Political Communication in the Digital Age (253F25)

Aarhus University, Department of Political Science

Author

Tobias Widmann

General Information

Time: Spring semester 2025, Tuesdays 15:00 - 18:00

Location: 1330-018 Undervisningslokale

Instructor: Tobias Widmann (Office: 1340-138)

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, journalists to ordinary citizens, 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, “Political Communication 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 first half of the course will focus on the elites — political actors 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 communicate online. Key topics will include data-driven campaigning, 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.

The second half of the course shifts focus to citizens. We will investigate how digital platforms are altering the ways people participate in politics, and potential effects on polarization, violence and hostility, as well as the rise of the radical right. In the final week, we will look ahead to the future of digital technology, artificial intelligence, and their implications for democracy.

Throughout the course, we will draw on a wide range of literature and case studies to critically examine how digital media are influencing political communication, both from the perspective of those who create political messages and those who consume them. 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, democracy and technology in the digital age.

Learning Outcomes

After having participated actively in the course, the student will be able to:

  1. Understand and define the key concepts of political communication in the digital age and the fundamental changes in political communication brought about by digital media
  2. Understand and critically engage with how elite communication changed due to digital media
  3. Compare, analyze, and evaluate the impact of digital media on political processes, political behavior, and political participation
  4. Critically examine the impact of digital media on societal polarization and threats to democracy
  5. Integrate and apply theoretical and empirical research from a variety of disciplines (e.g., political science, communication science, and journalism) and apply these to analyze case studies
  6. Independently formulate a relevant research question relating to digital political communication
  7. Communicate their knowledge of the field and the results of their own research in clear, written, academic language.

Course Structure

Note: All papers can be found online. All included book chapters can be downloaded via the AU library.

Week 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).

  • Hillary Rodham Clinton. Remarks on Internet Freedom. January 21, 2010. URL https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/135519.htm

Week 2: How and Why Political Actors Communicate Online

  • 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.

  • Dickson, Zachary P., and Sara B. Hobolt. 2024. “Elite Cues and Noncompliance.” American Political Science Review, August, 1–17.

  • Jungherr, Andreas, Gonzalo Rivero, and Daniel Gayo-Avello (2020). Retooling Politics: How Digital Media Are Shaping Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 3 (pp. 69 - 102).

Week 3: Data-driven campaigning & Elections

  • Hersh, Eitan D., and Brian F. Schaffner. 2013. “Targeted Campaign Appeals and the Value of Ambiguity.” The Journal of Politics 75 (2): 520–534.

  • Eady, Gregory, Tom Paskhalis, Jan Zilinsky, Richard Bonneau, Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker. 2023. “Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency Foreign Influence Campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US Election and Its Relationship to Attitudes and Voting Behavior.” Nature Communications 14 (1): 62.

  • Allcott, Hunt, Matthew Gentzkow, Winter Mason, Arjun Wilkins, Pablo Barberá, Taylor Brown, Juan Carlos Cisneros, et al. 2024. “The Effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 Election: A Deactivation Experiment.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121 (21): e2321584121.

  • Additional (non-compulsory) material: the documentary “The Great Hack” (2019)

Week 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.

  • 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.

Week 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.

  • Rossini, Patrícia, Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Erica Anita Baptista, and Vanessa Veiga De Oliveira. 2021. “Dysfunctional Information Sharing on WhatsApp and Facebook: The Role of Political Talk, Cross-Cutting Exposure and Social Corrections.” New Media & Society 23 (8): 2430–51.

  • 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.

Week 6: 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.

  • 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.

Week 7: Social media & Protests

  • Jost, John T., Pablo Barber, Richard Bonneau, Melanie Langer, Megan Met- zger, Jonathan Nagler, Joanna Sterling, and Joshua A. Tucker. ”How social media facilitates political protest: Information, motivation, and social networks.” Political psychology 39 (2018): 85-118.

  • Larson, Jennifer M., Jonathan Nagler, Jonathan Ronen, and Joshua A. Tucker. 2019. “Social Networks and Protest Participation: Evidence from 130 Million Twitter Users.” American Journal of Political Science 63 (3): 690–705.

  • Valenzuela, Sebastián. 2013. “Unpacking the Use of Social Media for Protest Behavior: The Roles of Information, Opinion Expression, and Activism.” American Behavioral Scientist 57 (7): 920–42.

Week 8: Hate speech & Hostility

  • Bor, Alexander, and Michael Bang Petersen. 2022. “The Psychology of Online Political Hostility: A Comprehensive, Cross-National Test of the Mismatch Hypothesis.” American Political Science Review 116 (1): 1–18.

  • Munger, Kevin. ”Tweetment effects on the tweeted: Experimentally reducing racist harassment.” Political Behavior 39, no. 3 (2017): 629-649.

  • Massanari, Adrienne. “#Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddits algorithm, governance, and culture support toxic technocultures.” New Media & Society 19, no. 3 (2017): 329-346.

Week 9: Manipulation & 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.

  • 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.

  • 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

For more detailed information on the Rohingya case (non-compulsory): An Amnesty International report https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5933/2022/en/

Week 10: Synopsis Week

** no readings this week **

Week 11: 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.

  • Törnberg, Petter. 2022. “How Digital Media Drive Affective Polarization through Partisan Sorting.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119 (42): e2207159119.

  • Hobolt, Sara B., Katharina Lawall, and James Tilley. 2024. “The Polarizing Effect of Partisan Echo Chambers.” American Political Science Review 118 (3): 1464–79.

Week 12: Morality and Emotions Online

  • 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.

Week 13: The Far Right and (New) Social Media

  • Donovan, Joan, Emily Dreyfuss, and Brian Friedberg. 2022. Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. (Chapter 4 & 6)

  • Munger, Kevin, and Joseph Phillips. 2022. “Right-Wing YouTube: A Supply and Demand Perspective.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 27 (1): 186–219.

  • Albertazzi, Daniele, and Donatella Bonansinga. 2024. “Beyond Anger: The Populist Radical Right on TikTok.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 32 (3): 673–89.

  • Hosseinmardi, Homa, Amir Ghasemian, Aaron Clauset, Markus Mobius, David M. Rothschild, and Duncan J. Watts. 2021. “Examining the Consumption of Radical Content on YouTube.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (32): e2101967118.

Week 14: Looking into the future: Digital technology, AI, and democracy

  • Nyabola, Nanjala. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya. Zed Books, 2018 (chapter 10)

  • Jungherr, Andreas. 2023. “Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: A Conceptual Framework.” Social Media + Society 9 (3): 20563051231186353.

  • Kreps, Sarah, and Doug Kriner. 2023. “How AI Threatens Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 34 (4): 122–31.