Prof. Tavneet Suri writes for The Huffington Post that text messages can improve civic engagement in developing countries, if the electoral system is perceived as fair. “While it’s clear that get-out-the-vote text messages have enormous potential to increase civic engagement and participation, it’s also clear that these messages carry an implicit promise of transparency and openness,” writes Suri.
Terri Rupar reports for The Washington Post that researchers from MIT’s Laboratory for Social Machines have analyzed Twitter conversation surrounding the Supreme Court vacany and found that “people are definitely seeing the vacancy and Obama's nomination as issues for the 2016 election.”
Washington Post reporter Scott Clement compares the results of an analysis performed by MIT researchers of key issues on Twitter in the 2016 presidential race to a national survey. The researchers found that foreign policy and race are key issues on Twitter, while the national survey found that the economy and jobs were top priorities for voters.
MIT researchers have found that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the leading online influencers of the 2016 presidential election, reports Natalie Andrew for The Wall Street Journal. Research scientist William Powers explained that the findings show, “how influential social media and earned media is in the election.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Jill Terreri Ramos explores research by MIT political scientists into the political leanings of all 50 states over the past eight decades. “To understand national politics, we can learn about state politics,” explains Prof. Chris Warshaw.
In an article for Boston.com about The New York Times and Boston Globe endorsing Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, writer Nik DeCosta-Klipa references Prof. Christopher Warshaw’s study that found voters are “more likely to support a candidate that receives an endorsement from a like-minded group.”
Researchers from the Laboratory for Social Machines have partnered with The Washington Post to examine how people are discussing the current presidential election on Twitter. The researchers use a program that detects and categorizes tweets “to see which issues or candidates have had the biggest share of the conversation.”
Patrick J. Egan writes for The Washington Post about the racial diversity of police forces. In examining how politics may influence the makeup of a police force, Egan highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Chris Warshaw that found that municipal governments tend to adapt to voters’ views.
Washington Post reporter Philip Bump writes about the average voter waiting time in states across the U.S., citing Professor Charles Stewart’s work examining voting lines. Stewart and his colleagues found that in 2012 Florida voters had to wait on average 45 minutes, Bump reports.
Salon reporter Allegra Kirkland reports on a study co-authored by MIT Professor Chris Warshaw that examined the political leanings of cities across America. The researchers found that “ideology has tangible effects on policy at the municipal level,” Kirkland writes.
In a piece for The Boston Globe, Kevin Lewis writes about how political scientists from MIT and the University of California, Berkeley found that, contrary to popular belief, Senator Joseph McCarthy did not influence the outcomes of the 1950 and 1952 Senate elections.
Forbes reporter Naomi Shavin writes about the new MIT study that found that municipal governments accurately represent their residents’ political beliefs. The study also showed that “the most conservative cities are skewed toward being more liberal than one might expect,” Shavin writes.
“In a recent study, Boston was ranked the fifth most liberal city in the United States,” writes Megan Turchi for Boston.com about new research conducted by Professor Chris Warshaw. Warshaw’s study examined how closely aligned urban governments are with their constituents’ viewpoints and ranked the most liberal and conservative cities.
WBUR’s Benjamin Swasey reports on Professor Chris Warshaw’s new study examining how reflective governments are of their constituents’ views. “When you put all this stuff together, it turns out that cities are quite responsive to how liberal their publics are,” explains Warshaw.
Writing for The Washington Post, Hunter Schwartz reports on new findings concerning municipal governments from Professor Chris Warshaw. Schwartz writes that the study found, “Even cities with governments designed to be less partisan, with institutions like nonpartisan elections and professional managers instead of elected mayors, are in line with residents’ political beliefs.”