Adrian Rauchfleisch
Biographic Data
| ID | 291208 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adrian Rauchfleisch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adrian |
| FAMILY NAME | Rauchfleisch |
| SIGNATURE | RAUCHFLEISCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | National Taiwan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1232-083X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 105 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Artificial intelligence in government: Why people feel they lose control
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in public administration is expanding rapidly. While AI promises greater efficiency and responsiveness, its integration into government and administration raises concerns about fairness, transparency, and accountability. Relying on principal-agent theory and related frameworks, we conceptualize AI adoption as a case of algorithmic delegation involving power and information asymmetries. This perspective high…
The politics of artificial intelligence alignment: Public reactions to AI moderation in the case of Google’s Gemini
This study tests how a prominent artificial intelligence (AI) product failure influences public attitudes, focusing on Google Gemini’s generation of controversial images. Drawing on the AI alignment literature, we distinguish three moderation goals that differ in how far they depart from data-driven outputs: safety, bias mitigation, and aspirational imaginaries. We use focusing events research to explain how controversies make governance question…
Artificial Intelligence in Election Campaigns: Perceptions, Penalties, and Implications
As political parties around the world experiment with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election campaigns, concerns about deception and manipulation are rising. This article examines how the public reacts to different uses of AI in elections and the potential consequences for party evaluations and regulatory preferences. Across three preregistered studies with over 7600 American respondents, we identify three categories of AI use: campaign operati…
Soft disempowerment dynamics in the 2022 Fifa World Cup
Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup presents a unique opportunity to examine soft disempowerment –a phenomenon where state-led initiatives to enhance national prestige through mega-sporting events inadvertently attract international scrutiny and criticism. This study addresses two important yet underexplored questions: (a) How do cross-cultural differences and influential actors shape the dynamics of soft disempowerment? (b) To what extent…
The Short-Term Impact of an On-Site Literacy Intervention on Discerning Deepfake Videos Based on Visual Features
This study examines how well individuals in Switzerland can distinguish high-quality deepfakes from real videos and whether a brief literacy intervention improves detection. In an online experiment with 1,361 participants, we tested the deepfake detection skills and how prior exposure and experience with deepfakes and various forms of media literacy relate to performance. Participants struggled to identify deepfakes when attending to visual featu…
Tracking the Roots of Low News Usage on Smartphones – Do Individual Interests, Political Attitudes, and Media Consumption Habits Affect the Mobile News Use of Young Adults
While democratic opinion formation relies on citizens receiving vital information from the news, an increasing number of people consistently consume very little of it. To address this concern, we tracked the mobile news consumption of 382 young adults in Switzerland and combined it with survey data of the participants to determine the effect of topical interests, political attitudes, and media consumption habits on news usage. We found that inter…
Winning and losing with Artificial Intelligence: What public discourse about ChatGPT tells us about how societies make sense of technological change
Public AI launches serve as focusing events, sparking societal negotiation of meaning. • People negotiate meaning of AI based on their economic interests and cultural values. • Technical occupations adopt AI early positively; writing jobs join later, skeptically. • Individualism drives early engagement and more negative stances toward ChatGPT. • Aggregate stance shifts stem from speaker mix changes, not individual opinion change. Public product l…
Public Opinion on the Politics of AI Alignment: Cross-National Evidence on Expectations for AI Moderation From Germany and the United States
Recent advances in generative AI have raised public awareness, shaping expectations and concerns about their societal implications. Central to these debates is the question of AI alignment—how well AI systems meet public expectations regarding safety, fairness, and social values. However, little is known about what people expect from AI-enabled systems and how these expectations differ across national contexts. We present evidence from two survey…
Days, Schedules, and Attention: How Time Affects Mobile News Consumption Among Young Swiss People
News consumption is often treated as static behavior, yet situational and temporal factors play a significant role in shaping how individuals consume news throughout their daily lives. Mobile phones have become a driving force of dynamic news habits, especially among younger audiences. This study aims to bridge the gap between static perceptions of news consumption and the dynamic realities of daily mobile usage. To investigate this, we tracked n…
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries: Global Evidence on How People Encounter and Engage with Information about Science
