New research suggests that a phenomenon called biased assimilation makes people view new, inconclusive evidence in ways that support existing biases, leading to increased polarization on topics such as politics or even what we read online. Read more »
The practice of locking phones is a symptom of a greater disease in the U.S.: device subsidies. If we can separate the hardware from the service, consumers will ultimately have greater choice and save money. Read more »
Guess what, accurately predicting the outcomes of elections really isn’t a partisan affair. What Nate Silver and several others accomplished in perfectly predicting the election isn’t about finding data to support their desired outcomes. It’s about processing reams of imperfect data and figuring out what matters. Read more »
It’s one day before the presidential election, and the results from computer models and other data analyses are in, with most experts giving President Obama a higher probability of winning than challenger Mitt Romney. That’s no lock, however: while data doesn’t lie, models sometimes do. Read more »
Monday night’s third presidential debate is your last chance to see Obama and Romney duke it out in front of an audience of millions before election night. Our ultimate debate watching guide lists all the live streams, apps and fact checking feeds you need to know. Read more »
As election season heats up, the Pew Internet & America Life Project looks at how democrats and republicans compare in their social behavior online. The study found that two-thirds of U.S. social media users have taken one of eight political or civic actions with social media. Read more »
Live streams of the presidential debate? Check. Second screen apps that let you voice your opinion about either candidate’s performance? Got it. Live-teweeting fact-checkers? Of course. A debate drinking game? Cheers! Our ultimate guide to watching the second presidential debate got all your needs covered. Read more »
Campaigns have been profiling potential voters for decades, but the glut of data available online changed the game in terms of how much they collect and how it’s used. Now, thanks to complex models and real-time ad platforms, poltiical advertising is becoming a personal affair. Read more »
The debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney was the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history — but is the kind of real-time commentary and instant analysis that Twitter provides a good thing or a bad thing for the political process or society as a whole? Read more »
Although Twitter is pushing itself as a platform to gauge public opinion around popular events — including the upcoming presidential election — not everyone is buying the hype. Stats about sentiment and tweet velocity are certainly interesting, but man cannot live on tweet data alone. Read more »
Are you away from your TV when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are going to face off during their first presidential debate this Wednesday? No worries, plenty of sites are providing live streams, combined with realt-ime fact checking and mobile cheering and booing. Read more »
Open-source principles have helped create a host of useful software, including the Linux operating system and the crowd-powered resource that is Wikipedia — but could the same approach be used to open up the process of producing government legislation? Clay Shirky argues that it could. Read more »
This week’s Democratic National Convention will be live streamed by a number of broadcasters, print publishers and political websites. There will be live fact checking, live video for iPads, a live hat cam and even a live Kumar cameo. Check out the details in our ultimate guide. Read more »
Yahoo fired its former Washington bureau chief on Wednesday for a joking comment he made during a video broadcast from the Republican convention. Isn’t it about time we admitted that journalists have emotions and opinions, rather than expecting them to be impartial robots? Read more »
There has been a rush of fact-checking of recent comments made by Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, but does this mean the traditional media’s obsession with objectivity and the “view from nowhere” has changed? Not really — which is why more alternative sources are necessary. Read more »
The rise of social media tools such as blogs and Twitter have changed the political landscape, in part by speeding up the news cycle and broadening the range of sources that are available. But are these developments good or bad for the practice of political journalism? Read more »
Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul took to the podium at a Heritage Foundation event last week to talk about tech policy. However, individual rights and less government regulation certainly are important to the future of the internet, there are necessary limits to that freedom. Read more »
There’s so much data available and such powerful tools for analyzing it that the world might be a lot better off if politicians listened to the data first, rather than their parties or constituents. Already, data is showing ways to limit everything from traffic to AIDS. Read more »
Amy Howe used to think 3,000 live blog participants was a lot. Thursday, more than 500,000 users tuned into SCOTUSblog to find out how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on health care and what it meant. Read more at paidContent »
PoliticIt is a Logan, Utah-based startup that uses machine learning to gauge the popularity of political candidates by measuring their digital influence. Its system has proven remarkably accurate in predicting winners, but its real promise is in leveling the playing field between political haves and have-nots. Read more »
