Anti-establishmentarianism and content governance
Say THAT 3 times fast. Also, CITAP at AEJMC and a podcast feature.
American public opinion on who should be responsible for that governance is complicated. In “Social media policy in two dimensions: understanding the role of anti-establishment beliefs and political ideology in Americans’ attribution of responsibility regarding online content,” Heesoo Jang, Bridget Barrett, and Shannon McGregor answer the question “If partisanship doesn’t explain content governance opinions, then what does?” Jang, Barrett, and McGregor argue that it is political attitudes beyond partisanship, a lack of partisan ties, and lack of political interest in general that shape attitudes towards content governance.
Jang, Barrett, and McGregor investigated three possibilities of the public’s support for who should be doing the governance: the government (content regulation), social media companies (content moderation), or individual users (individual responsibility). They found that those with anti-establishment beliefs (regardless of their partisan leaning) are less likely to support government regulation and social media content moderation, but they are more likely to be in favor of individual responsibility. On the other hand, those who believe in a more active government role, government regulation of content is an appealing option.
The authors discussed how “anti-establishment beliefs are relational, reflecting a deep distrust between an individual and society… Those against government regulation are concerned less with protecting free speech for all and more driven by protecting their rights as an individual.”
The individual responsibility view is the commonly held content governance preference of those who hold anti-establishment beliefs. But belief in individual responsibility assumes that all users have the ability and capability to be ‘responsible’. The individual responsibility model puts “a particular burden on those most affected by harmful content online – women, people of color, and other historically marginalized groups.”
Individual responsibility is not only likely to “exacerbate existing inequalities”, but it is also the least effective model of platform governance, as the scholarly and regulatory discussion is rapidly moving towards a co-governance model with an increase in government regulation and decrease in self-regulation.
As the authors noted:
“The public's perspective on platform regulation holds significance, even though current debates often revolve around think tanks, political actors, journalists, and academics… Any form of platform governance, whomever the responsible actor – whether it be governments, platforms, or individuals themselves – impacts both the formation and content of public opinion.”
Understanding these underlying beliefs that influence how the public prefers to understand content governance provides helpful and needed insight into public opinion and may suggest promising new approaches to defining content governance regulations or approaches.
Publications and appearances
In “Malicious Selling Strategies in Livestream E-commerce: A Case Study of Alibaba’s Taobao and ByteDance’s TikTok”, Qunfang Wu, Yisi Sang, Dakuo Wang, and Zhicong Lu identified 4 categories of malicious selling: restrictive, deceptive, covert, and asymmetric. As a result of studying these categories, Wu and authors suggest that platform design changes can be proposed to protect users, such as giving more filtering power to the user as to what they see during the livestream and giving the user a way to compare prices and fact check the seller.
Francesca Tripodi appeared on the Feminist Buzzkills podcast where she discussed her research around data voids and search term manipulation. “I do think it's important that people recognize that these data voids exist and that they are hiding in plain sight… You can effectively manipulate search engine returns in search results by just creating a whole set of content that nobody's talking about and by making it seem super, super important to the audiences that are listening to your shows.”
Daniel Kreiss, Heesoo Jang, Evan Ringel and affiliates Erik Brooks, Tori Ekstrand, Xinyan (Eva) Zhao, Sarah Whitmarsh, and Noelle Wilson presented, submitted papers, or served on panels at the 106th Annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference. Congrats to Tori and Evan for placing third in the Law & Policy Division faculty paper competition!
Coming soon
August 19th at ASA: CITAP is hosting a reception along with CITAMS and Disability in Society at the ASA conference on Sat, August 19th.
August 30 at APSA: CITAP is cohosting the APSA Pre-Conference in Political Communication: The Age of Misinformation.
September 7th: CITAP is hosting Lee McGuigan for a book talk on his book “Selling the American People: Advertising, Optimization, and the Origins of Adtech.” RSVP and streaming information coming soon!
October 16 at CITAP: Misinformation and Marginalization Symposium. Registration information coming soon!
October 18 at AoIR: Alice Marwick, Yvonne Eadon, and Rachel Kuo are among the co-organizers of an AoIR preconference on future of conspiracy.
October 22 at the Annenberg Public Policy Center: The Post-API Conference.
Rest of Web
On Twitter, our Affiliate Jess Maddox shared a syllabus for her doctoral qualitative research seminar, saying “a little while back I asked for some help on here for the best resources on analysis for my doctoral qualitative research seminar. Many asked to see the final product.”