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Artificial Intelligence in deliberation: The AI penalty and the emergence of a new deliberative divide
Digital deliberation has expanded democratic participation, yet challenges remain. This includes processing information at scale, moderating discussions, fact-checking, or attracting people to participate. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer potential solutions, but public perceptions of AI's role in deliberation remain underexplored. Beyond efficiency, democratic deliberation is about voice and recognition. If AI is integrated …
Explaining public preferences for regulating Artificial Intelligence in election campaigns: Evidence from the U.S. and Taiwan
The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in election campaigns, such as AI-generated political ads, automated messaging, and the widespread availability of AI-assisted photorealistic content, is transforming political communication. This new era of AI-enabled election campaigns presents regulatory challenges for digital media ecosystems, prompting calls for an updated governance framework. While research has begun mapping AI's role in d…
Support for deepfake regulation: The role of third-person perception, trust, and risk
Like other emerging technologies, deepfakes present both risks and benefits to society. Due to harmful applications such as disinformation and non-consensual pornography, calls for their regulation have increased recently. However, little is known about public support for deepfake regulation and the factors related to it. This study addresses this gap through a pre-registered online survey (n = 1,361) conducted in Switzerland, where citizens can …
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
Deepfakes or Synthetic Media? The Effect of Euphemisms for Labeling Technology on Risk and Benefit Perceptions
The language used in public debates and in the news can influence how citizens perceive the risks and benefits of technology. While framing effects on technology perception are well understood, few studies have focused on the effects of specific terms used to describe technology. We analyze how the terms deepfake and synthetic media affect risk and benefit perceptions across application fields. Using Switzerland as a case, our manual content anal…
Blame and obligation: The importance of libertarianism and political orientation in the public assessment of disinformation in the United States
Disinformation concerns have heightened the importance of regulating content and speech in digital communication environments. Perceived risks have led to widespread public support for stricter control measures, even at the expense of individual speech rights. To better understand these preferences in the US context, we investigate public attitudes regarding blame for and obligation to address digital disinformation by drawing on political ideolo…
The Interplay of Knowledge Overestimation, Social Media Use, and Populist Ideas: Cross-Sectional and Experimental Evidence From Germany and Taiwan
Social media expose users to an abundance of information about various issues. But they also make it difficult for users to assess the quality of this information. If users do not recognize this, they may overestimate their knowledge about those issues. Knowledge overestimation may lead to increased social media engagement and can be linked to attitudes deeming expert knowledge inferior to common sense, such as science-related populist attitudes.…
The impact of deplatforming the far right: An analysis of YouTube and BitChute
The content moderation practice of deplatforming, i.e., the removal of undesired actors, has become common on social media platforms such as YouTube. Our study aims to examine the impact of deplatforming on prominent far-right channels on YouTube. In our study, we are particularly interested in the deplatforming of prominent far-right channels such as Alex Jones, James Allsup, or Red Ice TV to understand the impact deplatforming has on them. To d…
Negative Downstream Effects of Alarmist Disinformation Discourse: Evidence from the United States
The threat of disinformation features strongly in public discourse, but scientific findings remain conflicted about disinformation effects and reach. Accordingly, indiscriminate warnings about disinformation risk overestimating its effects and associated dangers. Balanced accounts that document the presence of digital disinformation while accounting for empirically established limits offer a promising alternative. In a preregistered experiment, U…
Maximizing Science Outreach on Facebook: An Analysis of Scientists’ Communication Strategies in Taiwan
The internet, and especially social media platforms, offer scientists new opportunities to connect with a broader public. While many studies have focused on science communication on Twitter, surprisingly few have analyzed how scientists use Facebook, even though it is an essential platform for the general public in many countries. A possible explanation for this lack of research is that scientists keep their Facebook profiles separate from their …
Mobile News Consumption and Its Relation to Young Adults’ Knowledge About and Participation in Referendums
The news media are among the most important sources of information about political events, such as referendums. For young adults, the smartphone has become the main device for accessing news. However, we know little about the factors influencing mobile news consumption and how this consumption is related to political knowledge and political participation. This study investigates the antecedents of young individuals’ smartphone news consumption an…
How Covid-19 Displaced Climate Change: Mediated Climate Change Activism and Issue Attention in the Swiss Media and Online Sphere
