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Ben Lyons

@benlyons.bsky.social
3.2K followers 310 following 97 posts

Associate prof at University of Utah Dept of Comm. Associate ed @misinforeview.bsky.social. Book coming this fall: global.oup.com/academic/product/mis… site: ben-lyons.github.io

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Reposted by Ben Lyons
Public Opinion Quarterly - POQ @poqjournal.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Convenience or quota-based sampling for surveys? Christenson et al. assessed the potential pitfalls of convenience sampling in an expansive cross-national study, yet found a striking amount of consistency across platforms. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...
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Ben Yoel @benyoel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Question to survey methods folks: is there a paper that shows/examines whether putting items in a matrix makes them more correlated as opposed to including them as separate individual items? Thanks in advance!
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I’m excited to be on a panel at the Trust & Safety Research Conference @techimpactpolicy.bsky.social on Oct 1, w @ryanmoore.bsky.social, @nadiabrashier.bsky.social & Doug Shadel. We'll be talking all about older adults & untrustworthy info online. #TSRConf #TrustAndSafety #OnlineSafety #TechPolicy
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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Happy to report that my next book titled Diverse and Divided: How Demographic Changes Shape our Politics will be out next year and published by Columbia University Press. In this book, i track how demographic changes (growing racial diversity, education, etc), affect American political competition
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Misinformation and the Aging American: The Paradox of Engagement and Truth Discernment - new book forthcoming from my excellent coauthor @benlyons.bsky.social www.amazon.com/Misinformati...
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Extremely impressive field experiment by @nmalhotra.bsky.social et al. had few effects on election attitudes among conservatives in TX despite being "exposed to an average of 20 online videos, 18.5 cable TV videos, 23.9 display ads, 3 text messages, and 3 postcards" www.science.org/doi/full/10....
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Peter Luca Versteegen @versteegenluca.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
🚨🚨 New publication: 🚨🚨 Does affective polarization (AP) change citizens’ willingness to support democratic norms or participate? 🧵1/10 Full paper here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Cool Citizens? How Affectively Unpolarized Citizens View and Participate in Democracy - Political Behavior
Does affective polarization change how citizens view and participate in democracy? We posit that the answer to this crucial question depends on how affectively unpolarized citizens view and participat...
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Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Tinkering with CES data for a project and found this divergence in trends toward independence across birth cohorts interesting. 20 years of CES data put to decent use here.
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Josh Scacco 🗳️ @joshscacco.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
🗣️ For the past year, I have been telling everyone I meet that democracy and public health are intricately connected. This idea inspired my fellows application to @carnegie.org and pushes forward that research. 💬 @sustaindemocracy.bsky.social releases the first part of that research today. ⬇️
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Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 08/10/2025
NEW - 'The Power of the Crowd: How the Public Can Both Spoil and Improve Social Media as a Source of Information' This Cambridge Element by F. Stöckel, S. Stöckli, B.A. Lyons, H. Kroker & @jasonreifler.bsky.social is free to read for 2 weeks. cup.org/4344Tyl #cambridgeelements #politics #Polisky
Cover titled "The Power of the Crowd" by Sabrina Stöckli, Benjamin A. Lyons, and Hannah Krekler, published by Cambridge Elements in Political Science. The cover features a vibrant, multicolored geometric background.
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
New WP, would love feedback. Across datasets, age seems to be important to understanding support for violence & norm breaking more broadly. Antisocial traits (good predictors generally) are concentrated among younger adults & also more strongly associated w support among them osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Efrén Pérez @efrenpolipsy.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
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mark brandt @mjbsp.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
New pub, led by Aymin Triki & in collab w/ @abbycassario.bsky.social, accepted at JESP! We found similarities in party cues among the left and the right when using representative samples of issues, although right-wing authoritarians may be an exception Other interesting findings follow!
Abstract of paper. It reads, How do people with different political ideologies process political information? Party cues are an
effect where people are more likely to support a policy position if they learn their party also
supports it, shifting their judgement in accordance with cues from their inparty and against their
outparty. This effect has been at the center of the debate over the psychological differences
between liberals and conservatives, with some scholars suggesting that differences in cognitive
styles between liberals and conservatives (e.g., rigidity, cognitive reflection) should result in
differences in party cue susceptibility. We advance this debate by measuring rigid cognitive
styles and applying a stimuli sampling approach to party cues across four preregistered
experiments (N’s per study > 1200). We found convincing evidence for ideological symmetries
in party cues in quota matched samples of Americans (Studies 1 & 2). In Studies 3 and 4, across
four measures of ideology and three self-report measures of cognitive rigidity, we found
ideological differences in self-reported rigidity in line with previous research. In Study 3, a
convenience sample, we found that conservatives were more likely to follow party cues.
