Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The New Media Frontier: How Social Media Affects Partisan Attachments, Candidate Evaluations, And Political Emotions, Justin Allen Rose

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to further our understanding of individual social media use on polarization, evaluation of political candidates, and political emotions. Three separate articles are utilized to illuminate the effects of individual social media use. The first article pushes forward a theory which argues that social media is uniquely positioned to affect partisan feelings due to its propensity to lead individuals into echo chambers—online places that reinforce their existing opinions and attitudes. The second argues that social media plays into the hyper-partisan nature of the American political landscape, and by way, putting forward an atmosphere which will lead individuals to …

Of Humans, Machines, And Extremism: The Role Of Platforms In Facilitating Undemocratic Cognition, Julia R. Decook, Jennifer Forestal

Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The events surrounding the 2020 U.S. election and the January 6 insurrection have challenged scholarly understanding of concepts like collective action, radicalization, and mobilization. In this article, we argue that online far-right radicalization is better understood as a form of distributed cognition, in which the groups’ online environment incentivizes certain patterns of behavior over others. Namely, these platforms organize their users in ways that facilitate a nefarious form of collective intelligence, which is amplified and strengthened by systems of algorithmic curation. In short, these platforms reflect and facilitate undemocratic cognition, fueled by affective networks, contributing to events like the …

Post, Share, Like: The Role Of Facebook In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Hannah Michelle Snyder

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Facebook is being used by both Russia and Ukraine as a tool of war, for very different purposes. This demonstrates that the platform no longer serves the sole function of connecting communities together. Existing literature has recognized that social media is being used in the current Russo-Ukrainian war but has yet to conduct comparative and contrastive analyses of Russian and Ukrainian social media strategies and effects. Conducting these analyses will illustrate not only what strategies are being used, but how they can be simultaneously advantageous and disadvantageous for belligerents. By focusing on one platform, Facebook, one can not only learn …

Facebook Algorithm Changes May Have Amplified Local Republican Parties, Kevin Reuning, Anne Whitesell, A. Lee Hannah

Political Science Faculty Publications

In this research note we document changes to the rate of comments, shares, and reactions on local Republican Facebook pages. Near the end of 2018, local Republican parties started to see a much higher degree of interactions on their posts compared to local Democratic parties. We show how this increase in engagement was unique to Facebook and happened across a range of over a thousand local parties. In addition, we use a changepoint model to identify when the change happened and find it lines up with reported information about the change in Facebook’s algorithm in 2018. We conclude that it …

The Distrust Of Experts, Noah Smith

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This paper will compile demographic data and analyze their correspondence with trust of expert opinion in order to develop a profile of individuals who mistrust expert opinions. I will be using the American National Election Survey of 2020 as the central data source for this paper. I will also be using supplementary data from research into trust of expertise to create my profile. The mistrust of expert opinions has been an issue simmering in the background of American politics for quite some time. Previously its largest impact was on the discourse and policy surrounding climate change. Now it is also …

A Configurable Social Network For Running Irb-Approved Experiments, Mihovil Mandic

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Our world has never been more connected, and the size of the social media landscape draws a great deal of attention from academia. However, social networks are also a growing challenge for the Institutional Review Boards concerned with the subjects’ privacy. These networks contain a monumental variety of personal information of almost 4 billion people, allow for precise social profiling, and serve as a primary news source for many users. They are perfect environments for influence operations that are becoming difficult to defend against. Motivated to study online social influence via IRB-approved experiments, we designed and implemented a flexible, scalable, …

Constructing Digital Democracies: Facebook, Arendt, And The Politics Of Design, Jennifer Forestal

Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Deliberative democracy requires both equality and difference, with structures that organize a cohesive public while still accommodating the unique perspectives of each participant. While institutions like laws and norms can help to provide this balance, the built environment also plays a role supporting democratic politics—both on- and off-line. In this article, I use the work of Hannah Arendt to articulate two characteristics the built environment needs to support democratic politics: it must (1) serves as a common world, drawing users together and emphasizing their common interests and must also (2) preserve spaces of appearance, accommodating diverse perspectives and …

