Do People Make Good Bots Bad?

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel challenges the notion that political bots are necessarily good or bad by highlighting relationships between political actors and transparency bots. Transparency bots are automated social media accounts which report behaviour of political players/institutions and are normally viewed as a positive force for democracy. In contrast, bot activity such as astroturfing and the creation of fake followers or friends on social media has been examined and critiqued as nefarious in academic and popular literature. We assert that the impact of transparency bots rests largely on the relationships bots have with their creators, journalists, government and political staff, and the general public. Each panelist highlights one of these relationships (noting related interactions with additional actors) in order to answer the question “How do human-bot relationships shape bots' political impact?”

Through comparative analysis of the Canadian and South African Wikiedits bots, Ford shows that transparency is not a potential affordance of the technology but rather of the conditions in place between actors. Puschmann considers the ways bots are framed and used by journalists in a content analysis of news articles. Dubois and Clarke articulate the ways public servants and political staff respond to the presence of Wikiedits bots revealing that internal institutional policies mediate the relationships these actors can have with bots. Finally, Kaiser asks how users who are not political elite actors frame transparency bots making use of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Reddit content.

Geiger (respondent) then poses questions which cut across the relationships and themes brought out by panelists. This promotes a holistic view of the bot in their actual communicative system. Cross-cutting questions illustrate that the impact of bots is seen not simply in dyadic relationships but also in the ways various actors interact with each other as well as the bots in question.

This panel is a needed opportunity to critically consider the political role and impact of transparency bots considering the bot in context. Much current literature assumes political bots have significant agency, however, bots need to interact with other political actors in order to have an impact. A nuanced understanding of the different types of relationships among political actors and bots that exists is thus essential. The cohesive conversation presented by panelists allows for a comparison across the different kinds of bot-actor relationships, focusing in detail on particular types of actors and then zooming out to address the wider system inclusive of these relationships.

Sub Unit

• Communication and Technology

Individual Presentations

• Bots and Their Creators - Heather Ford, University of New South Wales

• Bots and Journalists - Cornelius Puschmann, Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research

• Bots and Government/Political Staff - Elizabeth Dubois; Amanda Clarke, Carleton U

• Bots and Citizens - Jonas Kaiser, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard U

Respondent

• R.Stuart Geiger