The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
4 — Wednesday, January 27, 2021 

University 
of 
Michigan 

social 
media 
experts 
are 

studying 
the 
influence 
of 

social 
media 
over 
politics, 

particularly through the rapid 
spread of misinformation and 
increased 
access. 
According 

to these experts, social media 
played a pivotal role in the riot 
at the U.S. Capitol last week.

Sarita Schoenebeck, a School 

of 
Information 
associate 

professor, 
said 
former 

President 
Donald 
Trump’s 

presidency fueled the sharing 
of misinformation on social 
media by exploiting algorithms 
designed to reward content 
that’s popular, even if it’s fake 
or wrong.

“Clearly 
the 
election 
of 

President 
Trump 
increased 

divisiveness 
in 
the 
U.S., 

and that kind of alignment 
increased social media use 
and misinformation, so these 
things can’t be disentangled,” 
Schoenebeck said.

She 
said 
the 
future 

impact of large social media 
organizations banning Trump’s 
accounts is that more sites 
might take a second look at 
posts and filter out harassment. 
Following the Jan. 6 Capitol 
riots, multiple social media 
platforms — including Twitter, 
Instagram 
and 
Facebook 

— 
announced 
they 
were 

banning the former president’s 
accounts to prevent the further 
incitement of violence.

“I think the banning of 

President Trump was a reactive 

decision, it was too little too 
late,” Schoenebeck said. “But, 
it was the right decision given 
the violence and I think going 
forward sites need to consider 
people and the content they 
share in the broader context.” 

Josh Pasek, an associate 

professor 
of 
communication 

and media, said social media 
provides an opportunity to meet 
people with similar ideologies, 
resulting in incidences like 
joining together to attack the 
Capitol building.

“It makes it easier to do good 

things, and it makes it easier to 
do bad things,” Pasek said. “One 
clear role that social media had 
(in the riots) was in helping 
a group of people that might 
not otherwise find each other 
easily get more coordinated.” 

Because 
politicians 
and 

elected officials have more 
prominent 
platforms, 
Pasek 

said 
their 
endorsement 
of 

falsehoods 
helps 
further 

spread untrue information on 
social media. 

“In addition, you have an 

elite situation where a number 
of 
elites 
— 
in 
particular, 

the 
president 
— 
have 
not 

been 
particularly 
devoted 

to ensuring that the official 
information coming out was 
accurate,” Pasek said. “So the 
willingness of elites at various 
different levels to buy into the 
big lie that the election was 
stolen and that there was fraud 
and irregularities gives that 
claim more power and makes it 
far more pervasive.” 

Pasek 
also 
acknowledged 

the effects of the pandemic, 
saying it has led to many people 

wanting to take action at a time 
when they feel out of control 
and more dissociated from 
society than usual. 

LSA 
freshman 
Anna 

Wilentz, an attendee of the 
event, said she feels social 
media influences young voters’ 
opinions before they are able 
to fully process monumental 
political events in the country, 
such as the 2020 election and 
the Capitol riot.

“Social media has caused 

individuals to take their peers’ 
point of views on political 
issues, which prohibits them 
from 
forming 
their 
own 

educated opinions,” Wilentz 
said. “This is one factor that 
has led America to become 
more polarized, and has led to 
Americans speaking freely on 
social media and expressing 
extreme political beliefs and 
attitudes.”

With the constant evolution 

of social media, Cliff Lampe, 
a 
School 
of 
Information 

professor, discussed the major 
increase in the number of users 
on platforms over the past 
years. 

“I think the biggest change 

over time has been the number 
of types of people who have 
started using social media,” 
Lampe said. “As the population 
of use has grown, so has the role 
of social media in society. It’s 
easy to spread misinformation 
on social media because there 
are fewer gatekeepers.”

Historically, Lampe said the 

general 
population 
received 

their 
information 
from 

established news organizations, 

which have strict fact-checking 
procedures. 
With 
the 
rise 

of social media, Lampe said 
the media landscape is less 
regulated, which has resulted 
in quick and easy access to 
spreading false information.

