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1. Ad Delivery Algorithms: The Hidden Arbiters of Political Messaging

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3437963.3441801  

   Ali, Muhammad; Sapiezynski, Piotr; Korolova, Aleksandra; Mislove, Alan; Rieke, Aaron (March 2021, Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining)

   null (Ed.)

   Political campaigns are increasingly turning to targeted advertising platforms to inform and mobilize potential voters. The appeal of these platforms stems from their promise to empower advertisers to select (or "target") users who see their messages with great precision, including through inferences about those users' interests and political affiliations. However, prior work has shown that the targeting may not work as intended, as platforms' ad delivery algorithms play a crucial role in selecting which subgroups of the targeted users see the ads. In particular, the platforms can selectively deliver ads to subgroups within the target audiences selected by advertisers in ways that can lead to demographic skews along race and gender lines, and do so without the advertiser's knowledge. In this work we demonstrate that ad delivery algorithms used by Facebook, the most advanced targeted advertising platform, shape the political ad delivery in ways that may not be beneficial to the political campaigns and to societal discourse. In particular, the ad delivery algorithms lead to political messages on Facebook being shown predominantly to people who Facebook thinks already agree with the ad campaign's message even if the political advertiser targets an ideologically diverse audience. Furthermore, an advertiser determined to reach ideologically non-aligned users is non-transparently charged a high premium compared to their more aligned competitor, a difference from traditional broadcast media. Our results demonstrate that Facebook exercises control over who sees which political messages beyond the control of those who pay for them or those who are exposed to them. Taken together, our findings suggest that the political discourse's increased reliance on profit-optimized, non-transparent algorithmic systems comes at a cost of diversity of political views that voters are exposed to. Thus, the work raises important questions of fairness and accountability desiderata for ad delivery algorithms applied to political ads. 

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2. Meritocracy and Colorblindness: The Perpetuation of Whiteness in Engineering Education Through False Narratives

   Downey, Robert J; Mejia, Joel Alejandro; Chen, Diana A; Hoople, Gordon D (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   Historically, research in engineering education has taken a deficit-oriented perspective by focusing on the dearth of People of Color (POC) in engineering as a supply issue while ignoring the false narratives and discourses that dominate engineering education and research which exclude POC from the start. Recently, asset-based approaches have gained more traction in the field but too often miss a critical consideration: the hegemony of Whiteness in engineering. This theoretical paper is a deeper exploration of two crucial concepts that underpin the hegemonic discourse of Whiteness: meritocracy and colorblindness. We begin with a brief review of Whiteness studies which views Whiteness as the symbolic and structural white dominance and perceived superiority that marginalizes and oppresses POC and elevates white people to the top of the racial hierarchy (Matias & Newlove, 2017; McIntyre, 2002); a false ideal, guided by a historical mechanism of power, and the product of privileged social positions that benefits white people (DuBois, 1999). The purpose of this paper provides a critical perspective on how Whiteness tends to be at the foundations of these problematic narratives and discourses. The concept of meritocracy asserts that individuals are rewarded based solely on their individual effort, implying that people attain what they deserve in life through their hard work and determination. Conversely, those that are not successful are responsible for their lot in life. However, this belief in meritocracy overlooks the complex web of institutional and systemic variables that play a pivotal role in shaping life outcomes. A colorblind ideology fortifies the myth of meritocracy because it shifts the focus away from understanding how institutions perpetuate the normalized standard of white supremacy and racism, and instead places the responsibility for combating racism and white supremacy on individuals. This perspective bestows privileges upon white individuals as acts of merit if these privileges were earned solely through merit, rather than acknowledging that they are a product of a system that perpetuates advantages like a well-oiled assembly line. Meritocracy and colorblindness form a self-reinforcing cycle—a colorblind discourse in engineering education dominated by Whiteness willfully ignores the hierarchical positioning of racialized groups, fostering the misguided belief that success is determined by inherent merits. In reality, these merits are not objective or universal, but rather intangible attributes granted primarily to those who occupy the upper rungs of the hierarchical ladder within a colorblind society dominated by Whiteness and those who align with such an ideology. This theoretical paper begins to question the ways pedagogy and research are conducted in engineering education that traditionally exclude POC identities under the veil of equality, not equity. This ontological and epistemological shift is possible by questioning the very foundation that colorblindness and merit are built upon. The foundation of this work stems from an NSF grant to uncover the scripts of Whiteness in engineering education while devising a structured environment to help build individual and institutional racial literacy. 

