Shannon McGregor, PhD
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shannimcg.bsky.social
Shannon McGregor, PhD
@shannimcg.bsky.social
Professor at UNC. Principal investigator at CITAP. Researching & writing on political comm: identity, social media, public opinion, data, news. BOOK: Media & January 6th (Oxford) https://global.oup.com/academic/product/media-and-january-6th-9780197758533
Pinned
For those further interested in the political emptiness of polarization, you can read the longer, more academic screed that @dkreiss.bsky.social & I published. It’s #openaccess
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901
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November 24, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
Fantastic 1st day of conferencing at #IJPP2025. Lots of new faces, projects & ideas.
Topics:
International ✅
Press (in various shapes and mediums)✅
Politics ✅
@taberez.bsky.social @shannimcg.bsky.social @patyrossini.bsky.social @profvaccari.bsky.social
@rasmuskleis.bsky.social
@polcomm.bsky.social
First panel of the day, focused on Campaigns and Identities.
With Dennis Steffan on
Visual Frame Building in Election Campaigns in 🇩🇪&🇰🇪
Then: Tetsuro Kobayashi, linking conspiratorial beliefs to collective efficacy, via social media engagement and deep search in 🇯🇵.
#IJPP2025 #IJPP25
November 20, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
This! 👇

It is also a good reminder that we are not experiencing polarization but right-wing radicalization!
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been disliked by the left for years and years and had never had to fear for her life. She's been disliked by the right for 1 day and now has to hire security.
November 19, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
maybe sit this one out, bud
Ryan Lizza appears to be accusing Olivia Nuzzi of an affair with Mark Sanford when she was covering HIM in 2020? 🤦🏼‍♂️https://www.telos.news/p/part-1-how-i-found-out
November 18, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
GAWKER! thou shouldst be living at this hour
November 18, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
offer stands
if you’re a journalist who wants to talk about how embarrassing this week has been for our profession (the michael wolff, landon thomas jr, nuzzi/bernstein of it all) message me on signal
November 18, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Instead, we usually just keep paying them but reduce their teaching and service load to zero 🤷🏼‍♀️🙃
Faculty discipline committees should really normalize de-tenuring/dismissal investigations for the sort of behavior described in the Summers case
A senior academic using mentoring as leverage to obtain sex is a contemptible abuser of power.
November 18, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
I would love to read an account of this saga that isn’t written in an atrociously purple way but seems like that’s too much to ask of anyone involved
November 18, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Read this if you must, but be warned — this is like the ukulele of prose: “Besides, like bamboo, the truth has a way of forcing itself out into the open.”
November 18, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage
November 10, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous
November 10, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
The least most politically engaged people I know are texting me before 8am to say, “we won’t forget.”

So I don’t know man.
November 10, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
I’ll keep pushing this line of analysis because I’m increasingly convinced the clearest path out of this mess is for Dems to adopt a relentless anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-oligarchy, pro-democracy platform. The Dem leadership hasn’t realized it yet, but they’re now a reform party.
November 6, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Heading home after a short trip to McGill. I’ve been to Montreal before but not McGill. This campus?! Gorgeous!
November 5, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
Universal swing in action: "What we saw last night was a directional shift toward Democrats in 99.8% of counties that held partisan elections." www.gelliottmorris.com/p/seven-data...
November 5, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
We're all going to write pieces about what you can learn from tonight but it's actually pretty simple: The frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
November 5, 2025 at 4:34 AM
Eugene Deb’s drop in the first sentence — 🙌🏽
November 5, 2025 at 4:20 AM
💯
Tonight's even more proof the mainstream reporters who are still on Twitter are suffering from a brain problem akin Havana Syndrome that is preventing them from accurately doing their jobs. They are being cooked alive by a snuff-focused apartheid algorithm.
November 5, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
Good things are possible and we don’t have to settle.
November 5, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
BREAKING: Democrat Johnny DuPree has flipped a Republican-held Mississippi Senate district in a special election.

DuPree was previously the mayor of Hattiesburg.

His win imperils the Mississippi Senate GOP's narrow supermajority.
www.mississippifreepress.org/democrat-joh...
Democrat Johnny DuPree Flips Republican-Held Mississippi Senate District in Forrest County
Johnny DuPree, a Democrat who served as the mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for 16 years, has flipped a Republican-held Mississippi Senate seat.
www.mississippifreepress.org
November 5, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
i want to repeat this: mamdani and spanberger have run similar campaigns tailored to their respective electorates and it is maddening to watch political journalists attempt to create some broad contrast where none exist
the other thing about this is that there is no reason to pit these candidates against each other? each are good fits for their respective electorates and each shows the value of vigorous campaigns focused on the stated material problems of voters.
November 4, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
Came here to say this, but Jamelle Bouie has this covered. 👇
When the Democratic tent includes candidates like Spanberger and Mamdani, there is no crisis, or fight, for the party. IT’S A COALITION, NOT A POINT ESTIMATE.
i want to repeat this: mamdani and spanberger have run similar campaigns tailored to their respective electorates and it is maddening to watch political journalists attempt to create some broad contrast where none exist
the other thing about this is that there is no reason to pit these candidates against each other? each are good fits for their respective electorates and each shows the value of vigorous campaigns focused on the stated material problems of voters.
November 5, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
November 5, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
ADHD increases dementia risk, but the available epidemiological data suggests that stimulant medications may normalize risk. Totally fascinating

Thanks @hologramvin.bsky.social for this post! I did not know this so I hunted down the original paper:
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
November 3, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Shannon McGregor, PhD
the assumptions made about the target audience by making the first two items "OnlyFans' and 'child support' are kind of incredible
November 1, 2025 at 2:26 PM