{"title":"The good, the bad, and the obscure: Exploring uses of generative AI in the global 2024 elections","authors":"Ib T. Gulbrandsen, Sine N. Just, Chris Peters","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445574","url":null,"abstract":"Digital technologies are ubiquitous in political communication, but their democratic consequences remain contentious, with the recent emergence of generative AI (GenAI) further complicating already complex sociotechnical issues. This article explores the empirical terrain of GenAI uses that came to public attention in the 2024 global elections by collating and analysing data from two prominent tracking projects. First, we map where GenAI was identified, which actors were involved, and through which platforms and modalities it circulated. Second, we build a provisional typology of emerging GenAI use in election campaigns, identifying practices of informing, campaigning, dissenting, disinforming, defaming, impostering, and spoofing as a basis for discussing the in-/authenticity of communicators and the in-/correctness of content. The article nuances proposed assessments of the political implications of generative AI by offering one of the first systematic, empirical analyses of its potential democratic consequences, identifying context-specific good, bad, and obscure uses of these new technologies.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Victoria Vziatysheva, Mykola Makhortykh, Maryna Sydorova, Vihang Jumle
{"title":"Google, how should I vote? How users formulate search queries to find political information on search engines","authors":"Victoria Vziatysheva, Mykola Makhortykh, Maryna Sydorova, Vihang Jumle","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445071","url":null,"abstract":"Search engines play a crucial role in helping users navigate the digital environment. However, factors affecting how users interact with these platforms, in particular choose search queries, remain understudied. Using a representative survey of Swiss citizens conducted before a round of federal popular votes, this study examines how users formulate search queries related to the retirement policies that were voted on in 2024. Contrary to existing research, we find no direct evidence of selective exposure, or users’ tendency to search for pro-attitudinal information, which we explain by the less polarizing search topics. However, the sentiment of the query is partially aligned with the expected vote outcome, indicating possible bandwagon effects. Our results also suggest that undecided and non-voters are more likely to search for interpretations of the policies. In addition, query formulation is affected by the perceived effect of the policy, political efficacy, and sociodemographic characteristics.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Colin Porlezza, Laura Amigo, Tobias Eberwein, Marten Juurik, Marko Milosavljević, Mari-Liisa Parder, Marie Rathmann, Krisztina Rozgonyi
{"title":"Tackling the challenges of artificial intelligence for public communication: Governance and accountability discourses about the responsible use of AI","authors":"Colin Porlezza, Laura Amigo, Tobias Eberwein, Marten Juurik, Marko Milosavljević, Mari-Liisa Parder, Marie Rathmann, Krisztina Rozgonyi","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445061","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the landscape of public communication. However, while AI technologies allow for more participatory and dialogic processes, they can also facilitate destructive communication patterns including hate speech, online harassment, and disinformation or misinformation. Such trends raise concerns about how to regulate the responsible use of AI in public communication. This contribution intends to reflect the challenges AI presents to public communication and examine the governance and accountability frameworks that seek to ensure transparency, fairness, and responsibility. To this end, the authors established a database of 435 national and international codes of ethics and other normative guidelines. These documents were subjected to an inductive thematic analysis to identify key themes and analyze differences and similarities from a comparative perspective. The empirical study reveals significant gaps in most of the documents but also collects suggestions on the way toward a coherent governance framework for AI in public communication.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karolina Koc-Michalska, Darren Graham Lilleker, Yannis Theocharis, Toril Aalberg, Ana Sofia Cardenal, Laia Castro, Nicoleta Corbu, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, David Nicolas Hopmann, Jörg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Agnieszka Stępińska, Vaclav Stetka, Jesper Strömbäck, Alon Zoizner
{"title":"Changing the norms of citizenship? Attitude, platforms and crisis-driven shifts in 17 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Karolina Koc-Michalska, Darren Graham Lilleker, Yannis Theocharis, Toril Aalberg, Ana Sofia Cardenal, Laia Castro, Nicoleta Corbu, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, David Nicolas Hopmann, Jörg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Tamir Sheafer, Sergio Splendore, James Stanyer, Agnieszka Stępińska, Vaclav Stetka, Jesper Strömbäck, Alon Zoizner","doi":"10.1177/14614448261444723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261444723","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates shifts in citizenship norms during crisis. Citizenship, a core concept of democratic theory, reflects an allegiance to the state founded on public sovereignty, and individuals having the right and capacity to participate in political decision-making. Drawing on Schnaudt et al.’s framework, we explore changes in dutiful, autonomy, and solidarity norms through a two-wave panel study conducted across 17 European democracies in December 2019 and April 2020. Our data demonstrate that media use expectedly increased, and citizenship norms shifted significantly in some cases. Changes correlate strongly with rising levels of political interest. Complex patterns occur for different platform use: Facebook reinforced dutiful citizenship, Twitter strengthened autonomy norms, and WhatsApp solidarity norms. Exposure to congruent content enhanced adherence to all three norms, while peer-to-peer influence positively impacted autonomy and solidarity norms. The study contributes to ongoing discussions about the impact of the digital media environment on citizens’ relationships with democratic institutions.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Divide and conquer? The impact of media narratives on digital election interference on political and perceived polarisation","authors":"Emelie Karlsson","doi":"10.1177/14614448251410509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251410509","url":null,"abstract":"How does media discourse on digital election interference affect political polarisation? This study investigates this question using a survey experiment conducted in the United Kingdom in 2024. Respondents were exposed to fictitious news stories about digital interference during the 2019 UK general election, and the treatment varied information about which party benefitted from the interference. Attitudes were subsequently measured across ideological, affective and perceived polarisation. The results indicate that news about digital election interference does not increase polarisation at an aggregate level. However, respondents reported higher levels of perceived societal division and affective polarisation against ideological opponents when the opposing party benefitted from the interference. