Harmful Online Content Sharing by U.S. State Legislators: Findings from the Digitally Accountable Public Representation Project
Abstract:
In this talk I share results from the Digitally Accountable Public Representation (DAPR) project, in which we track the daily online posts of 20,000+ U.S. elected officials across different platforms. After a brief overview of the DAPR project, I focus on two studies of harmful content in U.S. state legislators’ posts. In the first project we study how often legislators share links to low-credibility websites on Facebook, and who is most likely to do so. Three patterns stand out: (1) more conservative legislators share more low-credibility links; (2) this tendency is stronger in districts where the public is more conservative; and (3) legislators in states with better-resourced, more professional legislatures share fewer such links. These results are robust across a variety of alternative tests. In the second project, we examine how harmful content affects engagement with legislators’ posts. Looking at Facebook and Twitter, we study references to low-credibility sources and the use of uncivil or insulting language. For Republican legislators, posts linking to low-credibility sources draw more reactions and comments on both platforms. By contrast, uncivil language generally does not boost engagement on Twitter; our Facebook evidence on incivility is thinner. Overall, low-credibility sharing is uncommon but patterned by ideology, constituency, and institutions, and increases engagement under some conditions.
Bruce Desmarais is the DeGrandis-McCourtney Early Career Professor in Political Science, Director of the Center for Social Data Analytics, and an Affiliate of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at Penn State University. In his research, he develops and applies social data science methods to advance our understanding of systems of policymaking and digital communication with policymakers. Methodologically, he focuses on machine learning, network analysis, generative artificial intelligence, and causal inference. He is also CEO and Co-Founder of Public Square Analytics LLC, a technology and consulting firm dedicated to the improvement of the digital public square. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2010). Prior to Penn State, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and an Affiliate of the Computational Social Science Institute at UMass Amherst (2010-2015).
