In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet — so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded an alarm. A few weeks before the 2016 election, he presented his concerns to technologists in San Francisco’s Bay Area and warned of an impending crisis of […] Read more »
Exploring ‘Truth Decay’
Over the past two decades, the role of facts and analysis in American public life has been diminishing, posing a threat to democracy and policymaking. With donor support, RAND president and CEO Michael Rich initiated a project with RAND political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh to investigate the phenomenon of “Truth Decay.” […] Read more »
Facebook hired a full-time pollster to monitor Zuckerberg’s approval ratings
Tavis McGinn applied for a job at Facebook last year hoping to work in market research. He had previously spent three years at Google, where he helped large advertisers refine their marketing campaigns across the company’s family of products. But part way through the interview process at Facebook, the recruiter […] Read more »
As the Super Bowl Approaches, Republicans Are Souring on the N.F.L. Again
If some viewers choose to skip the Super Bowl this year, one man you might blame – or credit – is President Trump. The 2017-18 season was one of division for the N.F.L., as it struggled with protests, lower ratings and declining support among its core fans. But how Republicans […] Read more »
#SOTU 2018: Outside the DC Twitter Bubble, Bipartisanship Eludes, Immigration Dominates
Using GSG’s social media listening platform Viewfinder, we looked at the Twitter conversation around President Trump’s first State of the Union address. … Our top takeaways: President Trump’s speech was touted as a call for bipartisanship. But if he called, no one listened. President Trump’s focus on immigration drowned out […] Read more »
Media Seen as Key to Democracy But Not Supporting It Well
Americans believe the news media play an important role in democracy, particularly in terms of informing the public, yet they do not think the media are fulfilling that role well. Forty-four percent of Americans say the news media are “critical” to democracy, with another 40% saying they are “very important.” […] Read more »