BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//events.la.psu.edu//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20201101T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20200308T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:16755-e6fc9d1c59643a623115254c0ffb449b@events.la.psu.edu DTSTAMP:20260504T144021Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251031T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251031T103000 SUMMARY:Center for Language Science Speaker Series: Bruce A. Desmarais DESCRIPTION:\nIn this talk\, Bruce A. Desmarais shares results from the Digitally Accountable Public Representation (DAPR) project\, in which th ey track the daily online posts of 20\,000+ U.S. elected officials acros s different platforms. After a brief overview of the DAPR project\, he f ocuses on two studies of harmful content in U.S. state legislators’ post s. In the first project\, they study how often legislators share links t o low-credibility websites on Facebook\, and who is most likely to do so . Three patterns stand out: (1) more conservative legislators share more low-credibility links\; (2) this tendency is stronger in districts wher e the public is more conservative\; and (3) legislators in states with b etter-resourced\, more professional legislatures share fewer such links. These results are robust across a variety of alternative tests. In the second project\, they examine how harmful content affects engagement wit h legislators’ posts. Looking at Facebook and Twitter\, they study refer ences to low-credibility sources and the use of uncivil or insulting lan guage. For Republican legislators\, posts linking to low-credibility sou rces draw more reactions and comments on both platforms. By contrast\, u ncivil language generally does not boost engagement on Twitter\; our Fac ebook evidence on incivility is thinner. Overall\, low-credibility shari ng is uncommon but patterned by ideology\, constituency\, and institutio ns\, and increases engagement under some conditions.\n\nFor more details : https://events.la.psu.edu/event/bruce-a-desmarais/ X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

In this talk, B ruce A. Desmarais shares results from the Digitally Accountable Public R epresentation (DAPR) project, in which they track the daily online posts of 20,000+ U.S. elected officials across different platforms. After a b rief overview of the DAPR project, he focuses on two studies of harmful content in U.S. state legislators’ posts. In the first project, they stu dy how often legislators share links to low-credibility websites on Face book, and who is most likely to do so. Three patterns stand out: (1) mor e conservative legislators share more low-credibility links; (2) this te ndency is stronger in districts where the public is more conservative; a nd (3) legislators in states with better-resourced, more professional le gislatures share fewer such links. These results are robust across a var iety of alternative tests. In the second project, they examine how harmf ul content affects engagement with legislators’ posts. Looking at Facebo ok and Twitter, they study references to low-credibility sources and the use of uncivil or insulting language. For Republican legislators, posts linking to low-credibility sources draw more reactions and comments on both platforms. By contrast, uncivil language generally does not boost e ngagement on Twitter; our Facebook evidence on incivility is thinner. Ov erall, low-credibility sharing is uncommon but patterned by ideology, co nstituency, and institutions, and increases engagement under some condit ions.

For more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/bruce-a-desmarais/

LOCATION:Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR