Voter turnout in many western democracies has been decreasing since the 1980s. Political scientists believe that, in the US, this is a result of politicians focusing their resources towards expensive media campaigns, instead of intensive local campaigning and get-out-the-vote initiatives. Moreover, negative campaigning and the use of attack ads and smear campaigns can turn voters … Read more
Elections in A Pandemic: What Covid is Teaching Us about the Potential of Online Elections There is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed the landscape of elections forever. Many elections worldwide have already been postponed, or are at risk of being postponed, and with the US set to have its Presidential, Congressional and Senate elections … Read more
Campaigning in a pandemic While there is little doubt that face-to-face campaigning is still a vital aspect of political campaigns, the current situation with Covid-19 has confined us to our homes for the foreseeable future. However, by placing us firmly behind our screens, the current pandemic gives us ample opportunity to rethink our campaigning methods. … Read more
What are deepfakes and how are they made? The next phase of misinformation is being fuelled by AI, leading some, like the Wall Street Journal to take matters into their own hands and launch a deepfakes task force, the WSJ Media Forensics Committee. The machine learning technique called “generative adversarial networks” is the system on … Read more