Pop Matters Features Jen Schradie's The Revolution That Wasn't
"Could it be that the internet and social media is innately in sync with conservative, right-wing ideology?," writes Hans Rollman on Jen Schradie's The Revolution That Wasn't.
In The Revolution That Wasn't: How Digital Activism Favors Conservatives, Jen Schradie conducts a study based off of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's decision to ban political advertising. She argues that his decision rules in favor of the right-winged.
Rollmann writes:
"It is not just a question of the old catching up with the young, but of the poor never being able to catch up with the rich," Schradie writes. Her findings up-end a lot of prevailing assumptions about age and internet use. While overall, youth use the internet more than older age groups, it was conservative, right-leaning senior citizens who proved to be more engaged digital activists than younger internet users. Indeed, left-leaning activist groups with younger members proved to have far less digital presence than older groups.
Race is another complex dynamic. While studies show that African Americans are twice as likely to post to social media than white users, this higher rate only exists among African Americans who are able to achieve a consistent online presence in the first place. "Seventy-eight percent of white Americans have high-speed broadband at home while only 58 percent of African Americans do, and 9 percent of whites rely on their smartphone for internet access while 15 percent of Blacks do, as opposed to having home access," she observes.