jen forestal

Solidarity!! Last week, Indiana University fired the director of student media & halted print on the Indiana Daily Student newspaper. Yesterday, Purdue’s student paper printed the banned edition & drove two hours to deliver it. Incredible www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/l...

ah, yes! I've also seen the Kirk quote from 2023 (re)circulating now, so thinking about contexts as both multiplatform and also temporally.

this does make me wonder about what is different about context collapse now vs "regular" games of telephone or gossip/hearsay that de/recontextualize.

the collapse of (horrible) contexts on my BS feed means im not even sure which reason that is.

(im assuming Kirk. if so, yes, but what's weird is how it's revealing context collapse not as a *passive* feature, but as the result of the right-wing actively *forcing* x's context to all other spaces)

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i guess my point is that i don't know that this is a problem that "more real doctors" would fix, since it's really a question of whether people think there's a responsibility to manage the consequences of our behavior for others, and that the state has a role in doing that

no, i agree it's a problem & that parents would have a legitimate claim to have been harmed, in any reasonable world. but whether a lawsuit would matter to policymakers in this scenario is different. is there any reason to think that the FL courts would not have the same insane "you do you" logic?

“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.” “We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the mother said in English, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination children typically receive before attending school. She said her stance on vaccination has not changed after her daughter’s death. “The measles wasn’t that bad. They got over it pretty quickly,” the mother said of her other four surviving children who were treated with castor oil and inhaled steroids and recovered.

right, i mean, we kinda already know what the response is going to be, because it already happened in texas six months ago:
www.texastribune.org/2025/03/20/t...

spam email selling active shooter accreditation for schools and daycares: "The only National Accreditation for the Safety and Security of Children, Teachers, Schools and Daycares in the United States. “We didn’t think it would happen here.” We know that schools and daycares across the country are receiving little to no help when it comes to emergency protocols..."

i hate it here.

yeah, i think that's an insane take that's neatly captured by her refusal to call it X and acknowledge the platform is fundamentally different. I'm all for persuasion, but it's interesting (telling?) she doesn't seem to discuss the fact that journos are the ones that may be persuaded... to be nazis

gah, *VIRALITY* not vitality! stupid autocorrect

Legitimating a platform: evidence of journalists’ role in transferring authority to Twitter Studies suggest a growing interdependence between journalists and Twitter. What is behind this interdependence, and how does it manifest in news texts? We argue that social media platforms (and Twi...

see, for example: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

and while i do agree that's what's happening here, i'd probably argue that the bigger problem is not necessarily the fact of context collapse (which, as "vitality" *can* actually be quite good for democracy i think!), but that mainstream journalists view Twitter as the whole world.

for citational clarity: while i maybe popularized (?) it for PT, "context collapse" comes from @alicetiara.bsky.social and @zephoria.bsky.social's classic essay!

How Should We Study Multiple Platforms? Lessons from Deliberative Systems Theory Despite agreement that political communication research should move beyond single-platform studies, there is no existing consensus on precisely how to do so. What does it mean to study social media...

my new piece in political communication (part of @meredithpruden.bsky.social @jiyoun-suk.bsky.social @jolukito.bsky.social @yunkangyang.bsky.social & Wei Zhong's issue on multiple platforms!) is now out!

This one was tough to nail down; thankful to all who helped & would love to hear thoughts!

the story today is of a profoundly low energy military parade being met with millions of americans in nationwide protests denouncing the dictatorial pretensions of the president

Bluesky won’t recreate peak Twitter. Twitter won’t recreate peak Twitter. Instagram isn’t going to go back to good Instagram. All this handwringing seems to yearning for a moment in social media history that isn’t ever coming back. Get used to it, figure out new things, build real community.

or the book version, designing for democracy, that I think complements your argument about "community" quite well! great study!

this is SO nice to hear! thank you! going to try and carry this energy into some Monday morning writing....

this was my exact first thought (in only the best way)

Da Pope: Chicago loses its mind over homegrown pontiff.

Within minutes of the announcement, Chicagoans had Photoshopped the new pope holding an Italian beef sandwich and made at least 50 Malört jokes. buff.ly/hxnbaII

ah. yeah, that's pretty similar to conversations i had this semester within my grad course (though they were more enthusiastic about decentralization/protocols). like most great classes/interesting issues, i walked away with more questions than answers.

ah, thanks stefan! this is great to hear. what (kind of) platforms were they thinking about? i'm starting a new project on decentralized stuff; i'm curious if it's similar!

i've been finding it (uncharacteristically!) hard lately to find any point to writing about dem. & digital platforms given... everything, esp the blatant cynicism of tech ppl who use the language of democracy as cover for authoritarian inclinations. but these essays brought me back! i'm grateful!

Thinking democracy in a digital age - Contemporary Political Theory Contemporary Political Theory -

CPT just published a symposium on my book! huge thanks to Susan Bickford, @pollysigh.bsky.social, @nicolecurato.bsky.social, @jgastil.bsky.social, Victor Bruzzone, @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social for contributions that critique, stretch, & apply the book's argument in such generous & productive ways

Really great to see the Coalition for Independent Tech Research weighing in on the unethical Reddit experiment.

independenttechresearch.org/a-case-for-e...

yeah, just absolutely delusional to be responding to a community clearly articulating the harm you've caused by saying "no harm here, this random committee says so" or "the findings we got are worth it" (🙄)

a total, utter failure of professional ethics or, like, basic human decency

right? also that the mods filed a complaint with the IRB, who then doubled down on "nah, it's fine no harm actually." and then for the researchers to say "see, IRB says it's cool" *while responding to an angry torrent of comments citing harm* is just unreal.

more good thoughts on this violation.

i have to wonder if researchers' willingness to treat reddit as simply data (& not people) is exacerbated by either/both the site's anonymity and, maybe more importantly, its reputation.

this is so deeply messed up & i hope the research team is appropriately censured for it (if not, as it seems, by their IRB then by the rest of the academic communities they try to engage)