3. information and democracy

democracy

group organization where binding decisions are made collectively by the members

what are 2 tensions in democracy?

• rule by doxa

• rule by technocracy

doxa

common sense or popular opinion

rule by doxa

binding decisions may not be based in an accurate understanding of reality

technocracy

organizational structure governed by individuals with specialized technical expertise instead of elected politicians

rule by technocracy

binding decisions ignore lived experience and values of affected people

propaganda

ideas, facts, or allegations deliberately spread to further a cause or damage another

what does democracy want, and what tensions are associated with each? (2 things)

• want decisions based in accurate information, but it can give experts too much power and ignore lived reality

• want to include lived experience of all voices, but it can be dominated by propagandists

informed citizen

someone with the knowledge necessary to contribute to the democratic process

how can the informed citizen be created? (2 ways)

• give citizens access to accurate, good quality information

• share information with each other through open, deliberate conversations where they feel free to speak and are willing to listen

what are 2 benefits of the informed citizen?

• high-quality technical expertise

• lived experience, values, and local knowledge

how did technology change who the informed citizen is?

by changing who gets to speak and who gets to hear information

what are 2 threats to the informed citizen?

• partial information

• misinformation

why are people consuming partial information? (2 reasons)

• individuals seek and share information in an incomplete manner

• technology promotes information in an incomplete manner

selective exposure

people prefer to learn/consider information that is consistent with their existing attitudes

2 reasons for selective sharing

• homophily

• to please an audience

homophily

similar people tend to cluster together

algorithmic filtering

algorithms filter/pre-select less diverse information that users would encounter naturally to garner their attention

why aren’t algorithms guaranteed to make users’ information sources less diverse?

the same algorithm could make one user’s information sources more diverse and another user’s less diverse

what does Bakshy et al quantify? (3 things)

• selective exposure

• selective sharing/homophily

• algorithmic filtering

Bakshy et al methods

looked at hard news (politics and national/world affairs) shared by Facebook users and inferred alignment of news source from self-declared ideology of users

Bakshy et al studied… (2 things)

• what kinds of stories people share

• relationship between political ideologies and homophily

misinformation

information that leads citizens to false or unfounded beliefs

3 examples of misinformation

• rumors

• false news

• fake news

what does misinformation threaten?

collective intelligence

why isn’t misinformation completely bad?

speculation and rumor can help people understand confusing/disturbing events and situations

Grinberg et al studied…

fake news and:

• how much was seen

• who saw/shared it

• other news seen/shared

Grinberg et al methods

matched tweets to public voter registration data and identify news source lean and fake news seen/shared

how does fake news spread?

individuals will share more fake news when their network is flooded with it

pass-it-along effect

people share what they are exposed to inside homophilous clusters, leading to amplification

democracy can act as…

• accountability

• collective intelligence

• representation

representation happens when…

an individual’s group/viewpoint/interests are part of the conversation

partial information

receiving some facts and information in a systematically incomplete way

partial information threatens… (3 things)

• collective wisdom

• accountability

• collective intelligence