Issues continuously compete for attention in the news media and on social media. Climate change is one of the most urgent problems for society and (re)gained wide public attention in 2019 through the global climate strike protest movement. However, we hypothesize that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 challenged the role of climate change as a routine issue. We use extensive news media and Twitter data to explore if and how the …
Mindsets of conspiracy: A typology of affinities towards conspiracy myths in digital environments
In times of crisis, the spread of conspiracy myths increases since people seek answers to complex questions. Besides societal aspects, social media platforms, especially messenger services, have been identified as a positive driver for spreading conspiracy myths. Much research focused on whether right-wing populist attitudes correlate with belief in conspiracy myths resulting in inconsistent findings. We show that different anti-system attitudes …
How China Divides the Left: Competing Transnational Left-Wing Alternative Media on Twitter
Twitter has pushed public opinion on foreign policy into partisan bubbles that often value alternative media sources over traditional media or political elites. Public opinion on China is no exception. On the left, some alternative media outlets support China as a socialist ideal, while others criticize it as a key player in global capitalism and neoliberal order. This leads to an important puzzle: How and why do some transnational left media dis…
Taiwan’s Public Discourse About Disinformation: The Role of Journalism, Academia, and Politics
Experts have ranked Taiwan as the number one country regarding the exposure to disinformation. This assessment is not surprising as many exposed disinformation cases can be linked to Chinese state-aligned actors but also domestic political actors. Academic researchers, journalists, and the civic tech community have played an essential role in the fight against disinformation in Taiwan and the emergence of misinformation studies as a new research …
Digital astroturfing in politics: Definition, typology, and countermeasures
In recent years, several instances of political actors who created fake grassroots activity on the Internet have been uncovered. We propose to call such fake online grassroots activity digital astroturfing, and we define it as a form of manufactured, deceptive and strategic top-down activity on the Internet initiated by political actors that mimics bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals. The goal of this paper is to lay out a conceptual map…
State-aligned trolling in Iran and the double-edged affordances of Instagram
Online harassment is increasingly applied as a form of information control to curb free speech and exert power in online public spheres. In recent years, states have appeared to be particularly invested in weaponizing information against dissidents in an attempt at dominating social and political discourses. Reports by prominent human rights institutions, as well as anecdotal evidence, indicate that Iran remains among the states with a track reco…
The special case of Switzerland: Swiss politicians on Twitter
We analyse the use of Twitter in political communication in Switzerland because, in comparison with other democracies, Switzerland with its strong federalism, fragmented party system, small country size and semi-professional politicians can be seen as the least-likely critical case, thus creating unique conditions for the use of social media. The study investigates the individual characteristics of Swiss Members of Parliament that could influence…
Brute force effects of mass media presence and social media activity on electoral outcome
In this study, we analyze whether the mere volume of presence in mass media and the mere volume of activity on social media convey advantages to candidates in parliamentary elections. Based on the theoretical model of bounded rationality, we call these potential effects brute force effects. During the last month of the election campaign of the Swiss federal election of 2015, we tracked the presence of all 873 candidates in the canton of Zurich, t…
Negative Downstream Effects of Alarmist Disinformation Discourse: Evidence from the United States
The threat of disinformation features strongly in public discourse, but scientific findings remain conflicted about disinformation effects and reach. Accordingly, indiscriminate warnings about disinformation risk overestimating its effects and associated dangers. Balanced accounts that document the presence of digital disinformation while accounting for empirically established limits offer a promising alternative. In a preregistered experiment, U…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
Birds of a Feather Get Recommended Together: Algorithmic Homophily in YouTube's Channel Recommendations in the United States and Germany
Algorithms and especially recommendation algorithms play an important role online, most notably on YouTube. Yet, little is known about the network communities that these algorithms form. We analyzed the channel recommendations on YouTube to map the communities that the social network is creating through its algorithms and to test the network for homophily, that is, the connectedness between communities. We find that YouTube's channel recommendati…
The public sphere as an essentially contested concept: A co-citation analysis of the last 20 years of public sphere research
