If Information Created Democracy, Can Misinformation Destroy It?

“What we are seeing is death by a thousand cuts.” -Maria Ressa In 2013, the Philippines became a trial-run for Facebook’s “Free Facebook” campaign, an effort to subsidize internet access for smartphone users. The campaign was heralded as a success; nearly 69 million Filipinos use Facebook today, compared to 29 million in 2012. Yet, as …

The Civilian-Military Divide And Why You Should Care

Growing up in a small town in Oregon, I had little interaction with the military. Oregon has few active-duty military bases, most of which were several hours away. My first experience even really seeing members of the Armed Forces was on a trip to Portland to get ice cream (when you come from a small …

No, Twitter is not the same as Facebook.

During Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in front of Congress at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, senators from both sides of the aisle asked the following questions:  “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” “Is Twitter the same as what you do?”  “If I’m emailing …

What Happened?

The 2020 election was nothing short of unprecendented. For our final exam, we were given three hours to respond to one prompt to synthesize what we have learned throughout the class: “explain why the 2020 election turned out as it did.” What a complicated question to answer! As is my typical fashion, my response to …

Election Day! (Identities, Voter Suppression, and Court Rulings–oh my).

The election is TODAY, and it is hard to believe that this block is going by so quickly! Last week (week 2), our class focused on the 2016 election and turnout, building upon the framework of week 1 to apply identity-based politics to the outcome of the 2016 election. Specifically, we read the book Identity …

Political Decisions and the Power of Identity

Hello! My name is Andra Metcalfe and I am the student blogger for a class I am taking that focuses on something already at the forefront of most people’s minds this block: elections! The class is being taught by the wonderful Dana Wittmer Wolfe! The goal of this class is to provide a political science …

Smiling Through The Apocalypse: The Beginning of the End (Times)

“Oh yeah, I’ll be there. But, what are we going to do?” I asked David Hendrickson, my 4-year academic adviser, sometime during 7th block as we wrapped up a meeting spent knee deep in deciphering a coherent direction to take my big senior tutorial paper.  “To be honest, I’m not sure I want to spend …

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