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions regarding digital harms and democratic interference, pointing to the need to consider the effects of interference in democratic processes that stem from the public discourse on the event.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From democratic engagement to destructive attitudes: Social media’s dual influence on democratic citizenship and attitudes in the United States during the 2020 presidential election","authors":"Rita Tang, Benjamin R. Burnley, Emily K. Vraga","doi":"10.1177/14614448261448547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261448547","url":null,"abstract":"Existing research offers mixed evidence on how social media use contributes to or hinders healthy democratic societies. This study examines the impact of social media use generally, and perceived exposure to political misinformation and correction on social media specifically, on two forms of democratic citizenship: constructive behaviors and destructive democratic attitudes. Drawing on a two-wave survey of US adults, we find that greater social media use is linked to heightened concern about election fairness but not to greater political participation among political partisans. Higher perceived exposure to political misinformation predicts attendance at political events but is unrelated to destructive democratic attitudes. Higher perceived exposure to corrections is positively associated with donating to campaigns and volunteering, but also predicts stronger endorsement of violence for political goals. These results reveal the mixed role of social media in encouraging democratic participation while amplifying some anti-democratic attitudes.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“We are 97%”: Network and content analyses of Belarusian grassroot activism via local Telegram channels","authors":"Larissa Doroshenko, Steven L. Wilson","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445077","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the network structure and content of local Telegram chats in Belarus using the theoretical framework of connective action logic. Using the data collected right at the aftermath of the protests, we created a bimodal network consisting of almost 800 local chats and over 440,000 unique users. This “network of networks” featured subnetworks within the country’s regions, towns, and city districts, as well as Belarusian diaspora, with large and smaller hubs connecting parts of the network together and enabling coordination and information exchange. Content analysis of the messages shared within top-50 most popular chats demonstrate that participants discussed news, shared safety tips, and organized small-scale community-building activities. This article demonstrates the role of local Telegram chats in enabling and sustaining pro-democratic movement in Belarus and advances our understanding of digital technologies in social movements, while also pointing out its limitations in non-democratic regimes.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karolina Koc-Michalska, Darren G. Lilleker, Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Bente Kalsnes
{"title":"A brave new democracy: Remarks on the impact of social media, algorithms, and AI on politics and citizenship","authors":"Karolina Koc-Michalska, Darren G. Lilleker, Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Bente Kalsnes","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445072","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary understandings of democratic citizenship and its role in democracy have evolved over the last few decades, generally in response to periods of societal, political, and communication change. These changes are often connected to challenges associated with globalisation or growing inequality, but also reflect the spread of digital communication technologies, which provide new social and political contexts that call for fresh thinking about citizenship and communication, and how evolving technologies such as algorithm-based social media, artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging synthetic media will sustain or challenge the future of democracy. The proposed collection contributes to theoretical and empirical debates linking the development and employment of AI to citizenship and democratic processes.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Playful digital citizenship in wartime: Civic practices and algorithmic imaginaries in the North Atlantic Fella Organization","authors":"Olga Boichak, Kateryna Kasianenko","doi":"10.1177/14614448261445078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261445078","url":null,"abstract":"This article articulates strategies citizens engage in to reclaim their agency in an increasingly fragmented and unmoderated algorithmic public sphere. Drawing on the case of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), we demonstrate how playful, <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">allegorithmic</jats:italic> civic practices constitute a participatory response to disinformation at the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Capitalising on their algorithmic literacy, algorithmic resistance, and algorithmic becoming, <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">allegorithmic citizens</jats:italic> may find alternative ways to challenge the status quo in wartime, mobilising resources to support communities in crisis when traditional governance mechanisms fail. With the growing interest in harms from online humour and memes in democratic societies, NAFO’s playful reclaiming of the notions of algorithm extends understanding of civic participatory practices. But on a more fundamental level, these <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">allegorithmic</jats:italic> citizenship acts foster social cohesion and solidarity among social media users who question the ethical responsibilities that come with witnessing a distant war unfold on their feed.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148401033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Media poverty: Understanding mediated public connection in everyday conditions of deprivation","authors":"Torgeir U. Nærland","doi":"10.1177/14614448261459665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261459665","url":null,"abstract":"This article is concerned with how life in poverty affects people’s possibility to enact citizenship through their use of the media. More specifically, it examines the varying preconditions for impoverished citizen’s mediated public connection. Whereas empirical studies into this area are few overall, conceptual approaches have a limited grasp on the many-faceted nature of poverty-induced disconnection and its embeddedness in everyday life. This article first develops the multi-dimensional <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">media poverty</jats:italic> framework positing that disconnection can be understood as the outcome of three key preconditioning dimensions: everyday life conditions, access, and resources. Second, applying this framework in the analysis of repeated interviews with 41 poverty-stricken citizens in Norway, it illuminates how possibilities for public connection are preconditioned and restrained by life in poverty. In this way, this article advances conceptual approaches to studying media use in contexts of deprivation and provides new empirical knowledge about a critical demographic seldom studied before.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148393979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}