However, Study 4, using a quota matched sample, found no ideological differences in cue
susceptibility, except with respect to right-wing authoritarianism. Exploratory analyses found
that when one group has greater prior awareness or stronger initial views on a topic, they show
smaller cueing effects. We conclude that while liberals and conservatives differ in cognitive
style, they largely share similar cognitive processes for interpreting and integrating political
information.
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simine vazire @simine.com · 10/08/2026
Special issue at Psych Science on psychological science in the real world! Send us your best work looking at whether effects from the lab (or from theories) hold up in ecologically valid settings. Submission deadline: 15 January 2027 www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
Special Issue Call for Submissions: “From Lab to Life: Psychological Science in the Real World”
Editors: Roni Porat and Vishnu SreekumarPsychological Science invites submissions presenting innovative research that brings psychological science “into the wild,” whether to strengthen its ecological...
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
meta analysis on illusory truth effect looks cool www.nature.com/articles/s41... but also a small plug for this dataset that may be useful for future iterations - a large test for political headlines in a national rep sample (N = 8,730) misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/olde...
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Human Communication Research @hcr-journal.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
📣 Reminder: 26 days left! Submit an extended abstract for the special issue: "Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment" 📌 Extended abstracts due August 31, 2026 📝 Full papers due March 2027 Learn more: academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/sp...
academic.oup.com
Call for Papers 2026 - Special Issue
Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment Guest Editors: Ye Sun | City University of Hong Kong Ben
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
seems super important for how we make sense of this going forward
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Journal of Experimental Political Science @jepsjournal.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Now Out on FirstView: Beyond Single-Shot Designs: Repeated Treatments, Affective Polarization, and Democratic Norms
cambridge.org
Beyond Single-Shot Designs: Repeated Treatments, Affective Polarization, and Democratic Norms | Journal of Experimental Political Science | Cambridge Core
Beyond Single-Shot Designs: Repeated Treatments, Affective Polarization, and Democratic Norms
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Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
A large field experiment found that platforms can dramatically reduce exposure to repeat untrustworthy sources, but doing so did not produce measurable changes in users' beliefs or attitudes. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Untrustworthy sources on Facebook and Instagram in 2020: Concentrated exposure but no attitudinal effects
Reducing exposure to untrustworthy sources on Facebook/Instagram had no measurable effects on attitudes, even for heavy consumers.
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
1 month left to submit. send us your extended abstracts by Aug 31
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Adrian Meier-Ernst @adrianmeierernst.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
One month left to submit! HCR Special Issue on "Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment". Open to research papers 📊 and short commentaries 💬
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Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I have a new paper out in @sociologicalsci.bsky.social w/ the briliant @aybukeatalay.bsky.social and @aliaelkattan.com We show that what we pay attention to online is a lot more politically diverse than what public engagement signals would suggest... sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...
sociologicalscience.com
Information Diets Are More Diverse in Attention Than in Engagement
Article: Information Diets Are More Diverse in Attention Than in Engagement | Sociological Science | Posted July 21, 2026
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Gordon Hodson @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
#AcademicSky #PsychSciSky #PrejudiceResearch Important new meta-analysis by Friehs et al on longitudinal intergroup contact relations www.nature.com/articles/s44... Traditional CLPM find longitudinal effects. Methods that parse between- from within-person effects find mostly between-person
nature.com
A comparative multi-method re-analysis of the longitudinal evidence for causal intergroup contact effects on attitudes - Communications Psychology
Re-analysis of 31 published longitudinal datasets shows that intergroup contact improves outgroup attitudes only in traditional CLPM models. Recent alternatives (FF-CLPM, RI-CLPM) find no signifi...
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
data viz is my passion
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Yamil Ricardo Velez @yamilrvelez.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Why do arguments often change people’s beliefs without changing their attitudes? In a new APSR with @scottclifford.bsky.social and @patrickpliu.bsky.social, we point to belief relevance: arguments are more persuasive when they grapple with the idiosyncratic reasons people hold their political views.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
New from my outstanding coauthors @dowonkim.bsky.social and @glciampaglia.com et al.
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Ben Yoel @benyoel.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
In our Elements we demonstrate using survey experiments and observational data from five countries that democratic backsliding is rarely, if ever, ethnically neutral, and that citizens are much more open to tolerating anti-democratic actions against ethnic minorities.
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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Across two national samples, worries about social media, AI, and modernity load on a single anti-technology factor (alpha=.85). Who is the most anti-technology? Conspiracy thinking is the strongest correlate by far, stronger than loneliness or partisanship.
Factor loading scores for Anti-technology items (Factor 1 is the anti-tech orientation). Figure 3: Bivariate relationships between anti-technology attitudes and their possible correlates. With conspiracism having the strongest positive relationship. Figure 4: Distribution of anti-tech factor scores by conspiracism, loneliness, and ideology (YouGov dataset), and one variable from Lucid respondents (the need for chaos).
