Food policy increasingly attempts to accommodate a wider and more diverse range of stakeholder interests. However, the emerging influence of different communities and networks of actors with localized concerns and interests around how food should be produced and traded, can challenge attempts to achieving more open, sustainable and globally-integrated food chains. This article analyses how cultural factors internal to a developed country can disrupt the export of food to a developing country. A framing analysis is applied to examine how activists (...) using social media to interact with the traditional news media in Australia were able to inflame public opinion and provoke outrage to disrupt the policy agenda. The paper contains a case study analysis of the media controversy in 2011 around the slaughter of beef cattle in Indonesian abattoirs and the subsequent banning of live cattle exports to Indonesia by Australia. The analysis draws on the theory of binary cultural oppositions to examine how practices in relation to the slaughter of beef cattle in Indonesia were reframed, through extensive media coverage of moral outrage into a critique of the values and cultural practices of Indonesian society. (shrink)

This research explores the spread of unreliable information on Facebook during the 2017 French presidential campaign. By analyzing information-sharing behavior on 252 Facebook pages, our study highlights the wide variety of information sources shared by several political communities, notably news published by partisan websites or activist blogs. Our results demonstrate that political parties – particularly, those on the extreme ends of the political spectrum – tend to re-share a large amount of information reflecting the same ideological positions as their own. (...) This trend is amplified by a phenomenon of endo-citation, that is, a “circular circulation” of information between Facebook pages within the same political community. Our results focus on the information practices of the far-right, tracing a clear over-representation of sources that are unreliable or likely to relay disinformation. We argue that this circular transmission of information creates an “unreliable information bubble” that characterizes far-right information-sharing behavior. (shrink)

Social media is changing social accountability practices. The release of the Panama Papers on April 3, 2016 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) unleashed a tsunami of over 5 million tweets decrying corrupt politicians and tax-avoiding business elites, calling for policy change from governments, and demanding accountability from corporate and private tax avoiders. The current study uses 297,000+ original English-language geo-codable tweets with the hashtags #PanamaGate, #PanamaPapers, or #PanamaLeaks to examine the trajectory of Twitter-based social accountability conversations and (...) the potential for the emergence of a longer-term social accountability user network. We propose that it is the combination of financial inscriptions and evaluative ethical utterances that incite and sustain social accountability conversations and social accountability networks. Financial inscriptions simultaneously remind audiences of both the information event that fomented the initial public reaction and the monetary magnitude of the event. Value-based ethical messaging, in turn, enunciates an ethical stance that simultaneously evaluates existing practices and emphasizes the need for accountability. It is the combining of these two types of messaging that helps to construct and sustain a normative narrative about social accountability. The results illustrate how the repetition and re-working of these two forms of messaging facilitated the construction of a normative narrative that coalesced into a social accountability network which persisted beyond the initial Panama Paper information event and which was re-activated in 2017 when the ICIJ published the Paradise Papers. (shrink)

How social media impacts the autonomy of its users is a topic of increasing focus. However, much of the literature that explores these impacts fails to engage in depth with the philosophical literature on autonomy. This has resulted in a failure to consider the full range of impacts that social media might have on autonomy. A deeper consideration of these impacts is thus needed, given the importance of both autonomy as a moral concept and social media as a feature of (...) contemporary life. By drawing on this philosophical literature, we argue that autonomy is broadly a matter of developing autonomy competencies, having authentic ends and control over key aspects of your own life, and not being manipulated, coerced, and controlled by others. We show how the autonomy of users of social media can be disrespected and harmed through the control that social media can have over its users’ data, attention, and behaviour. We conclude by discussing various recommendations to better regulate social media. (shrink)

