ben burnley
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benburnley.bsky.social
ben burnley
@benburnley.bsky.social
assistant professsor at colorado state university
political communication, congress, and technology politics
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Exciting News! I will start as an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University in Fall 2025. I am excited to join the political science department and work with the excellent students at CSU. To everyone who helped me along the way, this wouldn't be possible without you!
when I successfully report a phishing scam to IT, and they send the congratulatory email
July 16, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by ben burnley
Now published!

@leticiabode.bsky.social and @ekvraga.bsky.social's exciting new book, Observed Correction: How We Can All Respond to Misinformation on Social Media.

Leticia and Emily are trailblazing pioneers in the research about online misinformation. (1/3)
July 8, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by ben burnley
I don’t think there’s a single serious critic who says AI’s not useful? The concerns I see are about content rights, worker impacts, environmental effects, epistemological threats, or media manipulation. But that’s all predicated on the idea that it *does* work, often too well for people to manage…
The NYT Magazine asked me and @caseynewton.bsky.social to open their AI issue by talking about how we use AI, why it's not going away, and how you can't be a serious critic if you're in denial about how useful it is. Bluesky's gonna love this one!

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/m...
June 18, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Dissertation defended, with distinction, no revisions!

Could not have done it without this amazing committee!
April 10, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by ben burnley
Bonica, Rhee and Studen (2025) is an ambitious effort to assess the role of ideology on general election results. I’m excited to see such a serious large-scale project get attention in Edsall’s NYT column.

1/N
March 11, 2025 at 5:57 PM
This whole thing is stupid, but I don't think there is enough focus on the absurdity of highlighting line items that represent fractions of a percent of a $40B budget.
This fact sheet on the White House website lists bullet point items of what it alleges are “waste and abuse” at USAID. I was curious what they came up with. Actually every link is to articles at Daily Mail, Breitbart and Washington examiner. www.whitehouse.gov/uncategorize...
At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep
For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the
www.whitehouse.gov
February 6, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Exciting News! I will start as an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University in Fall 2025. I am excited to join the political science department and work with the excellent students at CSU. To everyone who helped me along the way, this wouldn't be possible without you!
January 6, 2025 at 4:07 PM
my favorite thing about Bluesky is when I click the app and it shows the image of the Bluesky. nice little moment of zen.
October 20, 2023 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by ben burnley
We're hiring a (2 year) postdoc in American Politics.

Come work with me and other great scholars @ UVA!

We do have a very quick turnaround; review of apps starts Oct 31.

Apply and share!

jobs.virginia.edu/jobs/R005391...
October 19, 2023 at 12:50 PM
my long-running theory about the Musk twitter takeover was that he paid to buy the user base with the goal of turning the app into whatever he wanted/the everything app. the assumption of course is that the users wouldn't leave... but here we are.
Twitter is doing a new type of Ship of Theseus experiment, how much boat can you remove while still calling it a boat. Is one wood plank a boat. Is the ocean a boat
October 18, 2023 at 7:09 PM