Bruce Bimber
Distinguished Professor
University of California, Santa Barbara
Background
Since 1995 I have studied how democratic politics works when digital media are in the mix. In recent years, I have focused on the accumulating problems for democracy that are associated with social media: selective exposure, polarization, populism, and disinformation. One of my long-standing interests has been how digital media facilitate like-minded people finding one another and acting together, with or without the support of established organizations and their agendas. Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, there were lots of cases of this kind of mobilization contributing to the richness of democracy, such as the Occupy Movement. More recently, the dark side of this process has become more apparent as people with hateful and extremist messages find one another and act together, and as people across societies are mobilized by conspiracy theories and other falsehoods. Generative AI is poised to make these problems considerably worse.
Press Release: June 4, 2024
When it comes to erosion of democracy, not all social media are equally harmful
Current Research
My current projects use Large Language Models to examine democratically corrosive content in social media, and also comparative survey data in the US and Europe to understand relationships among media use, psychological traits and emotions, and democratically corrosive sentiment. My CV is here.
A Few Recent Articles
Bimber, B., Labarre, J., Gomez, D., Nikiforov, I., & Koc-Michalska, K. (2024) Media use, feelings of being devalued, and democratically corrosive sentiment in the US. International Journal of Press/Politics. DOI:10.1177/19401612241253455
Theocharis, Y., Boulianne, S., Koc-Michalska, K., & Bimber, B. (2023). Platform affordances and political participation: How social media platforms reshape political engagement. West European Politics, 46(4), 788-811. DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2087410
Bimber, B. & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2022). Social influence and political participation around the world. European Journal of Political Science, 14(2), 135-154. DOI: 10.1017/S175577392200008X