The ICIJ’s release of thePanama Papersin 2016 opened up a wealth of previously private financial information on the tax avoidance, tax evasion, and wealth concealment activities of politicians, government officials, and their allies. Drawing upon prior accountability and ethics focused research, we utilize a dataset of almost 28 M tweets sent between 2016 and early 2020 to consider the microdetails and overall trajectory of this particular social accountability conversation. The study shows how the publication of previously private financial information triggered (...) a Twitter-based social accountability conversation. It also illustrates how social accountability utterances are intra-textually constructed by the inclusion of social characters, the personal pronoun ‘we,’ and the use of deontic responsibility verbs. Finally, the study highlights how the tweets from this group of participants changed over the longer-term but continued to focus on social accountability topics. The provided analysis contributes to our understanding of social accountability, including how the release of previously private accounting-based financial information can trigger a grassroots social accountability conversation. (shrink)

This study examines the 3.5 m+ English-language original tweets that occurred during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. Starting from previous research, we analyze how character terms such as “the banker,” “politician,” “the teaparty,” “GOP,” and “the corporation,” as well as concept terms such as “ethics,” “fairness,” “morals,” “justice,” and “democracy” were used by individual participants to respond to the Occupy Wall Street events. These character and concept terms not only allowed individuals to take an ethical stance but also accumulated (...) into a citizen’s narrative about social accountability. The analysis illustrates how the centrality of the different concepts and characters in the conversation changed over time as well as how the concepts ethics, morals, fairness, justice, and democracy participated within the conversation, helping to amplify the ethical attributes of different characters. These findings contribute to our understanding of how demands for social accountability are articulated and change over time. (shrink)

Information is more likely believed to be true when it feels easy rather than difficult to process. An ecological learning explanation for this fluency-truth effect implicitly or explicitly presumes that truth and fluency are positively associated. Specifically, true information may be easier to process than false information and individuals may reverse this link in their truth judgments. The current research investigates the important but so far untested precondition of the learning explanation for the fluency-truth effect. In particular, five experiments (total (...) N = 712) test whether participants experience information known to be true as easier to process than information known to be false. Participants in Experiment 1a judged true statements easier to read than false statements. Experiment 1b was a preregistered direct replication with a large sample and again found increased legibility for true statements—importantly, however, this was not the case for statements for which the truth status was unknown. Experiment 1b thereby shows that it is not the actual truth or falsehood of information but the believed truth or falsehood that is associated with processing fluency. In Experiment 2, true calculations were rated as easier to read than false calculations. Participants in Experiment 3 judged it easier to listen to calculations generally known to be true than to calculations generally known to be false. Experiment 4 shows an effect of truth on processing fluency independent of statement familiarity. Discussion centers on the current explanation for the fluency-truth effect and the validity of processing fluency as a cue in truth judgments. (shrink)

This paper analyses the communicative and epistemic value of retweeting (and more generally of reposting content on social media). Against a naïve view, it argues that retweets are not acts of endorsement, motivating this diagnosis with linguistic data. Retweeting is instead modelled as a peculiar form of quotation, in which the reported content is indicated rather than reproduced. A relevance-theoretic account of the communicative import of retweeting is then developed, to spell out the complex mechanisms by which retweets achieve their (...) communicative goals. The last section outlines the epistemic threats posed by the increasing prevalence of retweeting on social media, linking them to the low reputational, cognitive and practical costs linked to this emerging form of communication. (shrink)

High levels of threat and uncertainty characterize the onset of societal crises. Here, people are exposed to conflicting information in the media, including disinformation. Because individuals often base their news selection on pre-existing attitudes, the present study aims to examine selective exposure effects in the face of a crisis, and identify right-wing ideological, trust-, and science-related beliefs that might influence the selection and sharing of disinformation. A representative survey of German internet users (N = 1101) at the time of the (...) COVID-19 pandemic outbreak showed a confirmation bias in crisis-related news selection and sharing. It revealed right-wing authoritarianism and political mistrust as significant predictors of disinformation selection. The influence of social dominance orientation, mistrust in politics, and perceived certainty of knowledge were significant for sharing disinformation. The present results extend previous knowledge about people’s (dis)information behavior in times of crisis, and shed light on groups particularly vulnerable to disinformation. (shrink)

