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Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231152193 for Does the Musk Twitter Takeover Matter? Political Influencers, Their Arguments, and the Quality of Information They Share by Deana A. Rohlinger, Kyle Rose, Sarah Warren and Stuart Shulman in Socius

This article focuses on the role of digital media in the shift toward a “post-secular society.” Whereas classical sociologists presented technology and religion as incompatible by depicting technology’s spread as a powerful force of rationalization, disenchantment, and, ultimately, secularization, such assumptions have been contested as modernist ideologies rather than empirical assessments. By reviewing the literature thereon, the authors suggest, firstly, that traditional religions spread through digital media; secondly, that religious contents play a large role in digital media; and, thirdly, that there is an emergence of religions of digital media, placing digital technology itself at the center of religious speculation. As a consequence, the authors argue that this digitalization of religion makes clear that sociological assumptions about the incompatibility between technology and religion and related theories about progressive secularization and disenchantment have become problematic.

This paper explores how a global health crisis affects the causes and consequences of social movements. Drawing on media coverage, press releases, emails, and other available primary data sources, we examine how the pandemic changed the opportunities and conditions for activists on the right and left and those they challenge. We begin by considering the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant government response, which alters the structure of political opportunities activists face. We then look at the development of a range of protest campaigns that have emerged in response, assessing changes in opportunities for activists to reach and mobilize target constituencies, the construction of grievances, nature of alliances, as well as innovation in tactics and organization. Finally, we consider the potential outcomes of these protests during the pandemic and extending afterward.

On January 6, 2021, the world watched as Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol. However, in this paper, I argue that social scientists should not simply focus on Trump or the Republicans who have supported his false claims that the presidency was stolen from him. Instead, researchers need to leverage the insights provided by sociology, political science and information studies and communication to unpack the increasingly dysfunctional movement-party dynamics in the U.S., which not only made the January 6th riots possible but continue to erode democratic processes. Here, I outline four developments over the last thirty years that help account for the contemporary political moment and underscore the role of digital technologies in these developments.

This paper unpacks how dynamic political and media systems shape the kinds of frames political actors champion, when and how they express support for frames and the implications of both for individual claimsmaking. To do so, we conduct a rigorous qualitative analysis of discourse during a two-week period in which the Florida legislature considered and passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act after a shooter killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida. We systematically explore how two framing dynamics – competition and amplification – shape what frames political actors champion and the relative effects of these dynamics on individual claimsmaking in 438 letters to the editor and op-eds appearing in mainstream outlets, 4,962 emails sent to Florida Governor Rick Scott, and 1,000 tweets. We find that amplification and competition shape the relative visibility of frames and the frequency with which individuals use these frames in their claimsmaking. Generally speaking, gun control and progressive groups selectively amplified frames associated with the emerging, student-led Never Again Marjory Stoneman Douglas movement and legislative frames that were consistent with their goals. This seems to have increased the visibility of these ideas in mainstream outlets and influenced claimsmaking insofar as individuals drew on amplified frames across the forums relatively frequently. This was not true of frames opposing gun control. Gun rights groups bickered with politicians and among themselves. As a result, gun rights frames were less prevalent in mainstream discourse and in individual claimsmaking.

In order to identify factors that may help explain when individual claimsmaking converges around a common set of messages on different forums across a complex media system, we examine individual discourse during the two-week period in which the "Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act" was debated, passed, and signed into law by Governor Rick Scott. Specifically, we assess the extent to which two factors identified in the literature as relevant to individual expression – elite frames and movement mobilization – seem to influence claimsmaking in three mediated forums - Twitter, Letters to the Editor and op-eds that appear in mainstream news outlets, and emails sent to Rick Scott about the legislation. We find that movement mobilization, in particular, seems to have influenced individual claimsmaking across the forums. Additionally, we find that there is more coalescence in claimsmaking around the gun control movement than the gun rights movement, and that movement coordination may help explain these differences.

Here, we examine how individuals communicate with politicians about issues directly. Drawing on a sample of 2,509 e-mails sent to Florida Governor Jeb Bush in response to his efforts to reinsert the hydration and nutrition tubes of Terri Schiavo, we analyze how individuals pair (in)civility and emotional expressions in their claimsmaking. We find that emails sent to Bush about the Schiavo case are largely polite, even when individuals’ disagreed with Bush’s intervention on Terri’s behalf. We also find that individuals expressed a lot of emotion in their emails, and that the first emotional expression typically was negative. In order to better understand the relationship between (in)civility and emotional expression, we qualitatively analyze the messaging in the 383 emails containing incivility, and find that individuals directed negative emotional expressions at different targets. Emailers expressing negative emotions and incivility at Bush largely criticize him for violating individual rights, and, nearly half, blast him for prioritizing the Schiavo case over other problems facing the state. In contrast, emailers expressing negative emotions and incivility at Terri’s husband and a prominent judge try to persuade Bush to hold one or both of these men accountable for Terri’s death. We conclude the paper by underscoring the utility in distinguishing emotional expression from (in)civility.