Chadwick Four Challenges for Future Research on Digital Politics in Dutton ed Research Agenda for Digital Politics 2020.pdf (279.29 kB)
Download fileFour challenges for the future of digital politics research
Twenty years of research, mostly driven by normatively pro-digital media perspectives that focused on whether online ‘engagement’ was being sufficiently embedded in political or journalistic institutions, has obscured some important questions about the properties of that engagement, and the origins and consequences of digitally shaped attitudes and behaviours more generally. This legacy has made it more difficult for scholars to appreciate some problematic aspects of how digital media uses are reshaping how public opinion is formed and how the civic culture of liberal democracies is evolving. Can we better understand how social media interact with the constraints on rational opinion formation and how far those constraints are shaped by cognitive biases, social identities and social media affordances? And can we intervene to minimize the impact of those constraints and promote liberal democratic norms? Addressing these challenges will equip the field for future research.
History
School
- Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
- Communication and Media
Published in
A Research Agenda for Digital PoliticsPages
2 - 12Publisher
Edward ElgarVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Rights holder
© Edward ElgarPublisher statement
This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in A Research Agenda for Digital Politics edited by William H. Dutton, published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789903096.00009. The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.Publication date
2020-05-21Copyright date
2020ISBN
9781789903089; 9781789903096Publisher version
Book series
Elgar Research AgendasLanguage
- en