An empirical examination of echo chambers in US climate policy networks

Diverse methods have been applied to understand why science continues to be debated within the climate policy domain. A number of studies have presented the notion of the ‘echo chamber’ to model and explain information flows across an array of social settings, finding disproportionate connections among ideologically similar political communicators. This paper builds on these findings to provide a more formal operationalization of the components of echo chambers. We then empirically test their utility using survey data collected from the community of political elites engaged in the contentious issue of climate politics in the United States. Our survey period coincides with the most active and contentious period in the history of US climate policy, when legislation regulating carbon dioxide emissions had passed through the House of Representatives and was being considered in the Senate. We use exponential random graph (ERG) modelling to demonstrate that both the homogeneity of information (the echo) and multi-path information transmission (the chamber) play significant roles in policy communication. We demonstrate that the intersection of these components creates echo chambers in the climate policy network. These results lead to some important conclusions about climate politics, as well as the relationship between science communication and policymaking at the elite level more generally.US National Science FoundationNational Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC

The voice from the base(ment): Stridency, referential structure, and partisan conformity in the political blogosphere

The Internet has become a critical medium for American politics: in 2008, almost half of American adults looked for political information online, and 30 percent of Internet uses contributed to online political discussions. Using the candidacy of Sarah Palin as a case study of a provocative political event, this paper examines the tone, partisan leanings, and referential structure of six elite blogs. First by randomly sampling overall trends of Palin coverage and then by performing a quantitative content analysis of a sub-sample of posts, this paper finds that the valence and stridency of blog posts vary by partisan identification, and that stridency dramatically affects the referential structure of posts. Although the referential structure of blog posts varies significantly by blog, it does not vary along partisan lines. Nonetheless, the relationship between stridency and partisan conformity exposed by this paper illustrates a trend amongst conservative blogs to repeat the allegations of “liberal media bias” often voiced by traditional conservative media outlets, contributing to an “echo chamber” effect in the blogosphere

#commoncore Project: How Social Media Is Changing the Politics of Education

The Common Core has become a flashpoint at the nexus of education politics and policy, fueled by ardent social media activists. To explore this phenomenon, this innovative and interactive website examines the Common Core debate through the lens of the influential social media site Twitter. Using a social network perspective that examines the relationships among actors, we focus on the most highly used Twitter hashtag about the Common Core: #commoncore. The central question of our investigation is: How are social media-enabled social networks changing the discourse in American politics that produces and sustains social policy? To join a conversation about this research in an open forum, tweet using #htagcommoncore

#COMMONCORE Project (2017) How Social Media is Changing the Politics of Education

Fueled by impassioned social media activists, the Common Core State Standards have been a persistent flashpoint in the debate over the direction of American education. In this innovative and interactive website we explore the Common Core debate on Twitter. Using a distinctive combination of social network analyses and psychological investigations we reveal both the underlying social structure of the conversation and the motivations of the participants. The central question guiding our investigation is: How are social mediaenabled social networks changing the discourse in American politics that produces and sustains social policy? ABOUT #COMMONCORE PROJECT In the #commoncore Project, authors Jonathan Supovitz, Alan Daly, Miguel del Fresno and Christian Kolouch examine the intense debate surrounding the Common Core State Standards education reform as it played out on Twitter. The Common Core, one of the major education policy initiatives of the early 21st century, sought to strengthen education systems across the United States through a set of specific and challenging education standards. Once enjoying bipartisan support, the controversial standards have become the epicenter of a heated national debate about this approach to educational improvement. By studying the Twitter conversation surrounding the Common Core, we shed light on the ways that social media social networks are influencing the political discourse that, in turn, produces public policy

Do Web 2.0 social media impact transnational social advocacy? : a study of South African civil society and Greenpeace.

Ph.D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2012.This study focuses on how civil society organisations deploy Web 2.0 technologies for transnational social advocacy, the context of this technology use, and the effect of this adoption in achieving organisational goals. It analyses the effectiveness of these technologies in an attempt to understand the strategic intent in deploying these social media services. The reciprocal impact of this technology adoption on civil society organisations’ roles, structure, and orientation was also investigated. The technologies targeted for study are those commonly described as Web 2.0 social media including social networking sites, blogs, podcasts and wikis amongst others. While the literature points to many studies relating to the use of the Internet for advocacy it also suggests that emerging technologies have not been studied in any detail. In particular there are no recent studies that investigate Web 2.0 technologies. These studies have the potential to provide new perspectives to current theoretical frameworks. This study is designed as part case study and part exploratory. The research adopts an interdisciplinary approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods. A survey of South African civil society organisations painted a picture of the extent of adoption of Web 2.0 social services across South African civil society, and detailed the reasons, and the benefits - both perceived and actual - of such adoption. The global environmental justice organisation, Greenpeace is used as a case study. The organisation’s major goal is to advocate for changes in environmental policy and behaviour, has been at the forefront of environmental issues since its inception, and has used the mass media as an effective campaigning tool. The key findings that emerged in the South African context was that of a sector that has a low-level of knowledge of social media services and an accompanying low level of adoption. This is partly explained by factors at a national level including macro-economic policies, and a low level of Internet penetration and ICT readiness. Using Greenpeace as a case study revealed that while social media-led activism is increasingly being seen as strategic, there is a level of organisational introspection that is required to precisely determine how traditional CSOs can exploit social media while maintaining their core values and traditions. Social media is not a panacea for the issues confronting activism in an increasingly connected world, but rather is seen as complementing traditional advocacy with its ability to coordinate, synchronise and document campaigns