“In 
a 
traditional 
mass 

media 
environment, 
there 

would be editors, and there 
was 100 years of development 
of 
professional 
journalistic 

practices that determined how 
you could tell if (information) 
was true or not,” Lampe said. 
“Social media does not have 
the same kind of gatekeepers 
and same kind of history that 
mass media does, so anybody 
can 
share 
anything. 
Social 

media also tends to flatten 
hierarchies, so there’s no such 

thing as expertise anymore.”

To 
fight 
misinformation 

and 
harassment 
online, 

Schoenebeck suggested social 
media sites carefully monitor 
a user’s collection of posts 
instead of evaluating posts 
individually. 
According 
to 

Schoenebeck, 
they 
should 

consider the information in 
the context of the person’s 
past history and the history of 
people who are targeted by the 
post. 

Pasek said he has debated 

whether social media is a 
completely negative influence 
in our society. While it has 
caused many problems, he said 
he believes it also has many 
positive effects.

“What’s become increasingly 

clear this year is that we’re 
still working on figuring out 
the right norms for how to 
deal with social media,” Pasek 
said. “The way it interacts with 
our psychology is something 
that makes that a particularly 
pressing question, because (we 
tend to believe) information is 
more credible when you hear 
it from friends than when you 
hear it from somebody who you 
don’t particularly know.”

Looking ahead, Lampe said it 

is a vital and monumental time 
for social media in our society 
because… . 

“It’s 
an 
interesting 
time 

for social media right now, 
especially 
as 
we 
see 
the 

platforms’ converging power,” 
Lampe said.

U-M experts discuss social media’s role in politics, Capitol riot

University of Michigan social media experts are studying the influence of social media over 
politics, particularly through the rapid spread of misinformation and increased access

KAITLYN LUCKOFF

Daily Staff Reporter

RESEARCH

U-M study reveals lack of coronavirus 
aid for Black-owned businesses

A 
national 
study 
on 

coronavirus 
aid 
for 
small 

businesses led by University of 
Michigan 
researchers 
found 

that Black business owners were 
about 30 times less likely to 
receive government assistance 
than white business owners 
since the pandemic began in 
March 2020. The study was 
led by Felix Kabo, an assistant 
research 
scientist 
at 
the 

Institute for Social Research’s 
Survey Research Center. 

In 
March 
2020, 
Congress 

passed the $2.2 trillion dollar 
coronavirus relief bill (known 
as the CARES Act) in an attempt 
to help working families, small 
businesses, people paying off 
loans and a health care system 
staggered by COVID-19. The 
bill gave over $600 billion to 
businesses, 
states 
and 
other 

municipalities 
without 
much 

instruction on how to distribute 
it, leaving workers unsure of how 
to collect unemployment benefits. 

The University’s study was 

nationally administered from 
May through June 2020 and 
surveyed approximately 6,300 
small 
business 
owners 
and 

entrepreneurs from around the 
country. The business owners 
were asked whether or not they 
had received government aid 
between March and May 2020. 
While 6.9% of the total number 
of 
entrepreneurs 
surveyed 

reported receiving federal aid, 
only 0.3% of Black entrepreneurs 
said they received money from 
the government. 

The study does not examine 

why this disparity between 
Black-owned 
and 
non-Black-

owned 
businesses 
occurred. 

However, in an interview with 
The Michigan Daily, Kabo said 
he suspected that pre-existing 
barriers and unequal access to 
credit might contribute to Black 
business owners struggling to 
receive funding. 

“I’ve looked at work that’s 

emerged 
that’s 
showing 
a 

phenomenon where business 
owners and entrepreneurs were 
much more likely to receive 
stimulus funds when they had 
pre-existing relationships with 
financial 
institutions,” 
Kabo 

said. “A Black business owner 
or entrepreneur is … less likely 
to get credit, and if they do, they 
are more likely to be charged 
higher interest.” 

Kabo 
said 
Black-owned 

businesses are often denied 
loans because they sometimes 
lack 
the 
financial 
and 

accounting structures necessary 
to receive, process and account 
for stimulus funds. 

Many 
Black 
business 

owners in Washtenaw County 
expressed similar frustrations 
with 
accessing 
financial 

relief due to bureaucratic and 
systemic obstacles. In the fall, a 
group of local business owners 
created 
the 
Association 
of 

Businesses of Color to provide 
aid to businesses run by people 
of color. 