Can private companies legitimately regulate sharing markets, and if yes, how? Whereas scholars have either criticized sharing platforms for expanding into private and public arenas or welcomed them to counterbalance encroaching government regulations, studies document their unbridled popularity. On the basis of a special version of social contracts theory pioneered by James Buchanan, we develop a heuristics that helps guide reasoning about the legitimacy of the sharing economy’s regulatory function. First, we discuss the conditions under which free and responsible individuals (...) deliberately subject themselves to rules without their prior direct participation, that is, exit, voice, and constitutional limits. Second, we suggest sharing platforms can use novel ordo-responsibilities to establish a sharing constitution that takes these conditions into account. Third, we argue that sharing platforms can legitimately do so within an enabling institutional environment in society, the provision of which relies on the joint efforts of sharing platforms, political actors, and civil society. (shrink)

Within any adversarial rule-governed system, it often takes time for strategically motivated agents to discover effective exploits. Once discovered, these strategies will soon be copied by all other participants. Unless it is possible to adjust the rules to preclude them, the result will be a degradation of the performance of the system. This is essentially what has happened to public political discourse in democratic states. Political actors have discovered, not just that the norm of truth can be violated in specific (...) ways, but that many of the norms governing rational deliberation can also be violated, not just without penalty, but often for significant political gain. As a result, the level of noise has come to drown out the signal. The post-truth political condition is the cumulative result of innovations developed by actors who adopt an essentially strategic orientation toward political communications. (shrink)

This article examines the role of social media and journalistic media in presidential electoral processes. A systematic review of scientific articles published from 2012 to 2022 was conducted. The results indicate that the media has a significant influence on public perception and the political agenda during election campaigns. Furthermore, the importance of evaluating political leaders in the voters' decision-making process is emphasized. In summary, the article provides valuable insights into how the media can shape the narrative and public opinion during (...) presidential elections. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende analizar el monopolio de la verdad de los medios de comunicación tradicionales y su capacidad para influir en los votantes, cambiando los resultados electorales. El rendimiento y la importancia de los medios tradicionales y las redes sociales se estudiarán a través de un enfoque histórico y comparativo. Este trabajo también pretende comprender la transformación social en la era de la posverdad, que cambió el mercado editorial, fomentando la difusión de noticias falsas. La prioridad clave es captar el (...) verdadero impacto en el debate político y democrático de las redes sociales, los medios de comunicación tradicionales y las noticias falsas, así como su capacidad para influir en las elecciones. (shrink)

Individuals with populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes seem particularly inclined to spread disinformation. However, it is unclear whether this is due to the large amount of disinformation with a PRR bias or a general tendency to perceive disinformation as credible and/or spread it further. This study explores (1) effects of a PRR bias on perceived message credibility and likelihood of spreading disinformation, (2) the extent to which perceived message credibility mediates the spread of disinformation, (3) effects of PRR attitudes on the (...) perceived message credibility of biased disinformation, and (4) whether a PRR bias of disinformation explains the spread of disinformation by individuals with PRR attitudes despite a lack of credibility. An online experimental study (N = 572) in Germany showed that the spread of disinformation is mediated by perceived message credibility of disinformation. PRR attitudes positively predict perceived message credibility regardless of whether it is biased or unbiased disinformation. (shrink)

Some common explanations of issue polarization and echo chambers rely on social or cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. Accordingly, suggested interventions like “be more open-minded” target these mechanisms: avoid epistemic bubbles and don’t discount contrary information. Contrary to such explanations, we show how a much weaker mechanism—the preference for belief—can produce issue polarization in epistemic communities with little to no mechanisms of exclusion. We present a network model that demonstrates how a dynamic interaction between the preference for belief and common structures (...) of epistemic communities can turn very small unequal distributions of initial beliefs into full-blown polarization. This points to a different class of explanations, one that emphasizes the importance of the initial spread of information. We also show how our model complements extant explanations by including a version of biased assimilation and motivated reasoning—cognitive mechanisms of exclusion. We find that mechanisms of exclusion can exacerbate issue polarization, but may not be the ultimate root of it. Hence, the recommended interventions suggested by extant literature is expected to be limited and the problem of issue polarization to be even more intractable. (shrink)