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Public Opinion Quarterly - POQ @poqjournal.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
How should we conceptualize political interest? In POQ, Laffineur et al. demonstrate that political interest and disinterest are distinct social identities through a newly developed methodological approach. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...
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Josh Scacco 🗳️ @joshscacco.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Doing research on identity and thinking about how to assess messages at scale? @adamsaffer.bsky.social, Jianing Li, and I developed the PersonaLex computational classifier to assist research on social identity. Accessible. Transparent. Scalable. Grounded in research and theory. 🔗 bit.ly/PersonaLex
bit.ly
PersonaLex: Validated short-text classifier for identities, interests, and issues - Technology Commercialization
PersonaLex is a validated computational classifier database containing a lexicon of terms for identifying and categorizing social identity markers, interests, and policy issues in short-text digital m...
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
The authors (led by @williambrady.bsky.social) concluded that "reducing the influence of extreme users can curb algorithmic distortions without diminishing user experience." www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Redesigning algorithms to intervene on social norm misperceptions during a national election - Nature
Engagement-based feeds amplify intergroup, moralized, emotional (IME) and toxic content relative to reverse-chronological feeds, and a diversified extremity algorithm reduces exposure to IME and toxic...
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Lars Erik Berntzen @leberntzen.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
So affective polarization has a causal impact on interpersonal relations & democratic attitudes, but its effects depend on political context. @eelcoharteveld.bsky.social spearheaded study & paper👏 with @andrejkokkonen.bsky.social @hayleekelsall.bsky.social @jonaslinde.bsky.social Dahlberg & me.
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Lars Erik Berntzen @leberntzen.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Does affective polarization itself actually threaten democracy? Recent experiments from the US suggest maybe not. In our new @ejprjournal.bsky.social paper, we revisit this question comparatively with a survey experiment in 9 democracies (18,000 respondents). #polisky
cambridge.org
The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core
The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies
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Human Communication Research @hcr-journal.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Call for Papers - Human Communication Research We're now accepting submissions for a special issue: "Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment" Extended abstract deadline: August 31, 2026 Full details: academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/sp...
academic.oup.com
Call for Papers 2026 - Special Issue
Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment Guest Editors: Ye Sun | City University of Hong Kong Ben
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Ye Sun @handle.invalid · 19/05/2026
Who is the "audience" in comm research today? 📣 New HCR special issue — revisiting audience for a transforming media environment, co-edited by @benlyons.bsky.social, @adrianmeier.bsky.social, and me. 🔗 Full CFP: academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/sp... 🗓️ Extended abstracts due August 31, 2026
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Adrian Meier-Ernst @adrianmeierernst.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Who is the "audience" in comm research today? 📣 New HCR special issue — revisiting audience in a transforming media environment, co-edited by @benlyons.bsky.social, @yesuncomm.bsky.social, and me. 🔗 Full CFP: academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/sp... 🗓️ Extended abstracts due August 31, 2026
academic.oup.com
Call for Papers 2026 - Special Issue
Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment Guest Editors: Ye Sun | City University of Hong Kong Ben
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
🚨 Special Issue @hcr-journal.bsky.social cfp 🚨: Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment Guest eds @yesuncomm.bsky.social @adrianmeier.bsky.social & me Extended abstracts due Aug. 31 More info: academic.oup.com/hcr/pages/sp...
academic.oup.com
Call for Papers 2026 - Special Issue
Who Are We Studying in Communication Research? Revisiting Audience in a Transforming Media Environment Guest Editors: Ye Sun | City University of Hong Kong Ben
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
".... differences, however, attenuate substantially once we account for online activity, suggesting that disparities in exposure reflect differences in browsing intensity more than demographic characteristics alone."
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Honored to be among this @carnegie.org cohort. The fellowship will support my research on how the partisan loyalty of older adults and institutional distrust among younger adults create different paths to polarization, with the goal of developing age-specific solutions. #CarnegieFellows
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Andrew Carnegie Foundation @carnegie.org · 05/05/2026
Announcing the 2026 Andrew #CarnegieFellows! Selected from a record 381 nominations, 24 fellows will each receive $200K to examine the causes of political polarization — and how to reduce it. 🔗 Read more: www.carnegie.org/news/article... #Polarization #Research
carnegie.org
24 Scholars Awarded Research Fellowships to Understand and Reduce Political Polarization | Carnegie Corporation of New York
Carnegie Corporation of New York announces nearly $5 million in grants to the 2026 Class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows
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Ian Anson @iganson.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
WOW!!! The 2026 Carnegie Fellows have been announced and what a LIST! Some of my absolute FAVES to read& cite! Huge congrats to @wzcmarsh.bsky.social @eunjikim.bsky.social @benlyons.bsky.social Kristin Lunz Trujillo @chriswarshaw.bsky.social Stuart Soroka etc. etc.! www.carnegie.org/awards/andre...
carnegie.org
2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program | Carnegie Corporation of New York
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Ben Lyons @benlyons.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
New paper led by @hnxue.bsky.social : "#MakeBeefGreatAgain: A Cross-Platform Analysis of Early #MAHA Discourse" arxiv.org/html/2604.23...
