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SLU-Madrid's Jordá Probes Social Media's Influence on Political Opinion

by Isaiah Voss on 11/07/2024

11/07/2024

Beatriz Jordá, Ph.D. (cand.), presented her dissertation to the SLU-Madrid community and students from a Toledo, Spain, high school on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Taking advantage of Election Day in the U.S., Jordá explained her research on "Online Personal Influence: the Dynamics, Mechanisms and Antecedents of Political Persuasion in Social Media."

Her doctorate explores how social media affects users' opinions when viewing political content.

She presented her qualitative and quantitative research to a group of students and faculty members in the San Ignacio Hall Auditorium.

"I have always consumed news through social media accompanied by users' comments," said Jordá while explaining her interest in the topic.

Woman with a microphone in hand looks at a slide of a presentation on a screen on stage in a small auditorium with students in the audience. The slide reads: Political polarization: Social media and political persuasion: What drives influence online?

Jordá presents her Ph.D. research to faculty and students in the San Ignacio Hall Auditorium on Nov. 5, 2024. Photo by Isaiah Voss. 

Self-described as "very open to opinion change," Jordá conducted 76 interviews and nearly 600 two-wave panel surveys to study the relationship between politics and social media.

"I wanted to find out what fosters someone to change their opinion," Jordá said.

Jordá's students from her Advanced Strategies of Rhetoric and Research class attended her presentation. She hopes that students learn that "we can be aware of the thought process we go through and the effect of content on our beliefs." She added that research shows that young people, especially so-called digital natives, have trouble detecting fake news.

She has used her research as examples in the classroom since starting as a part-time professor in spring 2023.

The phenomena mentioned in Jordá's work also appeared in her Communication Research course last year. "This helps students rationalize their own cognitive processes, so they don't fall in the trap of fake news," she said.

Jordá's dissertation is expected to be approved by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in winter 2025. She hopes that her work can contribute a more holistic approach when studying political persuasion in the field of media effects.