Disinformation poses a significant threat to democratic societies, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 health crisis. This study delves into the prevalence and nature of disinformation in social media by analyzing Facebook accounts of political actors and alternative media within the unique Swiss landscape during the first wave of the pandemic. Using standardized quantitative content analysis, we categorize posts as either accurate, reconfigured, or fabricated. Our findings reveal a disconcerting pattern: Disinformation was shared more frequently than accurate information. Notably, (...) right-wing politicians and parties, alongside alternative media sources, emerged as the most prolific disseminators of disinformation. Digging deeper, we discovered that the predominant form of disinformation shared on social media was reconfigured disinformation, signifying manipulated or contextually distorted information. This prevalence of reconfigured disinformation on social media platforms raises pressing concerns about the public’s ability to discern fact from fiction. Moreover, our study shines a spotlight on the inadvertent or perhaps deliberate contributions of right-wing politicians and parties and alternative media sources to the propagation of disinformation. By examining this phenomenon within the Swiss context during the initial wave of the pandemic, we provide valuable insights into the dynamics of disinformation and its implications for society during crisis situations. (shrink)

Online debates typically possess a large number of argumentative comments. Most readers who would like to see which comments are winning arguments often only read a part of the debate. Many platforms that host such debates allow for the comments to be sorted, say from the earliest to latest. How can argumentation theory be used to evaluate the effectiveness of such policies of sorting comments, in terms of the actually winning arguments displayed to a reader who may not have read (...) the whole debate? We devise a pipeline that captures an online debate tree as a bipolar argumentation framework (BAF), which is sorted depending on the policy, giving a sequence of induced sub-BAFs representing how and how much of the debate has been read. Each sub-BAF has its own set of winning arguments, which can be quantitatively compared to the set of winning arguments of the whole BAF. We apply this pipeline to evaluate policies on Kialo debates, where it is shown that reading comments from most to least liked, on average, displays more winners than reading comments earliest first. Therefore, in Kialo, reading comments from most to least liked is on average more effective than reading from the earliest to the most recent. (shrink)

Online debates typically possess a large number of argumentative comments. Most readers who would like to see which comments are winning arguments often only read a part of the debate. Many platforms that host such debates allow for the comments to be sorted, say from the earliest to latest. How can argumentation theory be used to evaluate the effectiveness of such policies of sorting comments, in terms of the actually winning arguments displayed to a reader who may not have read (...) the whole debate? We devise a pipeline that captures an online debate tree as a bipolar argumentation framework (BAF), which is sorted depending on the policy, giving a sequence of induced sub-BAFs representing how and how much of the debate has been read. Each sub-BAF has its own set of winning arguments, which can be quantitatively compared to the set of winning arguments of the whole BAF. We apply this pipeline to evaluate policies on Kialo debates, where it is shown that reading comments from most to least liked, on average, displays more winners than reading comments earliest first. Therefore, in Kialo, reading comments from most to least liked is on average more effective than reading from the earliest to the most recent. (shrink)

Using the Aristotelian virtue of friendship and concept of practical wisdom, this paper argues that engaging in political discourse with friends on social media is conducive to the pursuit of the good life because it facilitates the acquisition of the socio-political information and understanding necessary to live well. Previous work on social media, the virtues, and friendship focuses on the initiation and maintenance of the highest form of friendship (Aristotle’s ‘ideal friendship’) online. I argue that the information necessary to live (...) well can come from non-ideal, civic friends in addition to ideal friends. In order to acquire this information successfully via social media, users should practice inclusive engagement, self-control, discretion, and audience-sensitivity in their cyber interactions. This argument is salient given the current concerns about ‘echo chambers’ or ‘filter bubbles’, in which users ignore or block out friends and news sources that support political perspectives different from one’s own. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of freedom of expression by drawing lessons from the strategic logic of China’s censorship regime. It argues that freedom of expression helps build the common knowledge needed for overcoming coordination problems and is, thus, a source of collective power. However, realizing the full empowering potential of freedom of expression requires supplementing it with (a) public sources of information that are reliable, trusted, and democratically accountable and (b) measures that will provide citizens with equal opportunity to (...) speak and be heard in ways that will enable them to contribute to their society’s stock of common knowledge. (shrink)