Social Movements and Social Media

Social media platforms of various kinds are used across communities to keep in touch, and share experiences and information. However, social media environments also mediate communities’ interactions with each other, and with this information.

A set of projects with Amelia Johns collaborating, have investigated this mediation, to understand the nature of mis- and dis-information in social media platforms, targeted hate speech, and the ways this impacts particular communities and their needs in online platforms. In other preliminary work we are investigating how communities mobilise high quality content (including fact checks), and how this might be fostered in platforms.

This work has included projects funded by Facebook and UNESCO.

Watch a brief introduction to work in one project from the team