PapersFlow Research Brief
Social Media and Politics
Research Guide
What is Social Media and Politics?
Social Media and Politics is the study of how social network sites and digital platforms shape political communication, public opinion, agenda-setting, and electoral processes through their affordances, framing, and dissemination of information including fake news.
The field encompasses 127,443 works examining interactions between social media platforms and political dynamics. danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison (2007) defined social network sites as web-based services allowing individuals to construct public or semi-public profiles within bounded systems and articulate connections with others. Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017) analyzed fake news consumption on social media during the 2016 US election using web browsing data and archives.
Research Sub-Topics
Social media echo chambers
This sub-topic investigates algorithmic filtering and homophily creating polarized information environments on platforms like Facebook. Researchers analyze network homophily metrics, exposure bias, and attitude reinforcement through longitudinal user studies.
Misinformation diffusion on social media
This sub-topic examines cascade dynamics, bot amplification, and virality patterns of false political information during elections. Researchers model temporal diffusion using epidemic models and evaluate intervention strategies like fact-checking.
Agenda-setting in social media
This sub-topic explores how social media influences public and elite agendas through hashtag campaigns and trending topics. Researchers apply time-series analysis to correlate platform salience with traditional media and policy outcomes.
Social media framing effects
This sub-topic studies how political actors use interpretive frames on platforms to shape issue interpretations and emotional responses. Researchers conduct experiments testing frame resonance, second-level agenda-setting, and cross-platform frame transfer.
Social capital in political networks
This sub-topic analyzes bridging and bonding capital generated through political interactions on social network sites. Researchers measure network diversity, tie strength, and mobilization efficacy using sociometric data from platforms.
Why It Matters
Social media influences elections by spreading fake news, as Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) showed that false stories circulated widely prior to the 2016 US presidential election, with millions of shares on platforms like Facebook. Platforms enable agenda-setting akin to traditional media, building on McCombs and Shaw (1972), but amplified by user networks, affecting voter mobilization and partisan feelings. Recent tools from NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics provide open-source data sets to test hypotheses on social media's role in politics, while research on algorithms reveals their power to alter political sentiments by ranking content.
Reading Guide
Where to Start
"Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship" by danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison (2007), as it provides foundational definitions and context for understanding platforms central to political communication.
Key Papers Explained
danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison (2007) define social network sites, which Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe (2007) extend to social capital benefits relevant for political engagement. Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw (1972) outline agenda-setting, paralleled by Robert M. Entman (1993) on framing, both applicable to social media content dynamics. Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017) apply these to empirical analysis of fake news in the 2016 election, while John Zaller (1992) theorizes mass opinion formation influenced by such media flows.
Paper Timeline
Most-cited paper highlighted in red. Papers ordered chronologically.
Advanced Directions
NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics develops tools for empirical testing of social media hypotheses as of 2025. Research reveals algorithms' impact on partisan feelings using content-ranking hijacks, and new methods reprioritize posts breaching democratic norms. Preprints examine political participation on Facebook in Dutch elections and influencers' role in collective action.
Papers at a Glance
| # | Paper | Year | Venue | Citations | Open Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship | 2007 | Journal of Computer-Me... | 15.9K | ✓ |
| 2 | Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm | 1993 | Journal of Communication | 14.8K | ✕ |
| 3 | The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College... | 2007 | Journal of Computer-Me... | 9.7K | ✓ |
| 4 | The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media | 1972 | Public Opinion Quarterly | 8.7K | ✕ |
| 5 | The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion | 1992 | Cambridge University P... | 7.4K | ✕ |
| 6 | Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election | 2017 | The Journal of Economi... | 6.3K | ✓ |
| 7 | Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique o... | 2014 | — | 5.5K | ✕ |
| 8 | The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. | 1993 | Contemporary Sociology... | 5.2K | ✕ |
| 9 | Comparing Media Systems | 2004 | Cambridge University P... | 5.2K | ✕ |
| 10 | Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less fr... | 2011 | Choice Reviews Online | 4.7K | ✓ |
In the News
From tweets to power: an integrative thematic review of political communication and platform governance on Twitter/X (2009–2024)
**Introduction:**This integrative thematic review synthesizes the body of peer-reviewed studies on political communication via Twitter/X, aiming to map the conceptual and methodological landscape o...
Politicians are using social media to campaign – new research tells us what works and what doesn’t
Cartoon figures with speech bubbles. Shutterstock. # **Politicians are using social media to campaign –new research tells us what works and whatdoesn’t** Publié: 11 août 2025, 13:53 CEST
Unveiling political influence through social media: network and causal dynamics in the 2022 French presidential election
# Unveiling political influence through social media: network and causal dynamics in the 2022 French presidential election
Remember when corporations avoided politics on social ...