UK politician Louise Mensch has got a ton of publicity for her new startup, Menshn — a Twitter-like messaging service that has pre-determined topics for people to talk about. But here’s the thing: it’s an idea that’s rotten from top to bottom. Read more »
What do you get when you mix the New York Times with a site best known for viral cat videos? We’ll soon find out as the Grey Lady announced today that it will be working with BuzzFeed to provide video from this summer’s political conventions. Read more at paidContent »
How have blogs and Twitter and other forms of social media changed the nature of the political process and the media reporting of that process? At paidContent 2012, I talked with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Vivian Schiller of NBC News about that question. Read more at paidContent »
With each passing elections season, we’re seeing more how social media is changing the political news coverage business. It’s not just sped up the news cycle, but it’s helped kill it, said Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of TalkingPointsMemo.com, at paidContent2012. Read more at paidContent »
Politico has a great post Wednesday that details how folks in Washington are astonished Apple isn’t blanketing Capitol Hill with lobbyists and money. It goes against standard procedure in our nation’s capital, but as is well known in tech, Apple doesn’t tend to follow standard procedures Read more »
The Atlantic recently published an article on what politicans know about voters, complete with market research data that breaks down consumer preferences by poltical party and likely turnout on voting day. There are some strong associations that lack political explanations. I want to know why. Read more »
One of the most disruptive aspects of social media is that it allows newsmakers such as politicians to reach an audience directly, instead of going through traditional channels. This is changing the relationship between sources and the media not just in the U.S. but everywhere. Read more »
The federal government talked a lot about grand scientific visions when it unveiled its big data agenda last week, but the government has consumers on its mind, too. Specifically, it doesn’t want to unduly hinder innovation, and it might even be willing to provide data. Read more »
Social media are a great source of information on consumer sentiment, but the next wave of analytics in social media will be influence. It’s easy to ridicule your friends and co-workers who are actually concerned with their Klout scores, but this stuff matters. Read more »
The files J. Edgar Hoover kept are nothing compared to the data collected by the Republican and Democratic campaigns in the coming 2012 elections. Thanks to tools such as Hadoop and Hive, campaigns can now predict how to target their campaigns. What’s next? Read more »
On Super Tuesday, when 10 states hold their presidential primaries and 419 delegates are up for grabs, the election trackers at Yahoo and Fizziology have Mitt Romney as the favorite to win the day. The day might not go as well for Rick Santorum. Read more »
The White House announced major privacy initiatives this week amidst a growing hubbub over how technology companies use consumers’ personal data. The news sheds light on both the privacy debate and on how the players involved are attempting to maintain political control of the issue… Read more »
According to a predictive analysis experiment by a Yahoo data scientist, U.S. voters can expect to see either a Mitt Romney-Chris Christie or a Newt Gingrich-Marco Rubio ticket to face off against Obama-Biden in this year’s presidential election, if his data is accurate. Read more »
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has drawn the ire of many tech industry leaders for its potential to squash innovation. GigaOM talked to O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly about why SOPA is wrong and what the tech industry can do to stop it. Read more »
The Indian government is reportedly looking to back around eight smart grid pilot projects in the country worth close to $100 million. The country will need an updated grid if it’s going to add 20 GW of utility-scale solar by 2020. Read more »
With a competitive primary and caucus season upon us for the 2012 Republican Presidential race (the Democratic race is uncontested with President Obama running for re-election), your iPhone could be a handy guide in helping you decide whom to vote for. Read more »
Dozens of floats, all made entirely from flowers and other organic materials, marching bands, cheerleaders and… Occupy protesters? This year’s Tournament of the Roses parade promises to be a little different. But no worries: Both the parade and the surrounding protests will be streamed online. Read more »
The latest attack on the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) shows that the tech industry is getting smarter about talking to Washington. Industry groups are now stressing how crucial the Internet is to job creation, a hot topic in the current political climate. Read more »
Another election year is nearly upon us, and if the past is any lesson, new uses of technology will impact the outcome in many new and unpredictable ways. Read more »
The YouTube videos of a police officer using pepper spray on peaceful UC Davis protesters have gone around the world. The incident was captured by dozens of cameras, as the Occupy protests have become the birth place of a new citizen video journalism. Read more »
