The impact of social media on political campaigns is undeniable. Join New Canaan Library for an informative talk by Jeff Hemsley, Associate Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, and co-author of the book Going Viral. Professor Hemsley will speak via live webinar on Tuesday, January 11, at 7 PM EST. Please register at newcanaanlibrary.org for Zoom sign in information.
Modern election campaigns routinely leverage social media and the networks within in order to get their messages directly, and impactfully, to the public. Professor Hemsley will discuss his study that explains the theory of extended party networks, which are networks created by engaged social media users who use the platforms extensively to amplify messages posted by political candidates. Using Twitter data from the Senate races in the U.S. 2018 midterm election, Professor Hemsley will show how Twitter extended party networks, formed by dedicated amplifiers, reach engaged users who in turn broadcast and amplify the candidate’s message. Hemsley will also demonstrate how the study points to the influence of super-amplifiers, who have a disproportionately large impact on information flows, and how their coordinated efforts might diffuse political messages.

Jeff Hemsley is an Associate Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and Director of the Center for Computational and Data Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Washington’s Information School. His research is about understanding information diffusion, particularly in the context of politics, in social media. He is co-author of the book Going Viral (Polity Press, 2013 and winner of ASIS&T Best Science Books of 2014 Information award and selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2014), which explains what virality is, how it works technologically and socially, and draws out the implications of this process for social change.