Donald Trump V. The Electorate: A Twitter Feud For The Ages, Natalie Gould

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis began as an exploration into Donald Trump’s Twitter use in the final year of his presidency, starting with his first (and at the time, only) impeachment and ending with the November 2020 election. As an incumbent running for re-election, Donald Trump broke from precedent by opting out of the traditional messaging strategy of expanding his base and promoting unity and instead focused on energizing his existing supporters. Throughout his campaign and presidency, his Trumpian-style of rhetoric which perpetuated an “us versus them” mentality resulted in threats and real violence by his supporters.

The role of social media has …

Networks Of Isolation: The Case Of Donald J. Trump, Facebook, And The Limits Of Social Movement Theory, Carol L. Stimmel

Sustainability and Social Justice

The 2016 election that catapulted Donald J. Trump to the U.S. presidency has raised questions for how Facebook may have enabled the emergence and coalescence of a social movement among traditionally improbable voters. The research in this paper engages with contemporary social movement theory, assessing its adequacy for explaining the role of Facebook as a primary method for facilitating a social movement among the civically-alienated, who are the most unlikely of all Americans to join an organized collective for change. From a methodological perspective, the exploration takes up the case as a strategy of inquiry to explore social movement theory …

Social Media Communication By Michigan County And City Government, Courtney J. Marshall

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In this fast-paced society, municipal governments struggle to keep up with venues of communication to relay information to their public. As of 2017, an estimation of 23 million people follow Twitter accounts maintained by government entities. Residents depend on social media more than going to their represented municipal websites for information. Today, government employees struggle to produce information that the public can read and understand. The purpose of this study is to discover how cities and counties in Michigan use websites and social media and if a community's affluence affects governments' ability to communicate to their citizens through social media. …

Googalization: The Response To A “Friend Request” In The Workplace, Ashley Harrington

The Eastern Illinois University Political Science Review

With social networking taking over the lives and time of its users, workplace time and productivity appear to be neglected and decreasing. However, perhaps online social networking is just a plan that has yet to make its inclusion into the workplace. Within this context, the author considers both the positives and negatives associated with social networking in the workplace.

The Minefield: Designing And Implementing Human Resource Policies In The Age Of Social Media, Christopher R. Mcmillan

The Graduate Review

Human resource managers have had to navigate a minefield of laws and regulations while continuing to manage the traditional business functions of the employer. Now, human resource departments across the nation are tasked with managing the traditional employee-employer relationship in light of an ever-changing technological and legal landscape. Businesses across the nation have had to adjust to a rise in the use of social-media and have suffered the consequences of instantaneous communication between employees and the media. These same businesses must reconcile the need to protect its goodwill and livelihood, while incorporating the safeguards provided by legislation and regulations in …

How Do Politicians Use Facebook? An Applied Social Observatory, Simon Caton, Margeret A. Hall, Christof Weinhardt

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Publications

In the age of the digital generation, written public data is ubiquitous and acts as an outlet for today’s society. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn have profoundly changed how we communicate and interact. They have enabled the establishment of and participation in digital communities as well as the representation, documentation and exploration of social behaviours, and had a disruptive effect on how we use the Internet. Such digital communications present scholars with a novel way to detect, observe, analyse and understand online communities over time. This article presents the formalization of a Social Observatory: a low latency method …

Keeping Pace: The U.S. Supreme Court And Evolving Technology, Brian Thomas

Politics Summer Fellows

Contemporary mainstream discussions of the Supreme Court are often qualified with the warning that the nine justices are out of touch with everyday American life, especially when it comes to the newest and most popular technologies. For instance, during oral argument for City of Ontario v. Quon, a 2010 case that dealt with sexting on government-issued devices, Chief Justice John Roberts famously asked what the difference was “between email and a pager,” and Justice Antonin Scalia wondered if the “spicy little conversations” held via text message could be printed and distributed. While these comments have garnered a great deal of …

