Overview: Politics

... no one has direct access to reality. The real world is nearly impossible to see in this maelstrom ... because human minds need to “construct” their own version of reality — and each of us does this within a community of shared experiences and beliefs... there are many social worlds and each is built on its own version of what is real and true.…

the idea that fake news was central to the outcome of the campaign has little basis in fact... it’s mostly likely to be shared by people who have already bought into a partisan or ideological worldview... Clinton’s campaign ... problem was ... coverage that dwelled overwhelmingly on a bullshit email server scandal, devoted far fewer resources to…

A work in progress from an upcoming eponymous post. Another experiment with the enewsletter format: some initial thoughts on this seemingly intractable problem, with some of the source materials I’m studying.

Scottie Nell Hughes ... drove a stake into the heart of knowable reality: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts... So, how should Trump’s statements during the campaign have been covered? Should reporters have added something like this in the second paragraph of every news story? “Trump probably didn’t mean that he would appoin…

There’s large-scale, statistically significant research into the impact of search results on political views... Google is doing a horrible, horrible job of delivering answers here. It can and should do better... people are finally saying, ‘Gee, Facebook and Google really have a lot of power’ like it’s this big revelation. And it’s like, ‘D’oh.’”…

Propaganda warfare is increasingly shaping narratives, policies and lives around the world.

Do we really want to set up Facebook or Google as censors ... to decide what is real and fake, true and false?

The Five Star Movement controls ... sprawling network of websites and social media accounts that are spreading fake news, conspiracy theories, and pro-Kremlin stories to millions... profitable sites that describe themselves as “independent news” outlets but are actually controlled by the party leadership... crossposted scores of fake stories... o…

these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy... We’ve monitored more than 7,000 social media accounts over the last 30 months and at times engaged directly with them. Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s social media and hacking …

the evidence of this orchestrated Russian intelligence effort to hack the outcome of the American election... seems flimsy at best... saying is that Russia took advantage of the social web’s desire to just share things without reading them. It may be true, but so does every other media outlet.

Seven years ago I started working full time at the Guardian in the glamorous role of SEO editorial executive. ... very like being in the Matrix but with less kung fu and more Polly Toynbee and Nigel Farage... here are a few of the things I’ve learned…

the groundbreaking work on “post-truth” was performed by academics, with further contributions from... middle-class professionals... Instead of “the truth”, which was to be rejected as naïve and/or repressive, a new intellectual orthodoxy permitted only “truths” – always plural, frequently personalised, inevitably relativised... all claims on trut…

As Facebook attempted to capture the fast-moving energy of the news cycle from Twitter... it built a petri dish for confirmation bias... Here’s how... ‘Share’ Button ... encouraging people to share quickly and without much thought... “original sharing,” where people post their own photos, text updates... was declining..., content from celebritie…

Decline of text in favour of videos means more Trumps and Berlusconis around the world... the internet which was the last word-centred public space after the decline of print journalism, is capitulating to the television format... public opinion in the age of television is more a set of “emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the …

All hail the Trump-o-Meter, a short post on Medium

a lot of media sources you don’t recognize ... a new and distinctive sort of operation ... political news and advocacy pages made specifically for Facebook... engineered to reach audiences exclusively in the news feed... Occupy Democrats; The Angry Patriot; US Chronicle... together make up 2016’s most disruptive, and least understood, force in med…

Cognitive ease is the concept of which when you hear something repeatedly, your brain starts to form connections around it, thus making it easier for you to process later. And since we prefer things to be simple and easy, things that are easy to think about generally makes us feel happier... for newspapers it’s part of the problem that we all face…

You may not care about social media now, but if you read a newspaper, listen to the radio or watch TV, then it’s shaping your world already... The real game is hardening your own support in ways dramatic enough to be picked up by the mass media ... the easiest way of doing that is to pick a rollicking fight... Lacking an established political mac…

Slack, already an indispensable tool within newsrooms, is becoming a surprisingly effective community tool for publishers as well... quickly become a source of stories, with members providing inspiration or even direct contributions.

People don’t just consume news today. They participate in it... an opportunity for news publishers strained by shrinking resources and growing competition: Now more than ever, journalists can engage their audiences as contributors, advisors, advocates, collaborators and partners. This study describes in detail how newsrooms and independent journal…

bringing new technology into the newsroom to change how the outlet commissions and publishes opinion pieces ... expand the coverage beyond just text, into visual story formats that can be accessed and shared across different platforms.... the FT's comment section is a "huge source of strength and a very valuable asset".... a new Facebook commu…

Attacks by Islamic militants, unjustified arrests, assaults, harassment, threats and tougher legal restrictions made it harder for editors, reporters and photographers to hold the powerful to account across the region this year, according to media organizations and NGOs.Hopes that politicians would increase protections for independent media after …

We are creating open-source tools and resources for publishers of all sizes to build better communities around their journalism. We also collect, support, and share practices, tools, and studies to improve communities on the web. All of our tools are open source and free... small, flexible tools that plug into each other and also work with exist…

News isn’t just a product, it’s a community... How do you start a river, from a content point of view? It’s just a list of feeds. You can add to the list, or remove from the list. You’re the curator, though you’re not just curating stories, you’re curating flows. - Dave Winer: Here’s why every news organization should have a river » Nieman …

Every news organization, or company with a community should be running a river.

I spoke to seven news organizations - Recode, The Verge, Reuters, Mic, Popular Science, The Week, and USA Today's FTW - about their decision to suspend comments, the results of that change, and how they manage reader engagement now... Here's how they're all using social media to encourage reader discussion. - What happened after 7 news site…

to boost donations and promote their brands... organizations to sensationalize their coverage, which can, in turn, distort public perceptions about the nature of social problems... The NGO sector includes organizations with annual budgets that rival those of small countries, yet many operate with minimal oversight. News organizations can help a…

“Audience engagement editor” is a job that didn’t exist until a few years ago. But now those with the title wield heavy influence in the industry, shaping both how journalists cover events and how readers consume news... this new breed of editor crafts online tone and relationships with readers... elevate a publication’s online persona by crea…

"The much fussed-over crisis in media isn’t the crisis of journalism. "Printing yesterday’s news on paper and slapping an ad on it — that’s a 19th-century formula, and in 2015 there are reporters and executives who are surprised the model isn’t working. The nostalgia for a past that was a very comfortable one at the beginning of our careers and so…

"Staff also emphasizes building relationships between readers and journalists... strengthen reader engagement by making writers, experts in their field, more visible to build a closer relationship between them and readers, and by encouraging readers to contribute with insights. (At De Correspondent, subscribers are “members” while comments are ref…