Social media connects people and amplifies different aspects of humanity in good and bad ways. But the effects of social media appear neither universally good nor bad, but rather present an oscillating, dynamic system that can be divisive but also uniting, a new UC Davis study suggests.
Facebook recently awarded two grants to the Department of Communication researchers in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science to study misinformation and polarization on social media.
Do we always want people to show empathy? Not so, said researchers from the University of California, Davis. A recently published paper suggests that although empathy is often portrayed as a virtue, people who express empathy are not necessarily viewed favorably.
With California Sen. Kamala Harris out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, UC Davis communication professor Magdalena Wojcieszak and colleagues investigated who her supporters are likely to vote for.
With the political divide growing wider and emotions running hotter, what can we do to help people to better understand each other and work together even when they don’t see eye to eye? Magdalena Wojcieszak, an associate professor of communication at UC Davis, is looking for answers.
America’s political divide runs deep — with vastly different views among left, right and moderate voters on the nature of right and wrong, according to a recent study by UC Davis political scientist Christopher Hare.
Gary C. Jacobson, a distinguished professor of political science at UC San Diego, delivered the 2013 Sheffrin Lecture "Partisan Polarization in American Politics."
In his presentation, Jacobson described how ideological differences between the American national parties have been widening for several decades, and that partisan divisions are now greater than at any time since the Civil War.