NEST Distinguished Speaker Series - Elizabeth Dubois

Online influencers, elections and disinformation

Popular social media personalities, called influencers, are being integrated into elections around the world through social media marketing, influencer-for-hire networks, and propaganda campaigns. Online influencers’ ability to reach targeted and often hard to reach audiences could be a helpful advancement in campaign strategy but, if left unchecked, could also exacerbate the spread of disinformation, foreign interference, and lead to electoral interference. In this talk Dubois examines the impacts of social media on politics by focusing on online political influencers, questioning their political roles, their power, and how far their messages reach.