through directly following these leaders (bond engagement) or through more accidental exposure (bridge engagement); to reach the latter, politicians will need to generate information cascades.

Personalisation Styles of German Politicians on Facebook

The next speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Manon Metz, who points out the use of social media by politicians in order to circumvent conventional mass media. This creates an era of permanent personalised campaigning, but the level of personalisation still varies considerably across different contexts.

Finding Korean Astroturfing Accounts

The next ICA 2018 session I’m attending has started with JungHwan Yang, whose focus is on political astroturfing by non-bots. The 50-Cent Party in China, and the Russian troll army are examples of this, and these are more difficult to detect than bots, because of the human factor.

Public Perceptions of Filter Bubble Concerns

The final speaker in our ICA 2018 panel is Neil Thurman. He notes that beyond the platform studies we must also look at the intersections between different social networks and platforms, and at the broader societal debate about echo chambers and filter bubbles. His work builds on the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Survey (covering 26 countries), and explores how aware and concerned users are of and about the algorithmic and editorial selection of the news content they engage with.

Filter Bubbles: Limited Evidence in the U.S. and Germany

The next speaker in our ICA 2018 session is Bibi Reisdorf, who focusses on how people tailor their social network connections through friending, unfriending, and blocking. This again draws on the Quello Search Project study, a survey of 14,000 search users across seven nations.

The Need for Whole-of-System Media Literacy

The final speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Elizabeth Dubois, who again highlights the moral panics about the effect of ‘the Internet’ on information flows. But there are many different media and platforms, where users exercise different media use choices. There is a need to better measure media habits, therefore, including their specific diversity, timing, and tactics.

Nudging Users Vulnerable to Poor Information Use

The next speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Laleah Fernandez, who begins by highlighting the moral panics around echo chambers, filter bubbles, and ‘fake news’. There is limited evidence that these issues are major concerns, but to the extent that these are genuine problems, key users might be useful in addressing these problems, by nudging vulnerable users towards more sensible behaviours.

Algorithmic Literacy in Search

The next speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Bibi Reisdorf, whose focus is on the role of algorithms in shaping information flows, and on users’ understandings of the impact of such algorithms. Algorithmic literacy is not yet well researched; it extends beyond digital literacy and is specific to different platforms, too.

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