The public sphere was both one of the most popular and most debated concepts in political philosophy in the 20th century. It is one of the few concepts that has attracted attention from a wide range of disciplines. Despite the already rich intellectual history of the concept, many scholars still disagree over its proper use and definition. The purpose of this article is to review recent research into the public sphere with a co-citation analysis.…
How journalists verify user-generated content during terrorist crises. Analyzing Twitter communication during the Brussels attacks
Social media, and Twitter in particular, have become important sources for journalists in times of crises. User-generated content (UGC) can provide journalists with on-site information and material they otherwise would not have access to. But how they source and verify UGC has not yet been systematically analyzed. This study analyzes sourcing and verification practices on Twitter during the Brussels attacks in March 2016. Based on quantitative co…
Taiwan’s Public Discourse About Disinformation: The Role of Journalism, Academia, and Politics
Experts have ranked Taiwan as the number one country regarding the exposure to disinformation. This assessment is not surprising as many exposed disinformation cases can be linked to Chinese state-aligned actors but also domestic political actors. Academic researchers, journalists, and the civic tech community have played an essential role in the fight against disinformation in Taiwan and the emergence of misinformation studies as a new research …
The Internet and Generalized Functions of the Public Sphere: Transformative Potentials From a Comparative Perspective
Almost since the advent of the Internet, there has been great interest in analyzing and understanding online communication from the perspective of public sphere theory. The question of whether the properties of the Internet and, specifically, social media actually contribute to the public sphere is the matter of ongoing and somewhat heated scientific debate. The aim of the article is twofold. First, we propose a hierarchical model of generalized …
Deepfakes or Synthetic Media? The Effect of Euphemisms for Labeling Technology on Risk and Benefit Perceptions
The language used in public debates and in the news can influence how citizens perceive the risks and benefits of technology. While framing effects on technology perception are well understood, few studies have focused on the effects of specific terms used to describe technology. We analyze how the terms deepfake and synthetic media affect risk and benefit perceptions across application fields. Using Switzerland as a case, our manual content anal…
Untangling Taiwan's Hybridity With Structural Dysfunctions
Taiwan's exceptionally high Internet penetration and social media adoption rates, combined with the growing centrality of digital tools and networks in shaping national politics, make it an interesting case for Internet researchers. This essay considers Andrew Chadwick's notion of The Hybrid Media System in the context of recent political events in Taiwan. While Chadwick's analysis is particularly useful in understanding political anomalies like …
Multiple public spheres of Weibo: A typology of forms and potentials of online public spheres in China
The advent of online media, and particularly social media, has led to scholarly debates about their implications. Authoritarian countries are interesting in this respect because social media might facilitate open and critical debates that are not possible in traditional media. China is arguably the most relevant and interesting case in this respect, because it limits the influx of non-domestic social media communication, has established its own m…
The special case of Switzerland: Swiss politicians on Twitter
We analyse the use of Twitter in political communication in Switzerland because, in comparison with other democracies, Switzerland with its strong federalism, fragmented party system, small country size and semi-professional politicians can be seen as the least-likely critical case, thus creating unique conditions for the use of social media. The study investigates the individual characteristics of Swiss Members of Parliament that could influence…
The Internet and Generalized Functions of the Public Sphere: Transformative Potentials From a Comparative Perspective
Almost since the advent of the Internet, there has been great interest in analyzing and understanding online communication from the perspective of public sphere theory. The question of whether the properties of the Internet and, specifically, social media actually contribute to the public sphere is the matter of ongoing and somewhat heated scientific debate. The aim of the article is twofold. First, we propose a hierarchical model of generalized …
The public sphere as an essentially contested concept: A co-citation analysis of the last 20 years of public sphere research
The public sphere was both one of the most popular and most debated concepts in political philosophy in the 20th century. It is one of the few concepts that has attracted attention from a wide range of disciplines. Despite the already rich intellectual history of the concept, many scholars still disagree over its proper use and definition. The purpose of this article is to review recent research into the public sphere with a co-citation analysis.…
Brute force effects of mass media presence and social media activity on electoral outcome
In this study, we analyze whether the mere volume of presence in mass media and the mere volume of activity on social media convey advantages to candidates in parliamentary elections. Based on the theoretical model of bounded rationality, we call these potential effects brute force effects. During the last month of the election campaign of the Swiss federal election of 2015, we tracked the presence of all 873 candidates in the canton of Zurich, t…
