#39: Social Media Polarization with Chris Bail

06/07/21 • 49 min

Chris Bail is a computational social scientist. He wrangles the data that our social interactions leave behind to better understand how ideas spread. He is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellow, he studies political extremism on social media using tools from the emerging field of computational social science.

He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing.

Things we mention in this episode:

Internet bots for good and evil
@simscreens: A Twitter bot tweeting out frames from The Simpsons
Using Twitter bots to understand polarization (Bail et al., 2018)
Many people just don’t care about politics (check out my interview with Nathan Kalmoe)
Dr. Bail’s earlier work on how anti-Muslim sentiment spreads (Bail, 2016)
Tools developed by the Polarization Lab to fight back against polarization

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/social-media-polarization-with-chris-bail/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing.

Things we mention in this episode:

Internet bots for good and evil
@simscreens: A Twitter bot tweeting out frames from The Simpsons
Using Twitter bots to understand polarization (Bail et al., 2018)
Many people just don’t care about politics (check out my interview with Nathan Kalmoe)
Dr. Bail’s earlier work on how anti-Muslim sentiment spreads (Bail, 2016)
Tools developed by the Polarization Lab to fight back against polarization

---------------
Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Previous Episode

#38: American Islamophobia with Nazita Lajevardi

Nazita Lajevardi studies public opinion relating to Muslim Americans. She’s a political scientist and attorney at Michigan State University. In 2020, she published Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia. The book is an extension of her research on public opinion about Muslims in the United States, discrimination faced by Muslim Americans in politics, and the experience of facing these biases. In our conversation, we talk about all these questions and what makes Muslim American identity so tricky to pin down.
Note. The brief clip at the top of the show is from Episode 4 ("Strawberries") of the Hulu show Ramy and is presented for purposes of commentary and education.
---------------
Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/american-islamophobia-with-nazita-lajevardi/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Next Episode

#40: Explaining Brains with Alie and Micah Caldwell

Alie and Micah Caldwell produce the YouTube channel, Neuro Transmissions. Their videos present the basics of neuroscience and psychology in an accessible, engaging way. Alie is a neuroscientist and senior science writer at the University of Chicago Medicine. Micah is a licensed professional clinical counselor. In our conversation, we talk about the origins of Neuro Transmissions, their philosophy of science communication, and their new book.

Check your local bookstores for their upcoming book: Brains Explained: How They Work and Why They Work That Way .

Some science communication resources that came up in our conversation:

ComSciCon: A free science communication workshop for graduate students
Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science
COMPASS Science Communication Trainings
Alan Alda’s book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
The Union of Concerned Scientists

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/neuro-transmissions-with-alie-&-micah-caldwell/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Opinion Science - #39: Social Media Polarization with Chris Bail

Transcript

Andy Luttrell:

There are robots everywhere. And not like the housekeeping robot in the Jetsons. I’m talking internet bots. They’re a little less exciting than the robots of sci-fi, but they might be more powerful. Bots are little bits of software that take care of automated tasks online. Like search engines use bots to take walks through the internet and pick up new websites. And bots can be bad—they can be used by cyber-attackers to take down websites and extort t