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This article first surveys current research within the context of the public sphere, particularly in Europe. Then, the article seeks to examine theoretical and empirical mechanisms by which information and communication technologies (ICTs) may contribute to seeding that public sphere. Finally, and more specifically, it establishes a conciliatory argument between the proliferation and sustainability of a public sphere by means of citizens' use of digital and social media. The study concludes by advocating for a more contemporaneous understanding of what a public sphere is, and how digital and social media, under certain circumstances, may elicit an inclusive, discursive, and deliberative path to political participation.

Prior scholarship has consistently shown that informed citizens tend to better understand government actions, expectations, and priorities, potentially mitigating radicalism such as partaking in illegal protest. However, the role of social media may prove this relationship to be challenging, with an increasingly pervasive use of applications such as WhatsApp for information and mobilization. Findings from a two-wave US panel survey data show that WhatsApp news is negatively associated to political knowledge and positively associated to illegal protest. Less politically knowledgeable citizens also tend to engage in illegal protest more frequently. Results also suggest an influential role of political knowledge in mediating the effects of WhatsApp news over illegal protests. Those who consume more news on WhatsApp tend to know less about politics which, in turn, positively relates to unlawful political protest activities. This study suggests that WhatsApp affordances provide fertile paths to nurture illegal political protest participation.

The health of democratic public spheres is challenged by the circulation of falsehoods. These epistemic problems are connected to social media and they raise a classic problem of how to understand the role of technology in political developments. We discuss three sets of technological affordances of social media that facilitate the spread of false beliefs: obscuring the provenance of information, facilitating deception about authorship, and providing for manipulation of social signals. We argue that these do not make social media a "cause" of problems with falsehoods, but explanations of epistemic problems should account for social media to understand the timing and widespread occurrence of epistemic problems. We argue that "the marketplace of ideas" cannot be adequate as a remedy for these problems, which require epistemic editing by the press.

Recent scholarship suggests that overreliance on social networks for news and public affairs is associated with the belief that one no longer needs to actively seek information. Instead, individuals perceive that the "news will find me" (NFM) and detach from the regular habit of traditional news consumption. This study examines effects of the NFM perception on political knowledge, political interest, and electoral participation. Drawing on a nationally representative panel survey from the United States ( N = 997), this study finds that the NFM perception is negatively associated with both political knowledge and political interest across two time periods. The NFM perception also leads to negative, indirect effects on voting as the relationship is mediated through lower reported levels of political knowledge and interest in politics. The findings add to current conversations about the ability of personalized information networks to adequately inform and engage the public.

This special issue of the Social Science Computer Review provides a sample of the latest strategies employing large data sets in social media and political communication research. The proliferation of information communication technologies, social media, and the Internet, alongside the ubiquity of high-performance computing and storage technologies, has ushered in the era of computational social science. However, in no way does the use of "big data" represent a standardized area of inquiry in any field. This article briefly summarizes pressing issues when employing big data for political communication research. Major challenges remain to ensure the validity and generalizability of findings. Strong theoretical arguments are still a central part of conducting meaningful research. In addition, ethical practices concerning how data are collected remain an area of open discussion. The article surveys studies that offer unique and creative ways to combine methods and introduce new tools while at the same time address some solutions to ethical questions.

Empirical studies of citizen communication networks and participation go as far back as the 1940s, with a bolder focus in political—not civic—activities. A consistent finding reveals that individuals with larger networks are more engaged than those with smaller networks. This article expands this line of work with a number of novel tests. First, it compares the predictive power of online versus offline network size on civic engagement. It then explores the role of strong-tie versus weak-tie discussion frequency and participatory behaviors. Finally, it examines the extent to which the contribution of network size, both online and offline, on civic engagement is mediated by discussion with weak ties. Using original survey data from a large national sample of U.S. adults, results indicate that (1) the relationships between online and offline network size and civic engagement are positive and fairly similar in strength, (2) weak-tie discussion is the strongest predictor of civic behaviors, (3) weak-tie discussion largely mediates the association between participation and network size online and offline, and (4) online networks entail greater exposure to weak ties than offline networks.

Recientemente, hemos experimentado una proliferación en la red de cuadernos o bitácoras, generalmente conocidos como blogs. A su vez, una expansión en el número de investigaciones en torno a estos nuevos medios de comunicación y deliberación, pone de relieve la importancia de los blogs en la Sociedad de la Información. Este estudio analiza empíricamente la influencia de los blogs en la sociedad, centrándonos en dos pilares básicos de la democracia, a saber: 1. el periodismo y 2. la participación ciudadana en política.

The internet was once seen as a beacon of hope for democratizing public access to information, but scholars argue that social media has led to frustration, isolation, and pseudo-information. This volume presents empirical studies exploring paths to potentially rebuild ideal communication situations, if ever, in the digital age and cope with digital information failure. Can we salvage an ill-informed society? These studies offer insights into addressing these issues.

Today's public sphere is largely shaped by a dynamic digital public space where lay people conform a commodified marketplace of ideas. Individuals trade, create, and generate information, as well as consume others' content, whereby information as public space commodity splits between this type of content and that provided by the media, and governmental institutions. This paper first explains how and why our current digital media context opens the door to pseudo-information (i.e., misinformation, disinformation, etc.). Furthermore, the paper introduces several concrete empirical efforts in the literature within a unique volume that attempt to provide specific and pragmatic steps to tackle pseudo-information, reducing the potential harm for established democracies that today's digital environment may elicit by fueling an ill-informed society.

AbstractTo examine whether mass media and social media relate to political knowledge, the study draws upon an original survey of adults from 11 countries, the 2014 CESifo DICE Report on public service broadcasting, and the 2015 Press Freedom Index by Freedom House. Findings reveal that news use via television, newspapers, online news sites, and social media is positively associated with political knowledge. Furthermore, press freedom and strong public broadcasting strengthen the association between news use (via both mass and social media) and political knowledge. The findings suggest that the media system plays a crucial role in creating a political learning environment even in this social media age.

The explosive usage in recent years of the terms "fake news" and "posttruth" reflects worldwide frustration and concern about rampant social problems created by pseudo-information. Our digital networked society and newly emerging media platforms foster public misunderstanding of social affairs, which affects almost all aspects of individual life. The cost of lay citizens' misunderstandings or crippled lay informatics can be high. Pseudo-information is responsible for deficient social systems and institutional malfunction. We thus ask questions and collect knowledge about the life of pseudo-information and the cognitive and communicative modus operandi of lay publics, as well as how to solve the problem of pseudo-information through understanding the changing media environment in this "truth-be-damned" era of information crisis.