Associate Professor of Sociology Stephen Barnard recently did an interview with The Annex Sociology Podcast and discussed his research on Twitter and its effects on our informational diet.
Barnard's research and teaching focus on the role media and communication technologies play in relations of power, practice, and democracy. He recently had a book he co-authored, All Media are Social - Sociological Perspectives on Mass Media, published. His first book, Citizens at the Gates: Twitter, Networked Publics, and the Transformation of American Journalism, was published in 2018 and draws insights from nearly a decade of mixed-method research, analyzing Twitter’s role in the transformation of American journalism.
Barnard enjoys tying his scholarship directly to his teachings. This project has already informed and been informed by the work done in his First-Year Seminar course on fake news, as well as his advanced topics seminar on media and power. He plans to use this opportunity to try to cultivate student collaborators to join the project, whether as research assistants or as independent (Honors and/or SYE project) researchers.