Selected publications
Social media and youth participation
Lane, D. S., Thorson, K., & Xu, Y. (2023). Uninterested and unequal?: examining SES-based gaps in youth political behavior on social media. Information, Communication & Society, 26(4), 663-681.
Cotter, K., & Thorson, K. (2022). Judging value in a time of information cacophony: Young adults, social media, and the messiness of do-it-yourself expertise. International Journal of Press Politics. Online ahead of print.
Lane, D., Thorson, K., & Xu, Y. (2021). Uninterested and unequal?: Examining SES-based Gaps in Youth Political Behavior on Social Media. Information, Communication & Society. Online ahead of print.
Thorson, K., Xu, Y., & Edgerly, S. (forthcoming). Political inequalities start at home: Parents, children and the socialization of civic infrastructure online. Political Communication.
Bergan, D., Carnahan, D., Lajevardi, N., Medeiros, M., Reckhow, S., & Thorson, K. (2021). Promoting the youth vote: The role of informational cues and social pressure. Political Behavior. Online ahead of print.
Thorson, K., Cotter, K., Medeiros, M., & Pak, C. (2019) Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on Facebook. Information, Communication & Society, 24(2), 183-200.
Edgerly, S., Thorson, K., Thorson, E., Vraga, E., & Bode, L. (2018) Do parents still model news consumption? Socializing news use among adolescents in a multi-device world. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1263-1281.
Edgerly, S., Thorson, K., & Wells, C. (2018). Young citizens, social media, and the dynamics of political learning in the U.S. presidential primary election. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(8), 1042-1060.
Thorson, K., Xu, Y., & Edgerly, S. (2018). Political inequalities start at home: Parents, children and the socialization of civic infrastructure online. Political Communication, 35(2), 178-195.
Edgerly, S., Vraga, E., Bode, L., Thorson, K., & Thorson, E. (2018). New media, new relationship to participation? A closer look at youth news repertoires and political participation. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.
Gotlieb, M., & Thorson, K. (2017). Connected political consumers: Transforming personalized politics among youth into broader repertoires of action. Journal of Youth Studies, online ahead of print.
Edgerly, S., Thorson, K., Thorson, E., Vraga, E., & Bode, L. (2017) Do parents still model news consumption? Socializing news use among adolescents in a multi-device world. New Media & Society, online ahead of print.
Kligler-Vilenchik, N., & Thorson, K. (2016). Good citizenship as a frame contest: Kony2012, memes, and critiques of the networked citizen. New Media & Society, 18(9), 1993-2011.
Vraga, E., Thorson, K., Kligler-Vilenchik, N., & Gee, E (2015). How individual sensitivities to disagreement shape youth political expression on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 45, 281-289.
Thorson, K. (2015). Sampling from the civic buffet: Youth, new media, and do-it-yourself citizenship. In Homero Gil de Zuniga, (Ed.) New Technologies & Civic Engagement: New Agendas in Communication Series. Routledge.
Thorson, K. (2014). Facing an uncertain reception: Young citizens and political interaction on Facebook. Information, Communication & Society, 17(2), 203-216.
Thorson, K. (2012). What does it mean to be a good citizen? Citizenship vocabularies as resources for action. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644(1), 70-85.
Social sharing of political messages
Battocchio, A. F., Thorson, K., Hiaeshutter-Rice, D., Smith, M., Chen, Y., Edgerly, S., ... & Etheridge, C. E. (2023). Who will tell the stories of health inequities? Platform challenges (and opportunities) in local civic information infrastructure. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 707(1), 144-171.
Cotter, K., Medeiros, M., Pak, C., & Thorson, K. (2021). “Reach the right people”: The politics of “interests” in Facebook’s classification system for ad targeting. Big Data & Society, 8(1), 2053951721996046.
Thorson, K., Medeiros, M., Cotter, K., Chen, Y., Rodgers, K., Bae, A., & Baykaldi, S. (2020). Platform civics: Facebook in the local political information infrastructure. Digital Journalism, 8(10), 1231-1257).
Thorson, K., & Wang, L. (2020). Committed participation or flashes of action? Mobilizing public attention to climate on Twitter, 2011-2015. Environmental Communication, 14(3), 347-363.
Stier, S., Breuer, J., Siegers, P., & Thorson, K. (2020). Integrating survey data and digital trace data: Key issues in developing an emerging field. Social Science Computer Review, 38(5), 503-516.
Wang, L., Yang, A., & Thorson, K. (2019). Serial participants of social media climate discussion as a community of practice: A longitudinal network analysis. Information, Communication & Society, 24(7), 941-959.
Shin, J., & Thorson, K. (2017). Partisan selective sharing: The biased diffusion of fact-checking messages on social media. Journal of Communication, 67, 233-255.
Thorson, K. (2017). The social life of politics on Facebook. In Paul Messaris and Lee Humphreys (Eds.) Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication. Peter Lang.
Wells, C. & Thorson, K. (2017). Combining big data and survey techniques to model effects of political content flows in Facebook. Social Science Computer Review. 35, 33-52.
Thorson, K., Edgerly, S., Xu, Y., Kligler-Vilenchik, N., Wang, L (2016). Seeking visibility in a big tent: Digital communication and the People’s Climate March. International Journal of Communication, 10, 4784-4806.
Edgerly, S., Thorson, K., Bighash, L. & Hannah, M. (2016). Posting about politics: Media as resources for political expression on Facebook. Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 13(2), 108-125.
Driscoll, K., & Thorson, K. (2015). Searching and clustering methodologies: Connecting political communication content across platforms. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 659(1), 134-148
Thorson, K., Driscoll, K., Ekdale, B., Edgerly, S., Gamber Thompson, L., Schrock, A., Swartz, L., Vraga, E., & Wells, C. (2013). YouTube, Twitter, and the Occupy Movement: Connecting content to circulation practices. Information, Communication & Society, 16(3), 421-451.
Theorizing exposure to political content via social media
Thorson, K., & Battocchio, A. F. (2024). “I use social media as an escape from all that” personal platform architecture and the labor of avoiding news. Digital Journalism, 12(5), 613-636.
Thorson, K. (2020). Attracting the news: Algorithms, platforms, and reframing incidental exposure. Journalism, 21(8), 1067-1082.
Thorson, K., Cotter, K., Medeiros, M., & Pak, C. (2019) Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on Facebook. Information, Communication & Society, 24(2), 183-200.
Thorson, K. & Wells, C. (2016). Curated flows: A framework for mapping media exposure in the digital age. Communication Theory, 26(3), p. 309-328.
Borah, P., Thorson, K., & Hwang, H (2015). Causes and consequences of selective exposure among political blog readers: The role of hostile media perception in motivated media use and expressive participation. Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 12 (2), 186-199.
Thorson, K., & Wells, C. (2015). How gatekeeping still matters: Media sociology and media effects. In Tim P. Vos and Francois Heinderyckx (Eds.). Gatekeeping in Transition. Taylor and Francis.
Thorson, K., Vraga, E.K., & Ekdale, B. (2010). Credibility in context: How uncivil online commentary affects news credibility. Mass Communication and Society, 13(3).