Background
Since 1995 I have studied how democratic politics works in the context of digital media. In recent years I have focused on the accumulating problems for democracy associated with social media: political homophily and selective exposure, polarization, conspiracy theories and political lying, and illiberal communication.
One long-standing interest is how digital media enable like-minded people to find one another and act collectively, with or without the support of the organizational layer of politics. Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, such mobilization often enriched democratic participation — the Occupy Movement being a notable example. More recently the darker possibilities have become apparent, as people with hateful or extremist messages find one another outside the bounds of democratic process, and as conspiracy theories and falsehoods drive mobilization. AI has long been a contributor to these effects, and it is now amplifying problems with democracy at a much larger scale.
My current projects use AI to examine democratically corrosive content in social media, and comparative survey data from the US and Europe to understand relationships among media use, psychological traits and emotions, and anti-democratic sentiment.