Elite & Mass Political Behavior
Politicians, celebrities, and other major figures have a big influence on society. They drive conversations, determine policy, and set fashion trends. Our researchers examine the response of political elites to our new media environment, and the impact of social media on political behavior.
Academic Research
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Journal Article
Labeling Social Media Posts: Does Showing Coders Multimodal Content Produce Better Human Annotation, and a Better Machine Classifier?
Political Science Research and Methods, 2025
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Working Paper
The Effect of Deactivating Facebook and Instagram on Users’ Emotional State
Working Paper, April 2025
We estimate the effect of social media deactivation on users’ emotional state in two large randomized experiments before the 2020 U.S. election. People who deactivated Facebook for the six weeks before the election reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, depression, and anxiety, relative to controls who deactivated for just the first of those six weeks. People who deactivated Instagram for those six weeks reported a 0.041 standard deviation improvement relative to controls. Exploratory analysis suggests the Facebook effect is driven by people over 35, while the Instagram effect is driven by women under 25.
Reports & Analysis
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Analysis
Who Has a Policy that Would Benefit You? More Voters Say Trump.
National survey data from the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections shed light on how candidates' campaign strategies impact voter policy recall.
November 2, 2024
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Analysis
How Americans’ Confidence in Technology Firms has Dropped
Results from the American Institutional Confidence poll's second wave show that the public's confidence in technology, and tech companies, has markedly decreased over the past five years.
June 14, 2023
News & Commentary
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Policy
Comments on Ofcom’s Call for Evidence on Researcher Access
We responded to Ofcom’s public request for evidence on researcher access to online service data for safety research, highlighting barriers researchers face when accessing social media data, the challenges of limited information sharing, potential ways to improve data access, and examples of robust data-sharing practices.
July 26, 2025
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News
How Do State Lawmakers Decide What to Prioritize?
New research reveals state legislators respond to both local constituents and national politicians when setting their policy agendas, with stronger influence from politically engaged partisans within their states.
April 21, 2025