Bruce Bimber
Distinguished Professor
University of California, Santa Barbara
Since 1996 I have studied how democratic politics works when digital media are in the mix. In recent years, I have focused on the accumulating problems for democracy that are associated with social media: selective exposure, polarization, populism, and disinformation. One of my long-standing interests has been how digital media facilitate like-minded people finding one another and acting together, with or without the support of established organizations and their agendas. Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, there were lots of cases of this kind of mobilization contributing to the richness of democracy, such as the Occupy Movement. More recently, the dark side of this process has become more apparent as people with hateful and extremist messages find one another and act together, and as people across societies are mobilized by conspiracy theories and other falsehoods. I am currently trying to understand better the links between democratically corrosive messages in social media and people's engagement in public affairs.
Below are select recent articles. My CV is here.
Theocharis, Y., Boulianne, S., Koc-Michalska, K., & Bimber, B. (2022). Platform affordances and political participation: How social media platforms reshap political engagement. West European Politics. DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2022.2087410
Bimber, B. & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2022). Social influence and political participation around the world. European Journal of Political Science, 14(2), 135-154. DOI: 10.1017/S175577392200008X
Koc-Michalska, K., Bimber, B., Jenkins, M., Gomez, D., & Boulianne, S. (2020). Public beliefs about falsehoods in news. International Journal of Press/Politics, 25(3), 447- 468. DOI: 10.1177/1940161220912693
Boulianne, S., Koc-Michalska, K., & Bimber, B. (2020). Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in western democracies. New Media & Society, 22(4), 683-699. DOI: 10.1177/1461444819893983
Bimber, B. & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2020). The unedited public sphere. New Media & Society, 22(4), 700-715. DOI: 0.1177/1461444819893980