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Multi-Million Subject Experiments in Political Mobilization

On Election Day in 2010 and again in 2012, we collaborated with Facebook to deliver a message encouraging their users to vote. Subsequently, we matched Facebook records to voter records to estimate the effect of this get-out-the-vote treatment. In both elections, we show that there was a direct effect - users who saw the message were more likely to vote. Additionally, we show that a larger number of people were induced to vote through indirect effects - they were made more likely to vote through close friends receiving the message. 

 

Bio

Jason J. Jones is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University. His research examines the many ways social networks condition human behavior. In collaboration with Facebook, he has shown that appeals to vote in national elections are more effective when accompanied by social cues. Additionally, this work demonstrated that encouraging Facebook users to vote has a cascading effect through their social networks - inducing friends and friends-of-friends to vote as well. In additional work, he seeks to re-imagine and redefine Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties” hypothesis by taking into account the work histories and social networks of millions of people around the world.

Speaker

Jason Jones

Date

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Time

1 pm - 2 pm

Location

IACS Seminar Room