{"id":5514,"date":"2019-02-23T22:26:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T22:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arielsheen.com\/?p=5514"},"modified":"2019-04-03T18:23:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T18:23:57","slug":"2018-social-media-and-democracy-research-grant-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/23\/2018-social-media-and-democracy-research-grant-application\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Social Media and Democracy Research Grant Application"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 1\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"5521\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/23\/2018-social-media-and-democracy-research-grant-application\/sdi_intextthumbnail_2018_v4\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?fit=500%2C306&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"500,306\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"SDI_in+text+thumbnail_2018_v4\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;ariel sheen social science research council initiative&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?fit=300%2C184&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?fit=500%2C306&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5521\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?resize=500%2C306&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"306\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?w=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arielsheen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SDI_intextthumbnail_2018_v4.jpg?resize=300%2C184&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>2018 Social Media and Democracy Research Grants<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Applicant Information<\/strong><br \/>\nAriel V. Sheen<br \/>\nInnovation and Technology Management Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Colombia<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project Details<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Social Media Behavior of Venezuelan State Media: A Case Study on TeleSUR English<\/p>\n<p><strong>Priority Topics<\/strong><br \/>\nDisinformation, Polarization and Election Integrity, Civic Engagement<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dataset(s)<\/strong><br \/>\nFacebook URL Shares Dataset<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keywords<\/strong><br \/>\nPolitical Polarization, Disinformation, Social Media, Democracy, Influence<\/p>\n<p><strong>Countries of Research<\/strong><br \/>\nUnited States<\/p>\n<p><strong>Disciplinary Focus<\/strong><br \/>\nCommunications, Political science and government<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project Length<\/strong><br \/>\n6 Months<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amount Requested<\/strong><br \/>\n$49999.00<\/p>\n<p><strong>Project Abstract<\/strong><br \/>\nTeleSUR English is a media project of the Venezuelan and Cuban governments to promote their desire for a multi-polar world order. Their main news outlet has over 600,000 people listed as following it on Facebook, while their other properties, consisting of cultural, historical and current-event commentary, raises the numbers of followers they have to nearly a million. Their combined content on YouTube has been viewed in excess of 20 million times.<\/p>\n<p>Over the four year course of their operations, TeleSUR English has partnered with other state-owned foreign language news media outlets such as Russia\u2019s RT, Iran&#8217;s HispanTV, Qatar\u2019s AJ+ and China\u2019s CCTV.<\/p>\n<p>This project will use quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Venezuela\u2019s government\u2019s English language media operations to answer specific questions such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To what extent were specific demographics and geographic areas targeted by TeleSUR?<\/li>\n<li>What were the defining attributes of the political content and areas targeted by TeleSUR English?<\/li>\n<li>What connections can be made between Russian and Venezuelan state media operations to influence the American electorate?<\/li>\n<li>How can Venezuela\u2019s social media actions affect the way Americans build common sense, and how does the spread of strategic political content lead to political fragmentation?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is expected that the final results of the investigation will show that Venezuela sought to increase political polarization through the targeted promotion of information aligned with specific political sector interests and thus demobilizing its readers from the political process rather than categorically promoting the public interest. Other data set will<\/p>\n<p><strong>Practical Importance of Project<\/strong><br \/>\nCharting the efforts of Venezuela&#8217;s social and news media projects to influence the political values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of groups and individuals within the United States electorate is of practical importance for consideration by a wide variet of public and private policy makers.<\/p>\n<p>Showing the connection of Russia&#8217;s state media to Venezuela&#8217;s activities is also important for illustrating the manner in which it is is possible for small groups of skilled people to accelerate actual or perceived political polarization; spread disinformation or propaganda; facilitate political actions that range from legal to illegal and, overall, impact American \u00a0elections.<\/p>\n<p>Visualizing the scope and shape of this particular iteration of coordinated inauthentic behavior and it&#8217;s relation to In Real Life (IRL) action will help readers of the project better understand how to exercise media literacy skills and help shape future conversations about the relationship between social media and democracy. Furthermore, it will provide coders new means of adapting existent algorithms so as to be able to more effectively identify coordinated inauthentic behavior on the Facebook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Expected Outcome of Project<\/strong><br \/>\nThis project will produce a minimum of 30 graphic visualizations based on Facebook data, data compiled from public records, subscription \u00a0based data sets, of APIs as needed.<\/p>\n<p>These graphics will be packaged together with historical\/technical context and analytical writing to promote media literacy and showcase new knowledge as to how TeleSUR English\/Venezuela seeks to influence American politics as well as their links to Russian media on Medium. This will then be promoted via outreach to media outlets that have previously published on similar themes as well as via influencer outreach.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ethical and Privacy Considerations<\/strong><br \/>\nThe ethical and privacy considerations evidenced in the research in this vein thus far produced by the Digital Media Research Labs, the Atlantic Council and the Kings Centre for Strategic Communication will be the guide for our our work. With the exception of TeleSUR English, RT, Sputnik and other employees or associated accounts engaging in public behavior,<em> all individual users privacy will be maintained by illustrating only general, numerical patterns of event behavior<\/em>. <em>Absolutely no private individual Facebook, Twitter or other social media users will be named<\/em>\u00a0in order to prevent another @Ian56789 incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2018 Social Media and Democracy Research Grants Applicant Information Ariel V. Sheen Innovation and Technology Management Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana Colombia Project Details The Social Media Behavior of Venezuelan State Media: A Case Study on TeleSUR English Priority Topics Disinformation, Polarization and Election Integrity, Civic Engagement Dataset(s) Facebook URL Shares Dataset Keywords Political Polarization, Disinformation, Social &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/23\/2018-social-media-and-democracy-research-grant-application\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;2018 Social Media and Democracy Research Grant Application&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-telesur-english"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8e7kf-1qW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5514"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5522,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5514\/revisions\/5522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}