How journalists verify user-generated content during terrorist crises. Analyzing Twitter communication during the Brussels attacks
Social media, and Twitter in particular, have become important sources for journalists in times of crises. User-generated content (UGC) can provide journalists with on-site information and material they otherwise would not have access to. But how they source and verify UGC has not yet been systematically analyzed. This study analyzes sourcing and verification practices on Twitter during the Brussels attacks in March 2016. Based on quantitative co…
The different audiences of science communication: A segmentation analysis of the Swiss population’s perceptions of science and their information and media use patterns
Few studies have assessed whether populations can be divided into segments with different perceptions of science. We provide such an analysis and assess whether these segments exhibit specific patterns of media and information use. Based on representative survey data from Switzerland, we use latent class analysis to reconstruct four segments: the “Sciencephiles,” with strong interest for science, extensive knowledge, and a pronounced belief in it…
Digital astroturfing in politics: Definition, typology, and countermeasures
In recent years, several instances of political actors who created fake grassroots activity on the Internet have been uncovered. We propose to call such fake online grassroots activity digital astroturfing, and we define it as a form of manufactured, deceptive and strategic top-down activity on the Internet initiated by political actors that mimics bottom-up activity by autonomous individuals. The goal of this paper is to lay out a conceptual map…
Between Fragmentation and Dialogue. Twitter Communities and Political Debate About the Swiss “Nuclear Withdrawal Initiative”
As social media sites have become significant arenas for political debate in recent years, this paper investigates the political debate that took place on Twitter in the wake of the Swiss referendum on the Nuclear Withdrawal Initiative, which was conducted in November 2016. Using Twitter data of 3000 users, we could identify 7 distinct communities that varied in terms of their size, position, and contribution to the debate. The most dominant comm…
State-aligned trolling in Iran and the double-edged affordances of Instagram
Online harassment is increasingly applied as a form of information control to curb free speech and exert power in online public spheres. In recent years, states have appeared to be particularly invested in weaponizing information against dissidents in an attempt at dominating social and political discourses. Reports by prominent human rights institutions, as well as anecdotal evidence, indicate that Iran remains among the states with a track reco…
Transnational News Sharing on Social Media: Measuring and Analysing Twitter News Media Repertoires of Domestic and Foreign Audience Communities
In digitized media environments, users can access news from all over the world. The internationalization of news consumption is intensified by social media like Twitter, as users share news from different countries. In our study, we combine the two strands of research about media repertoires as well as transnational news consumption. Switzerland is a compelling case with regard to transnational news consumption as media outlets in the three offic…
The German Far-right on YouTube: An Analysis of User Overlap and User Comments
This study focuses on the formation of far-right online communities on YouTube and whether the rise of three new actors (Pegida, Identitarian movement, AfD) can also be observed with user behavior on YouTube. We map the network of far-right, conspiracy and alternative media channels in the German-language YouTube sphere, how this network evolves over time and identify the topics that users discuss. Our analysis shows that the overall common denom…
Birds of a Feather Get Recommended Together: Algorithmic Homophily in YouTube's Channel Recommendations in the United States and Germany
Algorithms and especially recommendation algorithms play an important role online, most notably on YouTube. Yet, little is known about the network communities that these algorithms form. We analyzed the channel recommendations on YouTube to map the communities that the social network is creating through its algorithms and to test the network for homophily, that is, the connectedness between communities. We find that YouTube's channel recommendati…
Untangling Taiwan's Hybridity With Structural Dysfunctions
Taiwan's exceptionally high Internet penetration and social media adoption rates, combined with the growing centrality of digital tools and networks in shaping national politics, make it an interesting case for Internet researchers. This essay considers Andrew Chadwick's notion of The Hybrid Media System in the context of recent political events in Taiwan. While Chadwick's analysis is particularly useful in understanding political anomalies like …
Public Sphere in Crisis Mode: How the Covid-19 Pandemic Influenced Public Discourse and User Behaviour in the Swiss Twitter-sphere
In modern democracies, large societal crises like the COVID-19 pandemic are accompanied by intensified public discourse about which policies and strategies are adequate to fight the crisis. In such times, the public sphere switches to crisis mode with fundamentally different communicative dynamics compared to routinised periods. Data from social media platforms like Twitter offers new possibilities to study such dynamics. However, comprehensive s…
Close to Beijing: Geographic Biases in People’s Daily
