This working group investigates the ways through which digital technologies can help citizens challenge authoritarian rule while also giving governments new tools for surveillance, censorship, manipulation, and repression. It will examine how these opposing forces interact across countries and platforms, including less-studied services such as Telegram and WhatsApp.
The group will primarily bring together researchers using qualitative and computational/quantitative approaches. It will combine digital ethnography and discourse analysis with social network analysis, natural language processing, and large language models. Comparative discussion will focus on political contexts, platform features, ethical risks, and the growing role of generative AI in activism and state propaganda.
The group aims to produce an accessible summary report, develop a comparative research framework, propose panels for international conferences, and prepare the basis for a joint research grant to continue this line of inquiry.
Main Research Areas
- Digital activism
- Digital authoritarianism
- Social platforms
- Computational social science
- Large language models