Digital Political Communication: Politics, Politicians, and the Media in the Digital Age
Key Issues Facing Contemporary Journalism
Course Content
In an era where digital platforms have become the primary means of communication, the landscape of political communication is undergoing a fundamental transformation. From traditional political actors to journalists, the ways in which we engage with politics and media are being reshaped by the internet, social media, and the algorithms that drive them. This course, “Digital Political Communication: Politics, Politicians, and the Media in the Digital Age,” seeks to explore these profound changes by examining both the supply and demand sides of political communication in our contemporary digital environment.
The course will focus on political elites—including political parties, politicians and journalists who are adapting to the new media environment. We will begin with a general introduction to the changing landscape of politics and media, followed by an exploration of how and why political actors and journalists communicate online. Key topics will include the challenges of disinformation, misinformation, and fake news, the impact of algorithmic bias, and strategies for countering online dis/misinformation. These sessions will provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the new systems, structures, and processes that have emerged with the advent of digital tools. Moreover, we will dive deeper in timely topics such as the influence of morality and emotions in online campaigning, polarization, and the influence of online media on offline violence.
Throughout the course, we will draw on a wide range of literature from political science, media studies, and political psychology. By the end of the course, students will have gained a nuanced understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by digital media in the political sphere, equipping them to navigate and analyze the complex interactions between politics, journalism and technology in the digital age.
Course Structure
Class 1: General Introduction: The Changing Landscape of Politics & Democracy
Tucker, Joshua A., Yannis Theocharis, Margaret E. Roberts, and Pablo Barberá. “From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media And Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 4 (2017): 46–59.
Jungherr, Andreas, Gonzalo Rivero, and Daniel Gayo-Avello (2020). Retooling Politics: How Digital Media Are Shaping Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 1 (pp. 1-29).
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
- Hillary Rodham Clinton. Remarks on Internet Freedom. January 21, 2010. URL: https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/135519.htm
- Clay Shirky. The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs, 90:28, 2011. URL: https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Shirky.pdf
Class 2: Why Political Actors and Journalists Communicate Online
Dickson, Zachary P., and Sara B. Hobolt. 2024. “Elite Cues and Noncompliance.” American Political Science Review, August, 1–17.
McGregor, S. C. (2019). Social media as public opinion: How journalists use social media to represent public opinion. Journalism, 20(8), 1070-1086.
Barber, Pablo, Andreu Casas, Jonathan Nagler, Patrick J. Egan, Richard Bonneau, John T. Jost, and Joshua A. Tucker. ”Who leads? Who follows? Measuring issue attention and agenda setting by legislators and the mass public using social media data.” American Political Science Review 113, no. 4 (2019): 883-901.
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
- Listen to the “podcast” you can find on Brightspace
Class 3: Algorithmic bias
Guess, Andrew M., Neil Malhotra, Jennifer Pan, Pablo Barberá, Hunt Allcott, Taylor Brown, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, et al. 2023. “How Do Social Media Feed Algorithms Affect Attitudes and Behavior in an Election Campaign?” Science 381 (6656): 398–404.
McNally, N., & Bastos, M. (2025). The News Feed is Not a Black Box: A Longitudinal Study of Facebook’s Algorithmic Treatment of News. Digital Journalism, 1–20.
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
Levy, Ro’ee. 2021. “Social Media, News Consumption, and Polarization: Evidence from a Field Experiment.” American Economic Review 111 (3): 831–70.
Nyhan, Brendan, Jaime Settle, Emily Thorson, Magdalena Wojcieszak, Pablo Barberá, Annie Y. Chen, Hunt Allcott, et al. 2023. “Like-Minded Sources on Facebook Are Prevalent but Not Polarizing.” Nature 620 (7972): 137–44.
Class 4: Disinformation, misinformation, and fake news
Guess, Andy, Kevin Aslett, Joshua Tucker, Richard Bonneau, and Jonathan Nagler. 2021. “Cracking Open the News Feed: Exploring What U.S. Facebook Users See and Share with Large-Scale Platform Data.” Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media 1.
Altay, Sacha, Manon Berriche, and Alberto Acerbi. 2023. “Misinformation on Misinformation: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges.” Social Media + Society 9 (1): 20563051221150412.
Valenzuela, S., Halpern, D., Katz, J. E., & Miranda, J. P. (2019). The Paradox of Participation Versus Misinformation: Social Media, Political Engagement, and the Spread of Misinformation. Digital Journalism, 7(6), 802–823.
