Tweets Shaping Politics

Guest: Jonathan Supovitz, Director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, University of Pennsylvania Social media has been touted as a great democratizing force: everyone has access to the same platform, so everyone has an equal voice, right?  But that assumes we’re all equally savvy about wielding our influence on social media. And one look at my 1,200 followers on Twitter compared to President Trump’s 27 million is proof some people have a much bigger megaphone.  A very cool project out of the University of Pennsylvania has mapped exactly how influence works on social media during debates over hot topics like the Common Core standards. Their work also uncovered some surprises about how particularly savvy users can hi-jack a debate to flood the system with their views and drive policies in their favor.  Check out the Common Core debate analysis here.