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The 2008 presidential election was an historic moment in American politics for many reasons, not least of which was the Democratic Party selecting an African American as its nominee. Speculation about how racial prejudice might affect Barack Obama's candidacy was widespread, and varied from proclamations that we now live in a "post-racial society" to condemnations that race would cost him the election. For scholars interested in the possible implications of racism for American politics, Obama's candidacy and eventual victory present a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of racism on vote choice and public opinion in the context of the nation's highest national office. More specifically, we can now begin to answer questions about the extent to which racism affects citizens' willingness to vote for a black president, their evaluations of his character, and attitudes toward his abilities as a leader. Further, the combination of lingering racism within the electorate and a black candidate (and eventual winner) for president may have had an unusual effect on Americans' attitudes toward racial policy.Just as we are currently presented with a unique political context in which to study race and racial bias, scholars now have more tools at their disposal than ever to contribute to the study of racism in American politics. Along with widely accepted explicit racism measures (such as feeling thermometers and acceptance of racial stereotypes) and "new racism" scales (Sears and Kinder 1970;Sears et al, 1997), relatively new, implicit measures of prejudice --unintentional and often unconscious mental associations --offer a different approach for identifying racial prejudice. Their reliance on automatic mental associations, as opposed to conscious attitudes, has meant that these implicit measures have simultaneously been subject to interest and excitement, as well as strong criticism, on multiple fronts (e.g. Tetlock and Mitchell 2008).

Internet access in Myanmar has exploded from less than 1 percent in 2001 to more than 30 percent in 2018 and of those who have access, 40 percent list Facebook as their primary source of news. Coinciding with Facebook’s diffusion in Myanmar is a sharp increase in violence toward minority groups—especially the Rohingya. A U.N. Fact-Finding mission found Facebook was used to spread hate and facilitate the persecution of the Rohingya. But we know little about how people in Myanmar actually use Facebook, how they acquire and evaluate the information they find on the platform and whether they see disinformation or extreme speech. Furthermore, we lack information about the sentiments that Facebook users and non-users express about the Rohingya and how they view Facebook’s role in inter-ethnic conflict. We use interviews to address these questions. We find that people in Myanmar use Facebook for a variety of reasons, that they look at international and domestic sources, and encounter many different kinds of information—including extreme speech—on the platform. Most people also told us that they prefer sources that confirm their views.

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General political knowledge is a central variable in American politics research. Individuals with high political knowledge exhibit behaviors that are consequential to a well-functioning democracy, including holding more stable political opinions, exhibiting greater ideological constraint, knowing more about political candidates, and being more likely to vote correctly. In this paper, we examine whether the internet revolution, enabling citizens to look up anything at any time, has changed the relative importance of political knowledge in American politics. We show that important generational differences exist between Americans raised during the broadcast era and Americans raised with the presence and accessibility of the internet. Internet access can be a substitute for political knowledge stored in long-term memory, particularly among this younger generation, who may be relying on the internet to store knowledge for them.