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
Cirone, Alexandra, and William Hobbs. 2022. “Asymmetric Flooding as a Tool for Foreign Influence on Social Media.” Political Science Research and Methods, March, 1–12.
González-Bailón, Sandra, David Lazer, Pablo Barberá, William Godel, Hunt Allcott, Taylor Brown, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, et al. 2024. “The Diffusion and Reach of (Mis)Information on Facebook during the U.S. 2020 Election.” Sociological Science 11:1124–46.
Class 5: Countering online dis/misinformation
Costello, Thomas H., Gordon Pennycook, and David G. Rand. 2024. “Durably Reducing Conspiracy Beliefs through Dialogues with AI.” Science 385 (6714): eadq1814.
Walter, Nathan, Jonathan Cohen, R. Lance Holbert, and Yasmin Morag. 2020. “Fact-Checking: A Meta-Analysis of What Works and for Whom.” Political Communication 37 (3): 350–75.
Saldaña, M., & Vu, H. T. (2021). You Are Fake News! Factors Impacting Journalists’ Debunking Behaviors on Social Media. Digital Journalism, 10(5), 823–842.
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
- Mena, P. (2021). Reducing misperceptions through news stories with data visualization: The role of readers’ prior knowledge and prior beliefs. Journalism, 24(4), 729-748.
Class 7: Violence
Bailard, Catie Snow, Rebekah Tromble, Wei Zhong, Federico Bianchi, Pedram Hosseini, and David Broniatowski. 2024. “‘Keep Your Heads Held High Boys!’: Examining the Relationship between the Proud Boys’ Online Discourse and Offline Activities.” American Political Science Review 118 (4): 2054–71.
Walulya, G., & Selnes, F. N. (2023). “I thought You Are Beautiful”: Uganda Women Journalists’ Tales of Mob Violence on Social Media. Digital Journalism, 11(10), 1962–1981.
Frenkel, Sheera (2016) “This Is What Happens When Millions Of People Suddenly Get The Internet” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sheerafrenkel/fake-news-spreads-trump-around-the-world
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
Müller, Karsten, and Carlo Schwarz. 2021. “Fanning the Flames of Hate: Social Media and Hate Crime.” Journal of the European Economic Association 19 (4): 2131–67.
For more detailed information on the Rohingya case (non-compulsory): An Amnesty International report https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5933/2022/en/
Class 8: Polarization and echo chambers
Bail, Christopher A., Lisa P. Argyle, Taylor W. Brown, John P. Bumpus, Haohan Chen, M. B. Fallin Hunzaker, Jaemin Lee, Marcus Mann, Friedolin Merhout, and Alexander Volfovsky. 2018. “Exposure to Opposing Views on Social Media Can Increase Political Polarization.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (37): 9216–21.
Emily Kubin, Christian von Sikorski, The Role of (Social) Media in Political Polarization: A Systematic Review, Annals of the International Communication Association, Volume 45, Issue 3, September 2021, Pages 188–206.
Bechmann, A., & Nielbo, K. L. (2018). Are We Exposed to the Same “News” in the News Feed? An empirical analysis of filter bubbles as information similarity for Danish Facebook users. Digital Journalism, 6(8), 990–1002.
Non-mandatory, additional readings:
- Hobolt, Sara B., Katharina Lawall, and James Tilley. 2024. “The Polarizing Effect of Partisan Echo Chambers.” American Political Science Review 118 (3): 1464–79.
- Törnberg, Petter. 2022. “How Digital Media Drive Affective Polarization through Partisan Sorting.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119 (42): e2207159119.
Class 9: Emotions + Negativity
Rathje, Steve, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Sander van der Linden. 2021. “Out-Group Animosity Drives Engagement on Social Media.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (26).
Robertson, Claire E., Nicolas Pröllochs, Kaoru Schwarzenegger, Philip Pärnamets, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Stefan Feuerriegel. 2023. “Negativity Drives Online News Consumption.” Nature Human Behaviour 7 (5): 812–22.
Brady, William J., Killian L. McLoughlin, Mark P. Torres, Kara F. Luo, Maria Gendron, and M. J. Crockett. 2023. “Overperception of Moral Outrage in Online Social Networks Inflates Beliefs about Intergroup Hostility.” Nature Human Behaviour, April, 1–11.