Political Communication in the Digital Age: Algorithms and Bots

Abstract

Technology is one factor that has formed the basis for change in the media throughout history. Analog data and information shared by verbal, visual or written methods are now stored, processed, reproduced and shared in digital format due to developments in information technologies. On the other hand, social media, which is an important part of the digital media system, has become an important medium for political communication studies due to its prevalence and big data. As political actors better understand the value of data sets of millions of users, their interest in social media has also increased. However, this growing interest has also brought concerns such as digital profiling, informatics surveillance, systematic disinformation, and privacy violations. It has long been discussed that the practices of governments and technology companies for creating a structure similar to the gatekeeping in traditional media by taking social media under control. In recent years, some of these discussions are (ro)bot accounts on social media because online social networks are no longer just connecting people. Machines talk and interact with people, and even machines do this with other machines. Automatic posts made by bot accounts through algorithms to imitate people’s behavior on social media are liked, reposted or commented on by people and other bots. Bots that make political shares are also used by political actors worldwide, especially during election periods. Politicians use political bots to appear more popular on social media, disrupt their rivals’ communication strategies, and manipulate public opinion. This study aimed to reveal the effects of bots on political communication. After explaining the concepts of propaganda, algorithm, bot and computational propaganda, how political bots could affect the public sphere and elections were discussed in the light of current political communication literature.