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Politics and social media
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- 2. Agora 2.0 ◦ Theagora is a term used to describe a public meeting place ◦ In Ancient Greece, citizens would meet in the agora to discuss and decide on matters of importance ◦ It was open to all (well, all who owned property – i.e. the wealthy) ◦ This relates to modern theories of the Public Sphere (Habermas) ◦ Some argued when the internet came into being that it was the new Public Sphere – an Agora 2.0
- 3. Is the Interneta new public sphere? ◦ Arguments for: ◦ The internet is open to all ◦ Anyone is free to say what they want on there (within certain societally decide limits) ◦ Discussions online can turn into actions and changes in the real world ◦ People discuss politics online. A lot. ◦ People in power have access to these discussions and can use them to inform policy decisions
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- 5. Arguments against ◦ Theinternet is increasingly open, but there are still large parts of the population either not online at all or with limited access ◦ 10% of the US population are not online (15% of rural population) ◦ Only 75% have access to high-speed wired broadband ◦ Only 49% have access to broadband at a cost of < $60 per month – an annual bill of $700+ is simply too much for some ◦ And phones: ◦ About 83% of the adult US population own a smartphone (71% rural areas) ◦ 4G (or even 3G) is harder to find in rural areas ◦ So, access is not totally open to all equally
- 6. Arguments against ◦ Thenormative model of an agora is that all voices have equal time, equal force and equal opportunity to argue a case ◦ Everyone with internet access can freely set up a Twitter account and post their thoughts, but clearly not all thoughts have as loud a voice ◦ Mean number of Twitter follows is around 200 ◦ But accounts such as Obama, Katy Perry, Biebs (>100m) take this average up ◦ So median (most common number) is probably <10 ◦ Same distribution with most social media platforms and websites
- 7. Arguments against ◦ Anillustration of how powerful voices still dominate ◦ This is an illustration of conservative Twitter in Wisconsin ◦ Shows who retweets who ◦ Nodes (circles) show how prominent voices are – biggest three: Paul Ryan (then Speaker); Charlie Sykes, Vicki McKenna and Mark Levin (prominent right-wing radio hosts)
- 8. ARGUMENTS AGAINST People are increasinglyentering into silos with little cross-talk This is the full Twitter network of Wisconsin Liberals retweet liberals and conservatives retweet conservatives Liberal Conservative Media
- 9. Arguments against ◦ Over onein three people report blocking or unfriending people on social media due to political social media posts ◦ Our research found that a similar number had stopped talking to someone due to politics
- 10. “My brother isa liberal and he hates Gov. Walker. He hasn't spoken to me more than six or seven times since the recall.” “Yeah, on Facebook … he actually unfriended me and blocked me because I'm the enemy.”
- 11. But is thisall the fault of social media? ◦ NO ◦ Next.
- 12. But… ◦ Research showsthat people who are exposed to contrary opinions tend to moderate their own opinions ◦ In previous generations, everybody read the same few newspapers and watched one of a handful of news shows ◦ Now it is easy to avoid news ◦ Or choose the news which fits your existing worldview
- 14. Still banging onabout it ◦ People have a psychological disposition towards information which is consonant – i.e. information they like ◦ Algorithms work to provide information which people like. They want people to click on the stories they suggest – it’s basically how they make their money ◦ Research shows two initially identical social media accounts set up at the same time will soon diverge in their suggested content following just inputting one or two data points (likes, follows, views) ◦ We live within increasingly mediated communities – that is to say that we understand the world often now through our experience through a screen along with our lived experiences
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- 16. But there aresome other benefits ◦ Politicians and parties can now have direct contact with voters (yes, we’ll get on to him shortly) ◦ Previously messages had to reach the public via some form of media. For years that meant relying on media companies or organizations to transmit your message ◦ Or paying to get your message out – either through making your own communications, e.g. flyers, newsletters, public events, OR paying for ads on media. ◦ Both of these are very expensive to do and beyond the means of smaller parties or organizations ◦ Social media does allow like-minded people to more easily find each other ◦ It enables people to become informed on the issues they care about ◦ https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534
- 17. The Monitorial citizen ◦Communication scholar Michael Schudson has argued that there is simply too much going on in modern societies for the average citizen to be truly informed about everything ◦ Instead he proposes the idea of the “monitorial citizen” – people keep an eye on what is going on, especially in areas they particularly care about ◦ If you care about the environment – there’s a FB group for that ◦ If you care about the climate crisis - there’s a FB group for that ◦ If you care about the impact of dietary choices on the climate crisis – there’s a FB group for that ◦ If you want to support local plant-based businesses - there’s a FB group for that ◦ SM helps people engage at the level and depth which is right for them
