The ascent of social media has significantly altered recent elections, reforming how citizens interact with politics, how officials engage with their constituents, and how information circulates within society. Nevertheless, social media is far from being the first innovation to reshape the political arena.
A new era of political scientist
Who: Jacob Montgomery, BA, Wake Forest University; MS in statistical science and PhD in political science, Duke University
Research Focus: Combining advanced computational techniques with fundamental social science tasks, including measurement, theory testing, survey research, and causal inference. Specific interests include Bayesian methods, machine learning, American politics, and digital political communication.
What’s on the horizon: In an upcoming paper in the Journal of Experimental Political Science, Montgomery and his research team discovered that individuals assess source and content-level signals to ascertain whether the advertisements they encounter online are political. To a lesser degree, individuals also ascribe political significance to ads that conflict with their beliefs. Given ongoing discussions about increasing regulation of digital political advertisements, these findings act as a reference point for scrutinizing proposed definitions from lawmakers and platforms, Montgomery notes.
Throughout the ages, technological innovations have profoundly influenced political systems and processes, asserts Jacob Montgomery, a professor of political science in Arts & Sciences. Instances include the printing press revolutionizing the dissemination of information and ideas, railroads reshaping governance logistics, and radio and TV transforming political campaigns.
Simultaneously, technology is frequently molded by political actors through investments in research and development, policies aimed at promoting innovation, trade restrictions to safeguard emerging industries, and various regulations, Montgomery elaborates.
His upcoming spring 2025 course, “The Politics of Technology and the Technology of Politics,” a graduate-level political science course, investigates the convergence of emerging technologies and politics. It was a freshly devised course inspired by Montgomery’s current research interests — which encompass the role of digital communications in disseminating misinformation and populism, as well as bias in AI systems — that proved to be notably relevant.
“The world is evolving rapidly,” Montgomery states. “One of my objectives for this course was to prompt my students, who are just commencing their PhD studies, to contemplate how these novel technologies will intersect with our political system.”
“The influence of communication technologies, AI, satellite systems, and other innovations on politics remains pertinent across all domains — whether one studies international trade, elections, domestic policy, or global relations,” he remarks.
The course spanned a wide array of topics, Montgomery mentions. Some of the most engaging class debates revolved around bitcoin, algorithms — their design, impacts, and usage in political communication — and AI equity.
“As AI systems grow more integrated into government and daily activities, we encounter pressing questions about fairness,” Montgomery notes. “What defines fairness? Who should establish this definition? How can we enforce it? The exciting aspect for researchers is that we still lack conclusive answers. This offers substantial opportunities for pioneering work in the field.”
One subject that struck particularly close to home was digital surveillance and oppression. “We dedicated an entire week to examining how repressive governments, such as Russia and Syria, utilize digital surveillance,” he shares. “The subsequent week, the U.S. State Department announced that it would monitor graduate students’ social media activity to deport individuals expressing views disfavored by the government. That was a sobering moment emphasizing the urgency of this inquiry.”
“One of the things we often overlook is that much of the world connected to the internet only in the past 15 years as new smartphone technology and networks emerged. As we move forward, we’ll become increasingly unified, and disturbances — such as new AI capabilities — will reverberate across the globe swiftly.”
Jacob Montgomery
Along the journey, students also acquired skills to pinpoint intriguing research questions, engage with existing studies, and craft papers potentially suitable for publication in academic journals — competencies that will be crucial throughout their graduate careers.
Similar to the technology they examined, the course was innovative in its design. And this design resonated, Montgomery observes, as students displayed enthusiasm, curiosity, and creativity. Students investigated topics ranging from algorithmic curation of comment sections on social media to the repercussions of de-platforming extremist groups (i.e., removing extremists from social media platforms), the effect of installing police surveillance cameras in Mexico City on crime, and the implications of TikTok’s prohibition in India.
While it is accurate that technology has continually impacted politics and vice versa, Montgomery asserts that the present moment is distinctive in certain respects.
“The recent changes appear to be occurring at an accelerated pace and are significantly more global than we’ve experienced in the past,” he comments. “One aspect we tend to forget is that a large portion of the world connected to the internet only in the last 15 years as new smartphone technology and networks unfolded. As we progress, we’ll see an increasing level of unity, and shocks — like new AI advancements — will be felt globally in no time.”
Unlike earlier technological breakthroughs, only a select few tech giants control the infrastructure propelling these shifts. The possible implications of this concentrated power present yet another area for political scientists to investigate.
The post The intersection of technology and politics appeared first on The Source.