Samuel Woolley
Biographic Data
| ID | 4267183 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samuel Woolley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samuel |
| FAMILY NAME | Woolley |
| SIGNATURE | WOOLLEY S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
AI's Real Dangers For Democracy
In 2024, observers worldwide braced for the electoral impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI). With those contests over, attention should shift to the longer-term risks AI poses to democracy. This essay predicts three such risks. First, AI-backed efforts to replace political communication may erode representative democracy. Second, AI may exacerbate trends toward the concentration of wealth and power, preserving only the facade of democ…
Manufacturing Consensus
The role of geolocation data in U.S. political campaigning
The use of geolocation data by political campaigns is often the subject of media concern. Research has investigated the role of data in and use by political campaigns, but less attention has been paid to digital political strategists largely responsible for decisions behind the assemblage and mining of voter databases to deliver micro-targeted messages on behalf of political campaigns. In this study, we conducted interviews with 14 leading indust…
Manufacturing Consensus
This book is an exploration of modern propaganda and disinformation, with a focus on how social media and other digital communication tools and tactics are leveraged in global attempts to manipulate public opinion. Central ideas and analyses are garnered via qualitative data from eight years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with the people who make and track online spin campaigns in Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico,…
Promises and Perils of Automated Journalism
Automated tools for parsing and communicating information have increasingly become associated with the production of journalistic content. To study this phenomenon and to explore the development of automated journalism across two locales at the cutting edge of technology, we leverage insights from in-depth interviews with news technologists from pioneering news organizations and Internet companies specialized in the construction of "news bot" tec…
Platformed antisemitism on Twitter
What does antisemitism look like in the context of political discussions on Twitter? In this article, we introduce the notion of platformed antisemitism. We first define it as a platform-agnostic concept, and then explore it through an exemplary case study of Twitter and its affordances by way of a mixed-methods analysis of discourse surrounding the 2018 US midterm election. Via qualitative textual analysis, we document how political discourse on…
Chat Apps and Cascade Logic
Chat apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are increasingly popular platforms for communication. Their sometimes-closed nature and encryption affordances present researchers, governments, and law enforcement with unique problems of access, traceability, and, ultimately, understanding. It also makes them useful vectors for sowing disinformation. This research assumes a multi-platform perspective, describing the particularities of how chat ap…
From hanging out to figuring it out
Although socializing is a powerful driver of youth engagement online, platforms struggle to leverage social engagement to promote learning. We seek to understand this dynamic using a multi-stage analysis of over 14,000 comments on Scratch, an online platform designed to support learning about programming. First, we inductively develop the concept of “participatory debugging”—a practice in which users learn through the process of collaborative tec…
Algorithms, bots, and political communication in the US 2016 election
Political communication is the process of putting information, technology, and media in the service of power. Increasingly, political actors are automating such processes, through algorithms that obscure motives and authors yet reach immense networks of people through personal ties among friends and family. Not all political algorithms are used for manipulation and social control however. So what are the primary ways in which algorithmic politica…
Algorithms, bots, and political communication in the US 2016 election
Political communication is the process of putting information, technology, and media in the service of power. Increasingly, political actors are automating such processes, through algorithms that obscure motives and authors yet reach immense networks of people through personal ties among friends and family. Not all political algorithms are used for manipulation and social control however. So what are the primary ways in which algorithmic politica…
Chat Apps and Cascade Logic
Chat apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are increasingly popular platforms for communication. Their sometimes-closed nature and encryption affordances present researchers, governments, and law enforcement with unique problems of access, traceability, and, ultimately, understanding. It also makes them useful vectors for sowing disinformation. This research assumes a multi-platform perspective, describing the particularities of how chat ap…
Promises and Perils of Automated Journalism
Automated tools for parsing and communicating information have increasingly become associated with the production of journalistic content. To study this phenomenon and to explore the development of automated journalism across two locales at the cutting edge of technology, we leverage insights from in-depth interviews with news technologists from pioneering news organizations and Internet companies specialized in the construction of "news bot" tec…
Platformed antisemitism on Twitter
What does antisemitism look like in the context of political discussions on Twitter? In this article, we introduce the notion of platformed antisemitism. We first define it as a platform-agnostic concept, and then explore it through an exemplary case study of Twitter and its affordances by way of a mixed-methods analysis of discourse surrounding the 2018 US midterm election. Via qualitative textual analysis, we document how political discourse on…
Algorithms, bots, and political communication in the US 2016 election
Political communication is the process of putting information, technology, and media in the service of power. Increasingly, political actors are automating such processes, through algorithms that obscure motives and authors yet reach immense networks of people through personal ties among friends and family. Not all political algorithms are used for manipulation and social control however. So what are the primary ways in which algorithmic politica…
From hanging out to figuring it out
Although socializing is a powerful driver of youth engagement online, platforms struggle to leverage social engagement to promote learning. We seek to understand this dynamic using a multi-stage analysis of over 14,000 comments on Scratch, an online platform designed to support learning about programming. First, we inductively develop the concept of “participatory debugging”—a practice in which users learn through the process of collaborative tec…
Platformed antisemitism on Twitter
What does antisemitism look like in the context of political discussions on Twitter? In this article, we introduce the notion of platformed antisemitism. We first define it as a platform-agnostic concept, and then explore it through an exemplary case study of Twitter and its affordances by way of a mixed-methods analysis of discourse surrounding the 2018 US midterm election. Via qualitative textual analysis, we document how political discourse on…
Chat Apps and Cascade Logic
Chat apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal are increasingly popular platforms for communication. Their sometimes-closed nature and encryption affordances present researchers, governments, and law enforcement with unique problems of access, traceability, and, ultimately, understanding. It also makes them useful vectors for sowing disinformation. This research assumes a multi-platform perspective, describing the particularities of how chat ap…
Manufacturing Consensus
The role of geolocation data in U.S. political campaigning
The use of geolocation data by political campaigns is often the subject of media concern. Research has investigated the role of data in and use by political campaigns, but less attention has been paid to digital political strategists largely responsible for decisions behind the assemblage and mining of voter databases to deliver micro-targeted messages on behalf of political campaigns. In this study, we conducted interviews with 14 leading indust…
Manufacturing Consensus
This book is an exploration of modern propaganda and disinformation, with a focus on how social media and other digital communication tools and tactics are leveraged in global attempts to manipulate public opinion. Central ideas and analyses are garnered via qualitative data from eight years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with the people who make and track online spin campaigns in Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico,…
Promises and Perils of Automated Journalism
Automated tools for parsing and communicating information have increasingly become associated with the production of journalistic content. To study this phenomenon and to explore the development of automated journalism across two locales at the cutting edge of technology, we leverage insights from in-depth interviews with news technologists from pioneering news organizations and Internet companies specialized in the construction of "news bot" tec…
AI's Real Dangers For Democracy
In 2024, observers worldwide braced for the electoral impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI). With those contests over, attention should shift to the longer-term risks AI poses to democracy. This essay predicts three such risks. First, AI-backed efforts to replace political communication may erode representative democracy. Second, AI may exacerbate trends toward the concentration of wealth and power, preserving only the facade of democ…
Computer Science (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection (4 works) · Internet privacy (4 works) · Public relations (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Law (3 works) · Media studies (3 works)