While the adoption of social media has been growing steadily globally for over a decade, the scientific study of social media is still in its youth. There's been a lot of press about the role that social media has played on such grandiose occasions as the the Arab Spring and the Ukraine's EuroMaiden revolution, but often times its impact is much more subtle, even if just as powerful. Social media has the power to polarize us politically, engage us and disaffect us, to inform us and disinform us. America's former President Donald Trump credits social media with his political success, and the 2020 U.S. Presidential election saw the rise and fall of one of history's most notorious bunk political conspiracies, organized almost entirely through social media.
We're a panel of researchers who look at the various ways that people organize themselves on social networks and the ways these networks shape our beliefs and behaviors. We study the evidence-based science of social media with a focus on understanding and quantifying the impacts of our exposure (or lack of exposure!) to ideas on social media, and we're here to answer your questions about it! We will begin answering questions circa 2pm Eastern.
We are:
Amy Bruckman (u/asbruckman): I am a Professor and Senior Associate Chair in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. I study social computing, with interests in content moderation, collaboration, and social movements. I got my PhD from the MIT Media Lab in 1997, and am an ACM Fellow and a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy.
Damon Centola (u/DamonCentola): I'm Damon Centola, a professor of Sociology, Engineering, and Communication and Director of the Network Dynamics Group at UPenn. I study how social change spreads using computational models based on work done in Physics. I was raised in a community of artists, activists and entrepreneurs who were all working to spread awareness about social issues like water conservation, gender equity, atomic
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I actually live close to two - the Wadden Sea, the worlds biggest tidal flats, with imense biodivercity. Just above the Wadden sea, we along the west coast - we get sand dunes. And I believe it was about 200 years ago, to stop the sand dunes from blowing everywhere - they planted the area with a special strong grass types and pine trees. This creates this unique looking landscape. On top of the landscape being very unique, the wildlife is super interesting too. Being a big area, actually owned by the military - few people other than people in their summerhouses live here. Which makes it ideal for animals. We have one of the biggest populations of deer, where it is not uncommon to see herds of 70, even 100 deers just grassing next to the road. As Denmark has no natrual predators bigger than the fox (We got perhaps like 6 wolves now, but that is far from enough to do anything) the deer simply live in peace. And the ones in this area, are so used to tourists, they don't give a damm. So you can often get so you are only a few meters from them before they run off.
Edit some pictures: Wadden sea, Birds at the Wadden Sea,
The overgrown sanddunes, An other image of the overgrown sanddunes with pine trees, Deer walking in the nature.
Trump has done many things with his Twitter account. From firing employees, to attacking other politicians. Many call it one of the downfalls of the Trump presidency and the trump administration, his comments being harmful to others, but also by being harmful to the rhetoric and attracting new supporters.
His tweets are seen in a variety of different ways. some people, usually his supporters, like what he tweets; they see it as him speaking his mind and telling it as he sees it, sometimes strengthening their support for him. Other people, usually people who don’t like him, see his tweets as rude and possibly offensive, and dissuades them from supporting him even more.
How do you think his account being gone will affect the political landscape? Do you think it will affect his rhetoric at all? His support? Or will it not have any affect at all, after the events of Wednesday? Also, how do you think it will affect other politicians?
As stated, what are the most useful frameworks to analyze and understand the present day American political landscape?
To many, it feels as though we're in an extraordinary political moment. Partisanship is at extremely high levels in a way that far exceeds normal functions of government, such as making laws, and is increasingly spilling over into our media ecosystem, our senses of who we are in relation to our fellow Americans, and our very sense of a shared reality, such that we can no longer agree on crucial facts like who won the 2020 election.
When we think about where we are politically, how we got here, and where we're heading, what should we identify as the critical factors? Should we focus on the effects of technology? Race? Class conflict? Geographic sorting? How our institutions and government are designed?
Which political analysts or political scientists do you feel really grasp not only the big picture, but what's going on beneath the hood and can accurately identify the underlying driving components?
