I am interested in how citizens find, process and share political information. Like many other political scientists - and lovers of democracy - I am fundamentally concerned with our ability to be "competent citizens" - that is, to be knowledgeable, thoughtful and aware enough to hold our representatives accountable. Part of being competent is having access to a wide range of information - and being open to considering information that challenges our current views. Alas, media researchers and political psychologists tell us there are many reasons to doubt humans do either.
In my research I look at how social media is reducing - or perhaps increasing - our access to diverse political information and what are the mechanisms that determine that level of diversity. Social media, being a network, is a complex system. To fully understand its dynamics, we need to look at both the micro level (how individuals behave under what conditions) as well as the macro (how the web of connections interact with each other).
On the macro end, I model information diffusion on networks to see how re-posting may contribute to information sorting; some-what counter-intuitively, I find that diffusion of information should not lead to hyper-echo chambers as it is often thought.
At the micro level, I both study the degree to which social media users are ideologically biased in what they choose to post online, and I try to understand our motivations behind sharing the political information we do; in doing so, I hope to better predict the types of political information users will share on social media under different conditions. (See this ISPP poster for a small preview of that work.)
In my research I look at how social media is reducing - or perhaps increasing - our access to diverse political information and what are the mechanisms that determine that level of diversity. Social media, being a network, is a complex system. To fully understand its dynamics, we need to look at both the micro level (how individuals behave under what conditions) as well as the macro (how the web of connections interact with each other).
On the macro end, I model information diffusion on networks to see how re-posting may contribute to information sorting; some-what counter-intuitively, I find that diffusion of information should not lead to hyper-echo chambers as it is often thought.
At the micro level, I both study the degree to which social media users are ideologically biased in what they choose to post online, and I try to understand our motivations behind sharing the political information we do; in doing so, I hope to better predict the types of political information users will share on social media under different conditions. (See this ISPP poster for a small preview of that work.)