Social media and democracy - a conversation with Sander Andreas Schwartz

Is the Danish Prime Minister’s lunch relevant to political communication or has social media derailed public debate?

Over the past years social media has gotten to play a larger and larger role as the home for a significant part of the public debate. With the Arab spring we have seen social media be a force for good, but with the latest elections in e.g. the United States and with the Brexit referendum targeted advertising, echo chambers and disinformation has led social media to divide us instead of connecting us. This development is accelerating and to support our democracy it is something that we all need to understand and manage.

To explore the important and very timely subject Next Generation Democracy is happy to collaborate with Roskilde University and the Algorithms, Data & Democracy project to once again invite you to a Democracy+Technology cafe - this time on the topic of social media and Democracy.

After a brief introduction - where we will go through some of the latest developments in social media's impact on democracy - we will be joined by Sander Andreas Schwartz from the Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University whose presentation will focus on what we know about the influence that social media have on political communication. Beginning from a series of specific studies of the debate on politicians’ Facebook pages, Sander will offer his assessment of the Danish socially mediated political debate, discussing the question of whether or not there are signs of developments and tendencies that should be regulated or moderated differently from what we do today.
Following the presentation there will be ample opportunity to ask questions and take the dialogue forward.

If you, like us, find this matter interesting we encourage you to register now to secure your seat and come join us and help shape the conversation.

We really look forward to engaging with you on this important theme!

All the best,

The Next Generation Democracy team