Candidates’ aging brains are factors in the presidential race − 4 essential reads

Both men have faced criticism about what can appear to be obvious signs of aging, including questions about their memory and cognitive abilities.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation US • conversation
Feb. 16, 2024 ~5 min

The end of Twitter – how Elon Musk's rebrand to X could foster the platform's dark side

A rebranding expert on what may lie in store for the transformed social media platform.

Leslie Hallam, Course Director, Psychology of Advertising Masters Programme, Lancaster University • conversation
July 28, 2023 ~7 min


How AI could take over elections – and undermine democracy

Artificial intelligence looks like a political campaign manager’s dream because it could tune its persuasion efforts to millions of people individually – but it could be a nightmare for democracy.

Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard University • conversation
June 2, 2023 ~12 min

Early and mail-in voting: Research shows they don't always bring in new voters

Compared with past midterms, voter turnout among young people jumped in 2022 – but it was still below 30%.

Jan Leighley, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs • conversation
Dec. 6, 2022 ~5 min

Don't be too quick to blame social media for America's polarization – cable news has a bigger effect, study finds

Studies of online echo chambers don’t paint the full picture of Americans’ political segregation. New research shows that the problem is more Fox News Channel and MSNBC than Facebook and Twitter.

Homa Hosseinmardi, Associate Research Scientist in Computational Social Science, University of Pennsylvania • conversation
Aug. 10, 2022 ~7 min

5 types of misinformation to watch out for while ballots are being counted – and after

Election misinformation typically involves false narratives of fraud that include out-of-context or otherwise misleading images and faulty statistics as purported evidence.

Renee DiResta, Research Manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory, Stanford University • conversation
Nov. 6, 2020 ~11 min

How tech firms have tried to stop disinformation and voter intimidation – and come up short

The major social media firms have taken a largely piecemeal and fractured approach to managing the problem.

Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Executive Director, Ostrom Workshop; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University • conversation
Nov. 2, 2020 ~9 min

From border security to climate change, national emergency declarations raise hard questions about presidential power

Declaring an issue is a national emergency lets presidents act quickly and with few constraints. But once they get this kind of power, it's hard to take it back – and it can produce bad policies.

Daniel Farber, Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley • conversation
March 9, 2020 ~9 min


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