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3. Political Elites in the Attention Economy: Visibility Over Civility and Credibility?

   https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v19i1.35814  

   Biswas, Ahana; Lin, Yu-Ru; Tai, Yuehong Cassandra; Desmarais, Bruce A (June 2025, Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media)

   Elected officials have privileged roles in public communication. In contrast to national politicians, whose posting content is more likely to be closely scrutinized by a robust ecosystem of nationally focused media outlets, sub-national politicians are more likely to openly disseminate harmful content with limited media scrutiny. In this paper, we analyze the factors that explain the online visibility of over 6.5K unique state legislators in the US and how their visibility might be impacted by posting low-credibility or uncivil content. We conducted a study of posting on Twitter and Facebook (FB) during 2020-21 to analyze how legislators engage with users on these platforms. The results indicate that distributing content with low-credibility information attracts greater attention from users on FB and Twitter for Republicans. Conversely, posting content that is considered uncivil on Twitter receives less attention. A noticeable scarcity of posts containing uncivil content was observed on FB, which may be attributed to the different communication patterns of legislators on these platforms. In most cases, the effect is more pronounced among the most ideologically extreme legislators. Our research explores the influence exerted by state legislators on online political conversations, with Twitter and FB serving as case studies. Furthermore, it sheds light on the differences in the conduct of political actors on these platforms. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role that political figures play in shaping online political discourse. 

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4. Seeing the subjective as objective: People perceive the taste of those they disagree with as biased and wrong

   https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2201  

   Cheek, Nathan N.; Blackman, Shane F.; Pronin, Emily (September 2020, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making)

   Abstract People think that they see things as they are in “objective reality,” and they impute bias and other negative qualities to those who disagree. Evidence for these tendencies initially emerged in the domain of politics, where people tend to assume that there are objectively correct beliefs and positions. The present research shows that people are confident in the correctness of their views, and they negatively judge those who disagree, even in the seemingly “subjective” domain of art. Across seven experiments, participants evaluated paintings and encountered others who agreed or disagreed with their evaluations. Participants saw others' evaluations as less objective when they clashed with their own, and as more influenced by biasing factors like conformity or financial incentives. These aesthetic preferences felt as objective as political preferences. Reminding people of their belief that artistic preferences are “matters of opinion” reduced this thinking, but did not eliminate it. These findings suggest that people's convictions of their own objectivity are so powerful as to extend to domains that are typically regarded as “subjective.” 

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5. Social Dialogue in the Engineering Classroom: The Effect of National Events on the Political and Social Attitudes of First-Year Engineering Students

   Langus, Tara C.; Pearson, Nelson; Major, Justin; Rodríguez-Simmonds, Héctor E.; Godwin, Allison; Kirn, Adam (January 2018, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   This research paper focuses on the effect of recent national events on first-year engineering students’ attitudes about their political identity, social welfare, perspectives of diversity, and approaches to social situations. Engineering classrooms and cultures often focus on mastery of content and technical expertise with little prioritization given to integrating social issues into engineering. This depoliticization (i.e., the removal of social issues) in engineering removes the importance of issues related to including diverse individuals in engineering, working in diverse teams, and developing cultural sensitivity. This study resulted from the shift in the national discourse, during the 2016 presidential election, around diversity and identities in and out of the academy. We were collecting interview data as a part of a larger study on students attitudes about diversity in teams. Because these national events could affect students’ perceptions of our research topic, we changed a portion of our interviews to discuss national events in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms and how students viewed these events in relation to engineering. We interviewed first-year undergraduate students (n = 12) who indicated large differences of attitudes towards diverse individuals, experiences with diverse team members, and/or residing at the intersection of multiple diversity markers. We asked participants during the Spring of 2017 to reflect on the personal impact of recent national events and how political discussions have or have not been integrated into their STEM classrooms. During interviews students were asked: 1) Have recent national events impacted you in any way? 2) Have national events been discussed in your STEM classes? 3) If so, what was discussed and how was it discussed? 4) Do these conversations have a place in STEM classes? 5) Are there events you wish were discussed that have not been? Inductive coding was used to analyze interviews and develop themes that were audited for quality by the author team. Two preliminary themes emerged from analysis: political awareness and future-self impact. Students expressed awareness of current political events at the local, national and global levels. They recognized personal and social impacts that these events imposed on close friends, family members, and society. However, students were unsure of how to interpret political dialogue as it relates to policy in engineering disciplines and practices. This uncertainty led students to question their future-selves or careers in engineering. As participants continued to discuss their uncertainty, they expressed a desire to make explicit connections between politics and STEM and their eventual careers in STEM. These findings suggest that depoliticization in the classroom results in engineering students having limited consciousness of how political issues are relevant to their field. This disconnect of political discourse in the classroom gives us a better understanding of how engineering students make sense of current national events in the face of depoliticization. By re-politicising STEM classrooms in a way relevant to students’ futures, educators can better utilize important dialogues to help students understand how their role as engineers influence society and how the experiences of society can influence their practice of engineering. 

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