Democracy’s Information Dilemma Student Research Showcase

To create a multidisciplinary venue for conversations on democracy around campus, the Year of Democracy hosted Democracy’s Information Dilemma, a three day symposium investigating the relationship between information and democracy. As part of the conference, graduate students showcased their research projects on an array of topics on democracy.

The student research projects investigated topics such as the attitudes of the media on TikTok, the impact of state Freedom Caucuses on state legislatures, and political discourse on social media in Kyrgyzstan. Conference attendees were able to vote for their favorite student research poster to be awarded a monetary prize from the Year of Democracy.

Two projects tied with the most votes, both receiving the top prize of $750 – the Bridge Builders Initiative at the Ford School of Public Policy researching constructive dialogue to promote conversations across difference by Rebecca Coyne, Ella Kinder, Breah Marie Willy, and Adriana Werdin; and research by Franshelly Martinez-Ortiz investigating how familiarity and identification with groups that experienced government inflicted-harm shapes government suspicion in Michigan.

“Opportunities for student research are critical to our mission of equipping the next generation of policymakers with skills to promote the public good,” said Jenna Bednar, co-chair of the Year of Democracy and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. “The more our students can apply research and learning from the classroom to their careers and contributions to civic life, such as the Bridge Builders Initiative with constructive dialogue, the stronger our democracy becomes.”

The following posters were presented at Democracy’s Information Dilemma Student Research Showcase:

• Rebecca Coyne, Ella Kinder, Adriana Werdin, Breah Marie Willy – “What is Constructive Dialogue? Bridge Builders Initiative”
• Chang Ge – “TikTok Sock Puppets in the Time of 2024 Presidential Election”
• Franshelly M. Martinez-Ortiz – “Trauma and Trust: How familiarity with government inflicted-harm and identification with harmed groups shapes government suspicion in Michigan”
• Tianliang Xu – “PublicSpeak: Hearing the Public with a Probabilistic Framework”
• Joshua Ashkinaze – “Plurals: A System for Pluralistic AI Via Simulated Social Ensembles”
• Jason Yan – “What do you Learn about Political Hard News from Soft News Outlets: A Case Study from People Online”
• Tong Lin – “NewsTok: A limited supervision framework for detecting attitudes towards “the media” on TikTok”
• Baktygul Chynybaeva – “The Role of Social Media in Political Discourse in Emerging Democracies: A Case Study of Kyrgyzstan”
• Carlos Galina – “Rightward Bound? The Impact of State Freedom on State Legislatures”