On Wednesday, the Knight Foundation and Gallup released a report on media and democracy based on a survey of over 10,000 Americans on their attitudes on technology companies, their role in our society, and approaches to regulating their influence. Jesse Holcomb of Calvin University and CITAP’s Shannon McGregor advised on the design of the survey.
As Dr. McGregor summarized on Twitter, “Americans’ views on what sort of social media and internet they want for our democracy—and who should be in charge of shaping it—do not fall along partisan lines.” Based on respondents’ opinions thoughts on how online content should be regulated and who should be responsible for this regulation, the report names six distinct population segments:
Reformers (30%) – The plurality of respondents are highly engaged online, politically active, regular news consumers who favor more government regulation and increased action on the part of social media companies.
Concerned Spectators (19%) – Less politically active online than Reformers, Concerned Spectators worry about online harms but are divided as to whether government or corporate regulation can best address the problem.
Traditionalists (9%) – These respondents are wary of government intervention and prefer to see social media companies manage their own platform policies.
Unplugged and Ambivalent (4%) – Some respondents are largely offline, and disconnedcted from any conversation on regulating digital content.
Unfazed Digital Natives (19%) – A younger group more focused on entertainment than political content online, these respondents support content moderation by technology companies in lieu of government regulation, in part because they are less concerned about social media harms.
Individualists (19%) – Politically involved respondents from the right expressed greater concern about censorship than harmful content, and opposed actions by either government OR platforms to moderate online speech.
How do white nationalists talk about vaccines?
Analyzing the content of posts from the Stormfront message board between 2001-2017, Meredith Pruden and her coauthors Dror Walter, Yotam Ophir, and Ayse Lokmanoglu identified four common themes in how white nationalists discuss vaccines.
The largest cluster of posts focused on the science of vaccination, including side effects, potential toxicity, and potential harms.
Posts also frequently discussed vaccines in race-based terms, from concern that vaccination campaigns could boost the population of non-white countries to proposals that a white nationalist state could ban vaccination.
Conspiracies make a frequent appearance, especially (but not exclusively) anti-semitic claims.
Finally, a small subset of posts focused on a frame of white innovation, expressing pride in vaccination as an example of white achievement.
The study focuses on posts made before the arrival of Covid-19, but over the 16 years studied, vaccines came up consistently as a topic of discussion, with the four themes appearing consistently throughout the period.
The craigslist ethic
If you were unable to join us for Jessa Lingel’s talk yesterday, the video is now available online (including a brief cameo from Craig Newmark himself!). It’s well worth a watch:
Publications and appearances
“To examine these questions is to uncover a brutal truth: Much suffering was avoidable, again and again, if different choices that were available and plausible had been made at crucial turning points. By looking at them, and understanding what went wrong, we can hope to avoid similar mistakes in the future.” Zeynep Tufekci wrote a “What if” for The New York Times exploring how we might have managed Covid differently over the past two years.
“Wikipedia has a notability standard for articles: Is there significant coverage in reliable secondary sources? Because historical women were so minimally covered in historical sources, many fail to meet this standard. Furthermore women “are more likely to be considered non-notable even if they meet Wikipedia’s criteria for inclusion,’” Francesca Tripodi spoke with Ms. Magazine about the absence of women on Wikipedia.
“This is not a new strategy for Russia… this is very much part and parcel of the fact that the Soviet Union has understood—that Russia has understood—about the United States that many people in the United States currently do not understand is that race is a very live issue. It can be exploited to great effect when you're trying to break people apart.” Deen Freelon appeared on the Diaries of Social Data Research podcast to talk about his Black Trolls Matter research.
“We must witness, but we must remember that we have limits.” Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about how to bear witness to Ukraine without drowning in an ocean of information for The New York Times.
“For the first time in history, a large-scale modern war is being live-streamed minute by minute, battle by battle and death by death to the world.” Affiliate Daniel Johnson spoke with ABC News about how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has become the most-documented war in history.
Coming soon
March 16, 12pm: The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will host a virtual panel on “Fresh Thinking on Government Transparency”.
April 7, 3:30pm: The CITAP spring speaker series continues with a talk from Andre Brock, author of Distributed Blackness. RSVP and livestream links to come next week.
April 15: deadline to apply for the Cleary Prize for student research on media law and policy.
Rest of Web
Want more analysis of the Knight/Gallup survey? Tech Policy Press has you covered.
Congratulations to Tressie McMillan Cottom on joining the New York Times Opinion section as a columnist!
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