- 18. Tailoring the message ◦Social media data helps campaigns tailor messages ◦ The right tailoring can provide good information to citizens, making them informed and possibly more likely to participate ◦ The wrong tailoring however can be used to disenfranchise certain groups ◦
- 19. Microtargeting ◦ You seethis every time you get that ad for something you were just talking about ◦ It’s genuinely not the case that your phone is always listening – its just they have that much data on you they know you that well ◦ But its not just companies that are employing microtargeting techniques ◦ Parties are increasingly using the practice to target specific ads at specific voters ◦ Parties use the demographic information you have given FB, Google et al., plus browsing history to categorise you ◦ So our concerned environmentalist browser will be more likely to get an ad on that theme
- 20. So far soreasonable ◦ But (there’s always a but) ◦ There is evidence that this type of microtargeting means that the politically uninterested can become more uninterested as they will not be the ones seeing these ads ◦ TV ads in US elections would usually saturate the airwaves prior to major elections, making them very hard to avoid ◦ Now as, particularly younger, people spend more time online and using streaming services, those ads are much easier to avoid ◦ And if they are also not getting the ads online… ◦
- 21. Then there arethe bots and trolls ◦ A study designed to investigate microtargeting instead found huge numbers of ads coming from Russian troll farms and bots ◦ The Internet Research Agency (IRA) was hugely active in attempting to sow public discord ahead of both the 2016 US presidential election and the 2016 Brexit vote ◦ They often targeted ads with the aim of stopping certain demographics from voting ◦ The aim was to disinform not inform ◦ The aim was to disenfranchise
- 22. (CITED IN THEMUELLER REPORT)
- 23. The Twitter Exploit ◦Looked at 100 twitter accounts known to be controlled by the IRA ◦ Found that 32/33 major US news outlets had embedded in a story at least one IRA tweet ◦ 116 articles had an IRA tweet ◦ 14% of HuffPost stories in the sample had an IRA tweet ◦ Tweets used to convey “current opinion” – a common device used in journalism. The vox populi, but it is now easier, cheaper and quicker for journalists to look at Twitter for opinion than go out and find people to ask
- 24. Daily Caller ◦ Examplehere shows how the Daily Caller which presents itself as a proper reporting organization uses a Tweet as supposed fact ◦ It’s not – it’s nonsense ◦ Both the story and the Daily Caller ◦ Remember this chart ◦ But the tweet is presented from “Syria Today” which has apparent validity ◦ It’s not – it’s an IRA account
- 25. Why does thismatter for strat comm? ◦ Because if you are going to be involved in social media in a strategic communication role, this is the environment you are entering ◦ If you worked in SM for a campaign, you may need to recognise and know how to respond to troll attacks ◦ Companies are also not immune to troll attacks ◦ Brand management can be threatened in an environment when an outright lie about your brand can have travelled around the world before you get to your desk in the morning
- 26. The elephant inthe room ◦ We all know that a certain prominent political figure uses Twitter. Quite a lot. ◦ To date President Trump has tweeted over 43,000 times (figure probably now out of date) ◦ About 9 million words ◦ Has a huge audience of over 50m (but likely many bots) ◦ How has he used Twitter?
- 27. Word groupings ◦ Analysisof 2016 campaign ◦ Nodes are keywords ◦ Links are how often two keywords appear in the same tweet ◦ The purple group shows the focus of the campaign – attack Clinton
- 28. 2017 ◦ New centralpriority is the attacks on the media (blue), policy (green) and still Clinton (red)
- 29. My research onhis religious language 0 2 4 6 8 Religious terms per thousand (RTPT) words by presidency
- 30. My research onhis religious language 0 1 2 God terms per thousand (GTPT) words by presidency
- 31. My research onhis religious language 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Citizen Candidate Nominee President RTPT GTPT
- 32. Political tactics with social media ◦Google-jacking ◦ The Conservatives bid for adverts of “Labour” or “Labour manifesto” – putting this page at the top of the search results
- 33. Dead Squirrel strategy ◦ Strongsupporters of a party create a fake meme with some ridiculous claim about a politician ◦ The meme is circulated with fake outrage among people in on the joke ◦ But then it can spread, leading to media picking it up and maybe even asking the politician about it ◦ (Term comes from meme saying Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson enjoys murdering squirrels with a catapult)
- 34. Creative Charting ◦ Lib Demsbecome quite infamous for it ◦ Mis(represent) the true chances of them winning a seat
- 35. What the BBCwon’t tell you ◦ Presents the BBC (or other similar major news outlet) as partisan and deliberately supporting the other side ◦ Viral videos purporting to show biased coverage ◦ Partly works due to the idea of the Hostile Media Perception (HMP) ◦ People believe that while they are immune to media influence, other people will be persuaded or fooled ◦ Studies examining this by e.g. Gunther – one experiment presented the same information as either a student essay of a news article. Readers were more hostile to the news article.
- 36. Fake the figures ◦The £350m to the EU bus - most infamous example in recent UK political history ◦ Also, £1.2tn figure used by the Tories for the Labour manifesto ◦ Figures needn’t be true, just memorable (and thus shareable)