Is social media good or bad for social unity?

We tend to talk about social media in sweeping terms: It's either the death knell for democracy or its savior. It's a tool to fight authoritarianism or a weapon to spread strategic misinformation. It polarizes us or pulls ...

The history of abortion access in the US

For many, the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion rights, came as a shock. To historians, however, it's one more link in a chain that extends much farther into the past than is ...

Exploring the reality of unread Stasi files

Many people—including public figures such as Nobel Laureate Günter Grass, former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and trade union leader Claus Weselsky—choose not to read their Stasi files. How can this behavior ...

Opinion: The algorithm, a tool against populist rhetoric

There is no shortage of critiques concerning the use of AI in public decision-making processes. Scholars, for example, have described algorithms as a "toxic cocktail for democracy" by pointing at the ever-growing availability ...

New study on coal phase-out fuels doubts about 'commissionitis'

A novel research approach that analyzes political discourse through the automated text evaluation of comments on the social media platform Twitter is now providing insights into a fundamental question of climate policy: Does ...

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