Joyojeet Pal

  • Social Media Influencers and the New Political Economy in South Asia and Africa

      Social Media Influencers and the New Political Economy in South Asia and Africa April 7-8, 2022, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor In Person at Room 2435, North Quad, 105 State Street, Ann Arbor, and available Online through Registration Sponsored by the Center for South Asian Studies, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, and…

  • Did Twitter Consciously Undermine an Opposition Leader in India? An Analysis of the Rahul Gandhi Following Affair

    Anmol Panda, Joyojeet Pal A complaint from Rahul Gandhi to Twitter about the stagnation in his Twitter following triggered a conversation about the social media giant’s possible role in undermining political speech. Gandhi’s team alleged that the stagnation, and occasional drop in his followers was driven by demands from the ruling party that the opposition…

  • Uttar Pradesh Elections and Twitter: The Cast of Characters

    Uttar Pradesh Elections and Twitter: An Introduction to the Cast of Characters Jivitesh Jain*, Asmit Singh*, Lalitha Kameswari, Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Joyojeet Pal The Uttar Pradesh elections are being fought on social media just as much as they are in the physical spaces of the campaign. While messages forwarded on WhatsApp are a significant piece of…

  • Viva Hate: Aryan Khan Case on Twitter

    Lalitha Kameswari, Joyojeet Pal   Abstract: We examined the activity on Twitter around the Aryan Khan case in October 2021, and found that the most retweeted messages were negative, often hateful messages aimed at the actor Shah Rukh Khan or his son, however that the hashtags more used were supportive of the star. We find…

  • Challenging big social media, falling to partisanship: The Koo Conundrum

    Asmit Kumar Singh, Jivitesh Jain, Shradha Sehgal, Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Joyojeet Pal    We examined the use of social media by politicians on Koo to understand the spread of political preference and engagement for the social media channel that has sought to challenge Twitter online. We find that the broad trend is not partisan, but almost…

  • Measuring the polarity of Indian journalists under surveillance in the 2021 Pegasus Issue

    Shehla Shora, Dibyendu Mishra, Joyojeet Pal Cite: Shora, S., Mishra, D., Pal, J. (2021) Measuring the polarity of Indian journalists under surveillance in the 2021 Pegasus Issue.  Link: https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/pegasus/   We looked at the Twitter profiles of Indian journalists and activists whose phone numbers have been found in the leaked database that is believed to be a…

  • #CongressToolkit on Twitter, an examination

    Joyojeet Pal, Rynaa Grover (Cite Grover, Rynaa, Pal, Joyojeet. 2021. #CongressToolkit on Twitter, an examination  Online at https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/congresstoolkit)     We examined the engagement with #CongressToolkit for 5 days between May 18 – May 22 by pulling the tweets of politicians and influencers that used the hashtag. The resultant dataset included 1609 unique tweets, cumulatively retweeted…

  • Misinformation in India during the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

    Zainab Akbar and Joyojeet Pal   (Cite Akbar, Zainab, Pal, Joyojeet. 2021. Misinformation in India during the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic at https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/covidsecondwave)   To understand the impact of misinformation on the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, we examined stories circulated online between March 1 and May 15, 2021 that have been debunked…

  • Does Twitter Impact Electoral Outcomes of Candidates: Evidence from West Bengal 2021 Assembly Elections

    Rynaa Grover, Joyojeet Pal (Cite Grover, Rynaa, Pal, Joyojeet. 2021. Does Twitter Impact Electoral Outcomes of Candidates: Evidence from West Bengal 2021 Assembly Elections Online at https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/twitterwb)     The answer to precisely that question is straightforward. No. But does Twitter matter for campaigns? Very likely, and there are a number of things that suggest that…