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Robert Böhm @robertboehm.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
🚨 New in @science.org: CDC communication undermines trust in vaccines Link to the publication: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... I’m excited to share this paper, which I wrote together with @schneali.bsky.social, @corneliabetsch.bsky.social & @laulilleholt.bsky.social (1/5)
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Robert Brehm @robertbrehm.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
What predicts pro-MLM attitudes in a nationally representative US sample? TikTok use, not demographics, not politics. Presenting "Platformed Persuasion" w/ Margaret Tait at #MPSA2026, Health Comms panel, Fri April 24 5:10 PM. Stop by if this sounds interesting to you - would love to connect!
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David Lazer @davidlazer.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
PaCSS (Politics and Computational Social Science) is back! APSA preconference at BU joint with Political Communication, deadline for submission is May 8. Should be great! cssi.umass.edu/pacss2026
cssi.umass.edu
PACSS 2026: Politics and Computational Social Science Conference | Computational Social Science Institute
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Peter K. Enns @peterenns.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Here's a simply example of how Doc2Survey automatically converts a survey drafted in Word/Google Doc into a fully programmed Qualtrics (.qsf) file, which is then ready to be launched. Available free to all researchers: www.verasight.io/doc2survey.
Example of how Doc2Survey automatically converts a survey drafted in a Word/Google Doc to a fully programmed Qualtrics .qsf file.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
New in Nature Human Behaviour: How Deceptive Online Networks Reached Millions in the US 2020 Elections www.nature.com/articles/s41... -Reached at least 37M Facebook and 3M Instagram users -3 networks out of 49 responsible for >70% of users reached -Exposed users older, more conservative
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Ross Dahlke @rossdahlke.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Most web browsing studies analyzing news and misinformation operate at the domain level. Work by me, @fangjingtu.bsky.social et al., scrapes the content from web visits to go beyond the source to the content level, finding significant topical and linguistic variation doi.org/10.1145/3757571
Screenshot of a paper titled “Contextualizing Misinformation: A User-Centric Approach to Linguistic and Topical Patterns in News Consumption,” authored by Ross Dahlke and colleagues. The abstract says the study uses web-browsing data from 1,240 U.S. adults during the 2020 election to compare misinformation and hard news. It finds that misinformation people consumed was generally easier to read, more negative in tone, and more morally framed, with substantial variation across topics and across groups such as older adults and Republicans.
Image description
Two side-by-side horizontal bar charts compare topic distributions for hard news and misinformation. Hard news is led by general news at 35.9%, followed by U.S. electoral politics at 27.0%, social issues at 17.1%, COVID-19 at 14.2%, and health at 5.7%. Misinformation is much more concentrated in U.S. electoral politics at 53.0%, followed by social issues at 23.7%, COVID-19 at 11.6%, general news at 6.8%, and health at 4.9%.
Two stacked line charts show how topic shares changed over time from late August to early December 2020, with a vertical marker at Election Day 2020. In misinformation, U.S. electoral politics rises sharply in October and November and becomes the dominant topic around the election. In hard news, general news remains largest throughout, while U.S. electoral politics also spikes around Election Day before declining afterward.Image description
Two stacked line charts show how topic shares changed over time from late August to early December 2020, with a vertical marker at Election Day 2020. In misinformation, U.S. electoral politics rises sharply in October and November and becomes the dominant topic around the election. In hard news, general news remains largest throughout, while U.S. electoral politics also spikes around Election Day before declining afterward.
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Center for Political Studies @umisrcps.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Children can influence their parents’ politics, especially on new issues. In diverse, tech-connected families, parents are receptive to political cues from their children, particularly on emerging topics like AI regulation. Don't miss @robertocarlos.bsky.social et al at #MPSA2026.
Reciprocal political socialization within contemporary American families: Evidence from two randomized experiments
April 23-26, 2026 | #MPSA2026
In Event: Speech and Political Expression

Sun, April 26, 8 to 9:30 CDT
Roberto F. Carlos et al University of Michigan Center for Political Studies
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Tiago Ventura @tiagoventura.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🚨New paper alert🚨 What happens when a polarized democracy bans a social media platform? New work with @cbarrie.bsky.social, Molly Roberts, Chris Schwarz, and @jatucker.bsky.social. We study Brazil's 2024 ban on X and find it created what we define as a "partisan sorting ratchet ." 1/
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