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Names of media outlets that received millions in ...
dollars.
Code & Tools
Tools for extracting and analyzing frames/theories/narratives from social media posts. 3stars 0forks Branches Tags Activity Star
This page is meant to provide current research updates on Polarization and Echo-chambers on Social Media. Unlike other survey pages, this site will...
Social insights is an open source big data project that generates insights about various interesting topics happening every day. Currently, we are ...
An extensive, curated collection of functionalities and tasks in natural language processing(NLP), adapted to aid empirical policy analysis at scal...
Welcome to the repository for the source of social-media-lab.net, a growing compilation of notes and computational notebooks centered around social...
Recent Preprints
Research - NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics
As part of our project to construct comprehensive data sets and to empirically test hypotheses related to social media and politics, we have developed a suite of open-source tools and modeling proc...
Social Media and Political Participation: Are Facebook ...
to So- cial Media and participatio n. Besides that, to unders tand the meaning and im - pact of Social Media on elections, we show field re sults from the 2010 and 2011 elections in the Netherlands...
New research reveals algorithms' hidden political power
* # New research reveals algorithms’ hidden political power New research shows the impact that social media algorithms can have on partisan political feelings, using a new tool that hijacks the way...
Social media research tool lowers the political temperature
A new method reprioritizes social media posts, pushing those that breach democratic norms and use hostile partisan language lower in a feed.
Social media influencers can increase collective political ...
Just a moment... # academic.oup.com Verifying you are human. This may take a few seconds. academic.oup.com needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding. Verification successful...
Latest Developments
Recent research in 2026 indicates significant developments in social media and politics, including studies on social media algorithms' impact on polarization, the influence of political influencers on democracy, and the evolving role of social media in shaping political discourse, with tools to reduce partisan rancor and enhance user control (Reuters Institute, Stanford, Northeastern).
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
What are social network sites in the context of politics?
Social network sites are web-based services that allow individuals to construct public or semi-public profiles, articulate connections with others, and traverse those connections, as defined by danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison (2007). These platforms facilitate political communication by enabling rapid dissemination of information and mobilization. Their affordances have drawn academic attention for shaping public discourse and opinion.
How does fake news spread on social media during elections?
Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow (2017) found that false stories, or fake news, were shared millions of times on Facebook before the 2016 US election, based on web browsing data and archives. Consumption was driven by partisan motivations, with pro-Trump fake news receiving higher engagement. This highlights social media's role in amplifying misinformation during electoral periods.
What is the agenda-setting function in social media and politics?
Maxwell McCombs and Donald L. Shaw (1972) established that mass media influence what the public considers important, a function extended to social media where platforms prioritize content. User-shared posts and algorithms shape political salience similar to traditional outlets. This process affects voter priorities and public opinion formation.
How do social media platforms build social capital politically?
Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe (2007) demonstrated that Facebook use among college students enhances bridging and bonding social capital, enabling connections useful for political mobilization. Users maintain ties and access diverse viewpoints, potentially increasing civic engagement. Maintained social capital supports staying connected with community members for political purposes.
What role does framing play in political social media content?
Robert M. Entman (1993) clarified framing as selecting aspects of reality to make them salient, promoting interpretations through communication. On social media, political actors use framing in posts to influence perceptions, as analyzed in tools like social_media_frame_analysis on GitHub. This shapes public responses to issues.
What is the current state of research tools for social media and politics?
NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics offers open-source tools for constructing data sets and testing hypotheses on social media's political effects. GitHub repositories like social-insights enable political sentiment analysis from social media data. These tools support reproducible research on polarization and echo chambers.
Open Research Questions
- ? How do social media algorithms causally influence partisan political feelings and voter behavior?
- ? What are the long-term effects of fake news exposure on democratic norms via social media platforms?
- ? How do network dynamics and influencers drive political influence in specific elections like France 2022?
- ? To what extent do platform governance changes on Twitter/X alter political communication patterns?
- ? What boundaries define effective public spheres on social media amid elite and mass interactions?
Recent Trends
Algorithms' hidden political power has emerged in 2025 research showing impacts on partisan feelings via content ranking.
Tools like NYU's open-source suite and social-insights on GitHub advance empirical analysis of political sentiment.
Studies on Twitter/X governance (2009–2024) and French 2022 election networks mark shifts, with 127,443 total works in the field.
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