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Waatainen, Henry

Little has been written about the effects that social media news bans (SMNBs) have on journalism and, as a potential consequence, democracy. This paper provides an initial assessment of whether SMNBs—in particular, those that are isolated to specific countries and social media platforms—incentivize online news organizations to shift their publication patterns in ways that could be detrimental to citizen participation in democracy. More specifically, an original dataset of Canadian newspaper headlines from before and after Meta’s 2023 SMNB is analyzed for correlations between the existence of an SMNB and the amount of sensationalized and foreign news published. The results indicate no observable effect on either outcome. Therefore, this study does not find that SMNBs pose significant consequences for the quality and quantity of domestic journalism in the sample examined. However, further research is necessary in order to determine what broader impact such bans may have on individuals’ capacity to make informed democratic decisions.

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University of British Columbia. POLI 492

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0443576

Arts, Faculty of; Political Science, Department of

Undergraduate

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