Inequities in China are reflected within state-run media coverage due to its specific role “guiding public opinion,” and with our study we contribute to the geographic turn in the Chinese context with regard to media and journalism. As a subject of a spatial study, China is unique due to several factors: geographic diversity, authoritarian control, and centralized media. By analyzing text from 53,000 articles published in People’s Daily (rénmín r…
Mindsets of conspiracy: A typology of affinities towards conspiracy myths in digital environments
In times of crisis, the spread of conspiracy myths increases since people seek answers to complex questions. Besides societal aspects, social media platforms, especially messenger services, have been identified as a positive driver for spreading conspiracy myths. Much research focused on whether right-wing populist attitudes correlate with belief in conspiracy myths resulting in inconsistent findings. We show that different anti-system attitudes …
How China Divides the Left: Competing Transnational Left-Wing Alternative Media on Twitter
Twitter has pushed public opinion on foreign policy into partisan bubbles that often value alternative media sources over traditional media or political elites. Public opinion on China is no exception. On the left, some alternative media outlets support China as a socialist ideal, while others criticize it as a key player in global capitalism and neoliberal order. This leads to an important puzzle: How and why do some transnational left media dis…
Taiwan’s Public Discourse About Disinformation: The Role of Journalism, Academia, and Politics
Experts have ranked Taiwan as the number one country regarding the exposure to disinformation. This assessment is not surprising as many exposed disinformation cases can be linked to Chinese state-aligned actors but also domestic political actors. Academic researchers, journalists, and the civic tech community have played an essential role in the fight against disinformation in Taiwan and the emergence of misinformation studies as a new research …
Maximizing Science Outreach on Facebook: An Analysis of Scientists’ Communication Strategies in Taiwan
The internet, and especially social media platforms, offer scientists new opportunities to connect with a broader public. While many studies have focused on science communication on Twitter, surprisingly few have analyzed how scientists use Facebook, even though it is an essential platform for the general public in many countries. A possible explanation for this lack of research is that scientists keep their Facebook profiles separate from their …
Mobile News Consumption and Its Relation to Young Adults’ Knowledge About and Participation in Referendums
The news media are among the most important sources of information about political events, such as referendums. For young adults, the smartphone has become the main device for accessing news. However, we know little about the factors influencing mobile news consumption and how this consumption is related to political knowledge and political participation. This study investigates the antecedents of young individuals’ smartphone news consumption an…
How Covid-19 Displaced Climate Change: Mediated Climate Change Activism and Issue Attention in the Swiss Media and Online Sphere
Issues continuously compete for attention in the news media and on social media. Climate change is one of the most urgent problems for society and (re)gained wide public attention in 2019 through the global climate strike protest movement. However, we hypothesize that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 challenged the role of climate change as a routine issue. We use extensive news media and Twitter data to explore if and how the …
Blame and obligation: The importance of libertarianism and political orientation in the public assessment of disinformation in the United States
Disinformation concerns have heightened the importance of regulating content and speech in digital communication environments. Perceived risks have led to widespread public support for stricter control measures, even at the expense of individual speech rights. To better understand these preferences in the US context, we investigate public attitudes regarding blame for and obligation to address digital disinformation by drawing on political ideolo…
The Interplay of Knowledge Overestimation, Social Media Use, and Populist Ideas: Cross-Sectional and Experimental Evidence From Germany and Taiwan
Social media expose users to an abundance of information about various issues. But they also make it difficult for users to assess the quality of this information. If users do not recognize this, they may overestimate their knowledge about those issues. Knowledge overestimation may lead to increased social media engagement and can be linked to attitudes deeming expert knowledge inferior to common sense, such as science-related populist attitudes.…
The impact of deplatforming the far right: An analysis of YouTube and BitChute
The content moderation practice of deplatforming, i.e., the removal of undesired actors, has become common on social media platforms such as YouTube. Our study aims to examine the impact of deplatforming on prominent far-right channels on YouTube. In our study, we are particularly interested in the deplatforming of prominent far-right channels such as Alex Jones, James Allsup, or Red Ice TV to understand the impact deplatforming has on them. To d…
Political science (25 works) · Politics (24 works) · Social Media and Politics (24 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (21 works) · Social media (20 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (14 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Public relations (11 works)