The changing media landscape has left the public with innumerable sources to turn to for political information, including traditional print and television media sources, online news aggregators, digital-only outlets and social media feeds. Although political information is readily available in many forms, its abundance has not necessarily translated into a more informed and engaged citizenry. In addition, the increasing diversity of media outlets, targeted advertising strategies, politicization of mainstream sources, amplification of extreme voices, and differences in users’ social networks, means that Americans’ consumption of political information is increasingly diverse and often polarized.

In this fragmented era, the mission of our lab is to make sense of the media messaging reaching citizens and to present our findings in a compelling way to journalists and citizens.

DELTA Lab is a computation-driven testing ground to carry out new and innovative analyses of political advertising and media with student learning as a central focus.