RSA Conversations

How Internet Culture Poisoned Politics, with Whitney Phillips

Episode Summary

Has the dark side of the internet hijacked the White House? With Whitney Phillips.

Episode Notes

Is it inevitable that the internet and social media drive us to the extremes? Or do they just hold up a mirror to an already divided culture? And we explore the dark side of the internet – trolls, racist memes, hate-filled comment sections and increasingly virulent culture wars – and ask whether it hijacked the White House.

Guest

• Whitney Phillips, Assistant Professor of Communication, Culture, and Digital Technologies at Syracuse University, and author of ‘This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture’

Links

• Whitney Phillips on Twitter
• Whitney's May 2018 report for Data & Society: The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online
• Whitney's 2016 article for Slate: 'Donald Trump Is Not a Troll'
• Ian Leslie on Twitter
• Matthew Taylor on Twitter

Produced by James Shield.

Brought to you by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).

www.theRSA.org