The 21st Century Activist's Dilemma: Social Media's Impact On The Occupy And Tea Party Movements, Alexander Elliott Carter-Parks

Senior Projects Spring 2015

This paper examines the influence of social media on political participation in American social movements, focusing on the cases of the Occupy and Tea Party movements during their heyday in the period from 2009 to 2012 as a framework for analysis. Users of these social networks have access to instantaneous information dissemination, broad new political networks, and a wealth of radical thought; but also can be diverted from real-world participation by the appeal of low-cost online activism. Using a foundation of strong-tie/weak-tie activism theory, demographics surveys, and media coverage this paper argues that social media has reshaped the process by …

Political Culture On The National Web: The Role Of Political Culture In Online Political Activity And The Case Of Hungarian Politics On Facebook, Linda Börzsei

Linda Börzsei

The emerging field of national web studies aims to offer new perspectives on studying the internet: it calls for framing the internet not as a global and virtual entity but one which comprises multiple heterogeneous layers embedded in social contexts. The national web as an object of study describes layers of this sort, focusing on web spaces that are demarcated by national lines. In this thesis, I propose an approach to analyse national webs as well as demonstrate its usefulness. I argue that national identity and other political beliefs and values have a considerable impact on the formation and workings …

Bowling Online: The Internet And The New Social Capital, Jason Gainous, Kevin M. Wagner

Commonwealth Review of Political Science

The decline thesis proponents in the social capital literature have largely ignored the fastest growing venue for new social capital formation - the Internet. We argue that the Internet is making a larger impact than the current research acknowledges. Using survey data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project combined with a survey of college students, we confirm a strong positive relationship between online social networking and political participation. Further, we present evidence that, at least in 2008 election, there was a bias toward voting for Democrats among those who utilized online social networking services including Facebook and Twitter. …

The Rancor Of Republicans, The Diatribe Of Democrats A Social Network Analysis Of Partisan Interconnectivity On Facebook, Sean Langille

Masters Theses

The Internet has played a more active role in shaping modern American political communication. With the increased popularity of social networking through websites like Facebook, more are taking to the Internet to engage in civic dialogue. This study will explore how the exchange of socially networked images, texts, and audio between Democrats and Republicans affect beliefs, behaviors and perceptions. Utilizing qualitative methodologies, the researcher interviewed ten (10) registered democrats and ten (10) registered republicans. The participants were basked ten questions and ten follow up questions. The study applied a social network analysis to evaluate how socially networked dialogue between Republicans …

A Decisive Social Media: Domination Of Social Media In Deciding News Content-A Case Study Of American Media And Trayvon Martin Tragedy, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

More than a quarter of Americans (27%) now get news on mobile devices, and for the vast majority, this is increasing news consumption, the report finds. More than 80% of smartphone and tablet news consumers still get news on laptop or desktop computers. On mobile devices, news consumers also are more likely to go directly to a news site or use an app, rather than to rely on search — strengthening the bond with traditional news brands. Almost immediately after the February 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin, the conversation about the case began simmering on Twitter. But it was nearly …

The Growing Use Of Social Media In Political Campaigns: How To Use Facebook, Twitter And Youtube To Create An Effective Social Media Campaign, Kaitlin Vonderschmitt

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

A political campaign is carefully crafted for each candidate, to address their constituency and present the candidate and party in the best possible way. After the creation of the United States suffrage was limited to land owning white men, these men were involved in politics by reading local newspapers and visiting the politicians face to face. However as we fast forward to the 1930’s President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the radio to connect with the American public, and then in 1960’s Nixon and Kennedy’s debate introduced the mass-produced version of face-to-face politics through televisions all over the country we begin …