Melvin Parson, the executive 

director of We the People 
Opportunity Farm, a nonprofit 
farm based in Ypsilanti that 
mainly 
employs 
formerly 

incarcerated individuals, said 
there are a lot of bureaucratic 
obstacles 
that 
grassroots 

organizations and nonprofits 
face when trying to receive 
grants. 

“The more you can cut out 

the bureaucracy, the better 
off things will be in terms of 
money getting to organizations 
that have the potential to really 
make an impact,” Parson said. 
“And (money won’t) just make 
it into the hands of the few 

organizations that are able to 
dot their i’s and cross their t’s.” 

Brian 
Jones-Chance, 

co-founder of the 734 Brewing 
Company in Ypsilanti and one 
of the founders of the ABC, 
said while he applied for and 
received Paycheck Protection 
Program 
loans 
as 
part 
of 

the CARES act, he has seen 
firsthand how many Black-
owned businesses struggle to 
access financial aid. Like Kabo 
said, the lack of relationships 
between Black business owners 
and financial institutions deters 
some 
businesses 
from 
even 

applying for aid, Jones-Chance 
said.

“We are finding that one of 

these issues is not having those 
banking relationships,” Jones-
Chance said. “You just go and 
you deposit your money, you 
maybe run your payroll through 
there, but there’s no actual 
personal relationship.” 

Other local Black business 

owners said they chose not 
to apply for coronavirus aid 
because 
they 
weren’t 
sure 

exactly what it entailed. Robyn 
McCoy, a partner at McCoy 
and Associates, a law firm in 
downtown 
Ann 
Arbor 
that 

specializes in estate and trust 
law, chose not to apply for 
the PPP because she found it 
unclear whether or not the 
program functioned as a loan or 
a grant. 

The PPP provided loans to 

small businesses during the 
COVID-19 pandemic, though it 
was initially unclear whether 
it would be classified as a grant 
or loan when filing taxes. The 
CARES Act, which the PPP is 
part of, also includes programs 
for small businesses grants, 
such as advance payments for 
the Economic Injury Disaster 
Loan program. 

In an email to The Daily, 

McCoy 
called 
for 
greater 

education on the state, local, 
and national levels to increase 
transparency in the aid process. 
 
 

“There 
were 
concerns 

because it was set up as a loan 
and I’m not eager to incur any 

more 
debt,” 
McCoy 
wrote. 

“I wouldn’t rule out possibly 
applying for something in the 
future, I would just want it to be 
clear — that if it’s a grant then it 
says it’s a grant.” 

Janice Johnson, the owner of 

Clothes Mentor Ann Arbor, said 
the responsibility of providing 
aid to small businesses should 
be shared by local, state and 
national 
governments. 
She 

said there were local grant 
opportunities that could have 
prevented her from having to 
use personal savings to pay 
her bills that were not well 
marketed.

“There were other grants 

available that I missed out 
on that have since expired,” 
Johnson said. “So even if Ann 
Arbor did handle it directly, how 
would they spread the news that 
these (grants) were available?”

Kabo 
proposed 
several 

solutions 
to 
the 
disparities 

between 
white 
and 
Black 

business owners’ access to aid. 
He 
said 
local 
governments 

in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati 
have 
begun 
initiatives 
to 

provide critical funding for 
debt financing, such as using 
government agencies to provide 
information 
to 
businesses 

owned by people of color. These 
strategies can be adopted in 
Ann Arbor and by other local 
governments across the country, 
Kabo said.

Music, Theatre & Dance 

freshman Maya Boyd, whose 
father owns Boyd Beauty in 
downtown Ann Arbor, said it 
was more important to support 
local Black-owned businesses 
rather 
than 
large-scale 

corporations. She encouraged 
U-M 
students 
to 
explore 

Black-owned 
businesses 

outside of campus and around 
Ann Arbor. 

“I think that students have 

a lot of knowledge on how to 
spread information and support 
people,” Boyd said. “(They can 
help) just by going and exploring 
other businesses that aren’t the 
classic white-owned businesses 
and corporations.” 

GEORGE WEYKAMP

Daily Staff Reporter

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BUSINESS

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