Media Media

Do social media threaten democracy?

Facebook, Google and Twitter were supposed to save politics as good information drove out prejudice and falsehood. Something has gone very wrong

People Across the Globe Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy

Most think social media leads to manipulation and division, but they also say it informs people and gives them a voice in politics.

We're getting the social media crisis wrong

The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

We're getting the social media crisis wrong

The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

Improving social media for democratic discourse

Social media have expanded opportunities for communication and political participation, but today's dominant platforms are optimized primarily for engagement and advertising revenue, contributing...

The limits of social media as a source of political information during routine and crisis times across 17 countries

Recent studies on political knowledge suggest people learn little about political events and societal issues from social media. Potentially, social media are a more effective source of information ...

The future of social media is human

We cannot continue participating in social media platforms which do nothing to stop us being tricked by GenAI and the powerful people/governments that control them.

Old Tricks, New Tech: How Legacy Media Capture Fuels Today’s Digital Authoritarianism

Marius Dragomir and Minna Aslama Horowitz discuss how digital authoritarianism is rising as states and Big Tech align, threatening independent media.

Fascintern Media

We are facing a coordinated international fascist movement that works with explicit backing from Moscow, Washington, and tech monopolies, and is propagating itself through its own media apparatus. Yet people who claim to side with democracy keep doing work to support Fascintern media because they misunderstand how it works. This needs to change.

Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite

Large language models elevate expert consensus and moderate views, in sharp contrast to social platforms

Why Don’t We Learn from Social Media? Studying Effects of and Mechanisms behind Social Media News Use on General Surveillance Political Knowledge

Does exposure to news affect what people know about politics? This old question attracted new scholarly interest as the political information environment is changing rapidly. In particular, since c...

How to Opt Out of Social Media Controlled by Big Tech

It might seem like there are simply no other choices for social media beyond those controlled by big tech companies, but that’s not true at all. In fact, we’re in a golden era of options being built

Social Media Effects: Hijacking Democracy and Civility in Civic Engagement

Perceived as an equalizing force for disenfranchised individuals without a voice, the importance of social networks as agents of change cannot be ignored. However, in some societies, social networks have evolved into a platform for fake news and propaganda, empowering disruptive voices, ideologies, and messages. Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google hold the potential to alter civic engagement, thus essentially hijacking democracy, by influencing individuals toward a particular way of thinking.