Two years ago, a majority of Republican Twitter users in the United States said the site had a bad impact on American democracy. But today, following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, their views have become much more positive, while those of their Democratic counterparts have grown more negative. … In […] Read more »
Podcasts as a Source of News and Information
Following a steady increase in podcast listening over the past decade, podcasts have become a big part of the normal routine – and news diet – of many Americans, especially younger adults. … Roughly half of U.S. adults say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, according […] Read more »
Is Big Tech biased against conservatives? Evidence from search algorithms says no
Algorithm-based news recommendations on social media and search engines shape the news people see. … To get a sense of how algorithmic recommendations perform as news intermediaries, we asked actual internet users to complete real-world searches of topics in the news and list the recommendations they got. In other words, […] Read more »
TikTok’s fate is in the hands of the creators
… With lawmakers grumbling that youth don’t comprehend our nation’s threats and youth questioning lawmakers who don’t appreciate their values or understand their use of technology — the team at SocialSphere and I tried to sort things out. We fielded an in-depth survey of more than 1,600 Gen Z (18-26 […] Read more »
TikTok is a money machine, but voters on both sides don’t know if it’s worth it
… Back in 2020, only two years after its global launch, TikTok said it had 100 million users in the United States. This week it announced the figure had climbed to 150 million. That figure represents about 45% of the 332 million men, women and children that make up the […] Read more »
Gen Z voters oppose TikTok ban, but worry about China’s influence
A new poll studying the attitudes of younger American voters toward TikTok finds that Gen Z voters oppose banning TikTok while millennials support a prohibition, even as a majority of all these younger voters express concerns about China misusing the social media app. Among registered voters aged 18 to 42, […] Read more »