“A Risk-as-Feelings Approach to Online Political Expression”
By Ayşenur Dal (School of Communication, The Ohio State University)
Date: Thursday, February 15th, 2018
Time: 12.40 – 13.40
Place: FF-B06 (FADA Building)
Abstract: Policy observers have noted that networked authoritarian governments have increasingly placed legal and political constraints upon political expression within social media. I focus on the psychological dimensions of this online repression by applying concepts from risk and decision-making research. I posit that networked authoritarian regimes’ constraints influence how citizens feel about online political expression. The discussion centers around the importance of adopting a risk and affective heuristic framework for understanding political activism in authoritarian settings and future directions for research.
Ayşenur Dal currently works at the School of Communication, The Ohio State University. Her research interests include political activism via new information and communication technologies, perception of risk, and online social networks. Their most recent publication is “A pyschological firewall? Risk perceptions and public support for online censorship in Russia.”