New Media And Ethno-Politics In The Guinean Diaspora, Mohamed S. Camara

Security Studies & International Affairs - Daytona Beach

This paper discusses the resurgence of ethno-politics in Guinea in conjunction with the reintroduction of multiparty politics after three decades of single-party and military rule, and the trend’s multilayered repercussion into the Guinean Diaspora of North America. It further examines the principal ways in which ethno-regionalist organisations populating that Diaspora use and misuse new media outlets (web sites,web radio stations, and blogs) in order to promote the political agenda of their respective ethno-political elites. The article scrutinises the deficit of professionalism that characterises the performance of most of those publishing on such web sites and broadcasting on such stations and …

New Media And Ethno-Politics In The Guinean Diaspora, Mohamed S. Camara

Humanities & Communication - Daytona Beach

This paper discusses the resurgence of ethno-politics in Guinea in conjunction with the reintroduction of multiparty politics after three decades of single-party and military rule, and the trend’s multilayered repercussion into the Guinean Diaspora of North America. It further examines the principal ways in which ethno-regionalist organisations populating that Diaspora use and misuse new media outlets (web sites,web radio stations, and blogs) in order to promote the political agenda of their respective ethno-political elites. The article scrutinises the deficit of professionalism that characterises the performance of most of those publishing on such web sites and broadcasting on such stations and …

The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. While we know that social media can play an important role in publicizing political activities such as protests, do we have evidence that such actions have led to substantive political change? Is it possible to develop a set of indicators to more effectively gauge the impact of new technologies and media on questions of political change? That social media can help coordinate large and discrete activities, such as protests and …

Social Media For Social Good: A Guide To New Media For College Activists, Charles Harris

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In a world of Tweets and status updates, how do we take all those hours perusing social networks and put them to good use? In my thesis project, Social Media for Social Good: A Guide to New Media For College Activists, I explore the uses of these networks to activate people towards building positive social change. It is my opinion that college is the best time to be an activist. How do college students communicate? Social Media. From the campus to the global scale, social media can be effectively used to mobilize people to take action on a wide array …

7 (Hipó)Teses Sobre O Facebook, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Muitas pessoas desocupadas, e muitas pessoas ocupadíssimas ocupam muito do seu tempo em redes sociais, entre as quais o facebook. O autor, que confessa de vez em quando sacrificar a essa nova divindade, faz um balanço provisório da sua experiência nesse meio.

Politics 2.0 With Facebook – Collecting And Analyzing Public Comments On Facebook For Studying Political Discourses, Chirag Shah, Tayebeh Yazdani Nia

JITP 2011: The Future of Computational Social Science

Analyzing publicly available content on various social media sites such as YouTube and Twitter, as well as social network sites such as Facebook, has become an increasingly popular method for studying socio-political issues. Such public-contributed content, primarily available as comments, let people express their opinions and sentiments on a given topic, news-story, or post, while allowing social and political scientists to extend their analysis of a political discourse to social sphere. We recognize the importance of Facebook in such analysis and present several approaches and observations of collecting and analyzing public comments from it. In particular, we demonstrate what it …

Facebook, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Fascínios, possibilidades e perigos do Facebook e de tecnologias afins e seu uso. Sobretudo, a pseudo-democracia electrónica, tentação dos demagogos.

Kevin07, Web 2.0 And Young Voters At The 2007 Australian Federal Election, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

While Australian political parties have maintained official websites for some years, the 2007 Australian Federal election saw the first significant integration of Web 2.0 technologies into a national election campaign. The two major parties – the conservative Liberal Party and the socialist Labor Party – both embraced blogs, flash animation, online video and popular social networking sites in an attempt to win votes, particularly in the 18 to 35 year-old demographic. The Labor Party was far more successful in using Web 2.0 and their online efforts were judged to have played a large role in winning the absolute majority of …

Online Postings Can Be Nightmare For Recruits: In Acting On Google Search Results, However, Law Firms Should Proceed With Caution, Michael D. Mann

Michael D. Mann

No abstract provided.