[ecrea] IJoC Publishes Special Section on Computational Propaganda: Automation, Algorithms, and Politics

The International Journal of Communication Publishes a Special Section on
Computational Propaganda: Automation, Algorithms, and Politics Political 
actors around the world are using algorithms and automation to
change the process of political communication and to manipulate public
opinion.  Political bots—automated and politically oriented accounts that
mimic real users on social media platforms—are used to engage with
political opponents, journalists and average citizens.
The bulk of digital communications are no longer between people but between
devices, about people, over the Internet of things, and through algorithmic
mediation. Who builds these automated and algorithmic tools and why?  What
is the impact of automated political communication, and how does automation
complicate the study of political communication?  What does responsible and
ethical research into automation, algorithms, and politics look like, and
what can researchers contribute to either public policy or public
understanding of computational propaganda?
 This Special Section on Computational Propaganda: Automation, Algorithms,
and Politics, guest-edited by Philip N. Howard and Samuel C. Woolley, seeks
to answer these questions and advance our understanding of the impact bots
on political communication.
This is a collection of articles resulting from a preconference at the 2016
International Communication Association meetings.  We find that algorithms
and automation govern many kinds of relationships, and we seek to understand
their impact on both research methods and public life.

Please read these papers that just published October 13, 2016 at
http://ijoc.org.
Political Communication, Computational Propaganda, and Autonomous Agents —
Introduction
Samuel C. Woolley, Philip N. Howard

Keeping Ottawa Honest—One Tweet at a Time? Politicians, Journalists,
Wikipedians and Their Twitter Bots
Heather Ford, Elizabeth Dubois, Cornelius Puschmann

Talking to Bots: Symbiotic Agency and the Case of Tay
Gina Neff, Peter Nagy

Where Do Bots Come From? An Analysis of Bot Codes Shared on GitHub
Bence Kollanyi

Bots and Political Influence: A Sociotechnical Investigation of Social
Network Capital
Dhiraj Murthy, Alison B. Powell, Nick Anstead, Ramine Tinati, Leslie Carr,
Susan J. Halford, Mark Weal

When the Algorithm Itself is a Racist: Diagnosing Ethical Harm in the Basic
Components of Software
Christian Sandvig, Kevin Hamilton, Karrie Karahalios, Cedric Langbort

Auditing for Transparency in Content Personalization Systems
Brent Mittelstadt

Growing Bot Security: An Ecological View of Bot Agency
Douglas Guilbeault
When Bots Tweet: Toward a Normative Framework for Bots on Social Networking
Sites — Feature
Nathalie Maréchal

Automation, Big Data and Politics: A Research Review
Samantha Shorey, Philip N. Howard

_____________________________________________

Larry Gross
Editor

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor

Philip N. Howard, Samuel C. Woolley
Guest Editors
___________________________________________________
International Journal of Communication (IJoC)
USC Annenberg Press
University of Southern California
http://ijoc.org/

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