Journal Entry 2 - Issues in Political Communication

This journal entry discusses the issues and implications of digitization and technological advancements in political communication, including the use of bots and computational propaganda. It explores the manipulation of public opinion and the ethical considerations surrounding algorithms in social media.

Running head: JOURNAL ENTRY 2
JOURNAL ENTRY 2 – ISUES IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1JOURNAL ENTRY 2
Digitization is a trend that we cannot overlook irrespective of the field we are fixated
upon. Political communication too, despite being a practice that has existed for generations in
a variety of shapes and sizes, has not been made free from the clutches of digitization. As
identified before, the advent and intermingling of the WEB 2.0 in the contemporary socio-
political spectrum has provided us with a variety of perks and benefits while opening our
lives to a multitude of other vulnerabilities. Recent insights into the field of digital political
communication has indicated that the trends of digitization and technological orientations in
political communication has extended beyond the reaches of mere use of social media and the
primary internet based resources. Instead, computationally advanced programs and scripts are
being deployed as ‘bots’, tailored specifically to either meet the demands or shift the
atmosphere of political communication (Howard & Woolley 2016).
A common misconception that might occur while considering the aspect of digital
communication with respect to politics is the literal connotation of the term ‘communication’.
Howard (2015) also elaborates that political communication has shifted from the primitive
use of social media for communicating ideas and opinions to incorporating customised
algorithms, automation and IoT (Internet of Things). According to Cisco (2014), there are an
approximately 40 billion stationary yet interconnected devices on this planet, providing the
global population an immense intricately networked platform to either serve as an
opportunity or abuse (Howard & Woolley, 2016). The amount of data that is being generated
and transmitted is colossal, which is where bots become the key player. Bots are
algorithmically generated computational programs whose backend is specifically tailored to
perform customised tasks. Zeifman (2015) has indicated that bots, which make up for a
staggering 50 percent of global online communication, has invaded the political domain of
communication as well. One of the most popular social media domains namely Twitter, has

2JOURNAL ENTRY 2
served the purpose of major political campaigning aid (Howard & Woolley 2016) and as of
2014, was reported to have an approximately 30 million bot driven accounts (Motti, 2014)
with the numbers constantly growing. The use of such binary communicative means have
deep set obscure and discriminatory undermining implications to political communication as
a variety of groups are invested towards building, using and deploying such technologically
intelligent entities to extract and modify the content behind socio-politically significant firms
like corporate lobbyists, defense contractors, civic activists and even political campaigns
themselves (Boyd, Levy & Marwick 2014).
Political bots are designed algorithms that operate over and within social media
systems which are artificially trained to study the human online behaviour and mimic as well
as manipulate public opinions across a large range of social media networks (Howard &
Parks 2012). These kinds of bots are deployed in order to analyse social media feeds, interact
with a diverse range of users while boosting the follower count, generating keyword specific
micro-contents, repost previously posted candidate tweets/content as well as attack political
opponents on the same social media sites (Howard & Woolley 2016). In a different light, the
Internet of Things (the set of designed everyday products with in-built networking and
computational applicability) are also being used to target and manipulate public data and
opinion by sending and receiving information about the user. In this context, Howard and
Woolley also elaborate the concept of ‘computational propaganda’ – the conglomerate of
social media platforms with data driven and technologically customised software directed
towards manipulating public opinion, thereby shifting the entire domain of political
communication. Computational Propaganda is therefore ideological in its nature as it serves
as the evidence that advanced technology can be used to manipulate politics.
Despite the efforts at debating about the ethical regulations of algorithms in social
media pertaining to political communication, conflicting opinions come into play. Marechal

3JOURNAL ENTRY 2
(2016) argues that the regulations should be state based and at the algorithmic level, while
Mittelstadt (2016) opines that the responsibility of auditing these algorithms to overrule
political bias should rest with the platforms themselves. In context, Guilbeault (2016)
highlight that the political bots can serve as a theoretical as well as a policy oriented resource
to debate the implications of innovations in a political atmosphere. Furthermore, a very
significant research finding has also indicated that since political bots are increasingly
successful in manipulating public opinion, they must be backed by a significant amount of
Socio – Political as well as monetary capital (Murthy et al. 2016). The findings are backed by
significant tracking of several political bot accounts on Twitter indicating that the major
discrepancy lies within the communities building and manipulating these source codes to
efficiently sway the political public opinion on one side.

4JOURNAL ENTRY 2
References
Boyd, D., Levy, K. and Marwick, A., 2014. The networked nature of algorithmic
discrimination. Data and Discrimination: Collected Essays. Open Technology Institute.
Guilbeault, D., 2016. Political bots as ecological agents: The ethical implications of digital
space. International Journal of Communication, 10.
Howard, P.N. and Parks, M.R., 2012. Social media and political change: Capacity, constraint,
and consequence. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 359–362. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-
2466.2012.01626.x
Howard, P.N. and Woolley, S.C., 2016. Political communication, computational propaganda,
and autonomous agents-Introduction. International Journal of Communication, 10(2016).
Howard, P.N., 2015. Pax Technica: How the Internet of things may set us free or lock us up.
Yale University Press.
Maréchal, N., 2016. Automation, algorithms, and politics| when bots tweet: Toward a
normative framework for bots on social networking sites (feature). International Journal of
Communication, 10, p.10.
Mittelstadt, B., 2016. Automation, algorithms, and politics| Auditing for transparency in
content personalization systems. International Journal of Communication, 10, p.12.
Motti, J., 2014. Twitter acknowledges 23 million active users are actually bots. [online] Tech
Times. Available at: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/12840/20140812/twitter-
acknowledges-14-percent-users-bots-5-percent-spam-bots.htm [Accessed 6 Sep. 2019].