How Social Media is Transforming Political Behavior

Political actors and citizens are increasingly active on social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. This talk provided an overview of recent research on how the use of these sites is transforming political processes around the world. Some of the questions addressed were: Does social media contribute to the emergence of ideological echo chambers? How does the spread of hate speech and incivility affect the quality of public discussions and the interactions between politicians and citizens? And why do world leaders rely on Twitter and Facebook as tools for public diplomacy?

About Pablo Barberá 
Pablo Barberá joined the School of International Relations at USC as an Assistant Professor in 2016, after receiving his PhD in political science from New York University and spending a year as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Data Science in New York University. His research interests include computational methods in the social sciences, automated text analysis, and social network analysis. He applies these methods to the study of social media and politics, comparative electoral behavior and collective action, and political representation.

This event was streamed live via Facebook. Watch Pablo's video here.