Conservatives decry “shadow bans.” Liberals bemoan Russian bots. The one assumption that everyone seems to share is that digital platforms matter. But how?
Sociologist Jen Schradie has an answer, and it will not sit well with the legions of academics who have been climbing the tenure ladder studying online political mobilization. For Schradie's arresting thesis is that digital activism favors conservatives. This conclusion may not seem particularly startling to political observers familiar with Breitbart News, President Trump's tweets, or the ubiquitous online harassment of women, Jews, and African Americans. Yet it runs counter to the techno-optimism that has long informed the research agenda of media scholars charting the influence of the internet in public life. Schradie's analysis suggests that the consensus view of the internet as a progressive, democratizing force overlooked a simple reality: building and sustaining an audience online costs money, and conservatives have more of it. “The reality is that throughout history, communications tools that seemed to offer new voices are eventually owned or controlled by those with more resources,” she observes. Inequality, institutions, and ideas all matter; and, in the digital arena, each favors the right.
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