Show Notes 

Jennifer Earl is professor of sociology and a professor of government and public policy at the university of Arizona. Her research focuses on Internet and social movements, social movement repression, and the sociology of law. She is the 2017 winner of the William F. Ogburn Career Achievement Award, awarded by the communication, information technologies, and media sociology section of the American Sociological Association.

I invited her to the podcast to talk about the use of the internet by political activists. When I say Internet, I don’t just mean social media. Social media gets a lot of attention, especially when people talk about polarization, but the internet is more than just Twitter and Facebook, and I think people sometime misunderstand how the internet is being used by political activists. I also wanted to talk to her about how the internet can be used to deceive people, and how people can become discerning consumers of web content.

Selected Quotes

One should treat information on the Web with more criticism than we often treat it. So I think a practice that I try to use is that if I read something that I’m surprised about, many people will then try to Google a confirmation of that. So they’ll read “X happened,” and then they’ll google “Did X Happen?” Or they’ll just google “X” and see what comes up. But I would recommend that you try you consider falsification too, just like in social science so that you also try to search for negative evidence like this didn’t happen. So you might Google “X isn’t true” or “X is a myth.” Now certainly sometimes that’s going to get you to places where… Well, probably X was true. So, one of the things about holocaust denial is that holocaust denial plays on that kind of format of question (”X is a myth”) to bring people into holocaust denial websites. So I’m not saying that you should trust falsification on the web 100 percent of the time either, but I think you should have a healthy skepticism about what you read even if it’s sent to you by someone you trust because you don’t know their vetting procedure.

Transcript

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Transcript

Chris Martin: My guess today is Jennifer Earl and she’s a professor of sociology and a professor of government and public policy at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on internet and social movements, social movement repression and the sociology of law. And she’s the 2017 winner of the William F. Ogburn Career Achievement Award, which is awarded by Communication, Information Technologies and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association. I invited her to the podcast to talk about the use of the internet by political activists. And when I say internet, I don’t just mean social media. Social media gets a lot of attention especially when people are talking about polarization, but the internet is much broader than that. And I think sometimes people misunderstand based on the writings of some popular authors how the internet is actually being used.

I also wanted to talk to her about how the internet can be used to deceive people and how people can become more discerning users of web content. So here is Jennifer Earl.

Welcome to the show.

Jennifer Earl: Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Chris Martin: I wanted to start by talking about your 2011 book, Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age. You co-authored that with Katrina Kimport. Can you tell us a little bit about that book?

Jennifer Earl: Certainly.