On Wednesday, we joined Gallup, Knight Foundation, and policy experts at the Gallup World Headquarters for their event discussing their recent report on media and democracy.
The top finding, you ask? Americans’ views on social media moderation do not fall along traditional partisan lines. Instead, they fall into six broad buckets:
· Reformers
· Concerned spectators
· Traditionalists
· Unplugged & ambivalent
· Unfazed digital natives
· Individualists
Unsurprisingly, the Reformers and Individualists’ approaches are most often seen in our politics. While Alexandra Givens of the Center for Democracy & Technology highlighted that young respondents’ desire for consistency in policy application and understanding about how the policies work are causes for hope.
What should policymakers make of all this? Here are some suggestions:
· Transparency
· Consumer protection approach to platforms enforcing their policies
· Modeling good social media practice as public officials
· A global mindset
· Public education for a nuanced policy response
More on policy enforcement inconsistency here.
Publications and appearances
“The institutions we have were not set up for democracy.” Shannon McGregor attended the University of Virginia Deliberative Media Lab’s “Deliberation and Democracy” workshop along with fellow CITAP faculty Daniel Kreiss, Alice Marwick, and Francesca Tripodi.
“The way the game is designed will change the outcome,” said Francesca Tripodi in the closing speech.
Francesca Tripodi’s research was referenced by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in an article about improving students’ critical thinking about online sources, with a project that includes having students find a topic without a Wikipedia page and writing an entry.
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Rachel Kuo is a part of the editorial board for the journal on Communication & Race, launching in 2024! The official call for papers is now available.
Coming soon
June 14: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) is presenting: CIRCLE Growing Voters from 2:00pm-3:30pm EST. Click here to register.
June 24: Deadline for Tech Policy Press’s call for abstracts! Essays on race, ethnicity, technology & elections are due at 5pm EST.
August 1: Submissions for the Labor Tech Book and Graduate Student Paper Awards are due.
Rest of Web
The Ezra Klein Show is hiring!
Syracuse University’s Illuminating project website now has Tweets and Facebook posts from the 2020 U.S. presidential election and anyone can go play with the data!
Juan Larrosa’s new article on Latinos and Democratic Party Campaigns in the United States is out. He uses the “identity ownership” concept coined by Shannon McGregor, Daniel Kreiss, and Regina Lawrence in his work.