Dissertation Project

Working Title: Political Identity in (Seemingly) Non-Political Spaces: NASCAR and American Politics

My dissertation brings together the fields of political communication and sports communication to study how sport acts as a site of political meaning making and coalition building for political identities, ideologies, and movements.

To better understand this relationship between political identity and movement building with sport, my dissertation applies a mixed-methods approach to an extended case study of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) – a sport with many established ties to American culture and politics that remains understudied. This study involves both in-person participant observation and field interviews with NASCAR fans at more than 20 race days throughout the 2026 season across the United States, longform interviews with individuals who work in the sport, as well as a content analysis of podcast shows and digital media content related to the sport and American politics.  

Dissertation Committee: Dr. Daniel Kreiss (advisor), Dr. Shannon C. McGregor, Dr. Francesca Tripodi, Dr. Shaun Anderson, and Dr. Danielle Lee Tomson

Selection of photos from ongoing fieldwork at NASCAR race weekends

Peer-Reviewed Publications

*Alphabetical ordering of authorship, equal authorship 

4. *Jang, H., McGregor, S. C., & Neill, L. (2026). Inaccuracies, Omissions, and Bullshit: 2024 U.S. elections through the eyes of ChatGPT. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2685121  

Abstract: This study evaluated the accuracy, quality, and implications of outputs produced by generative artificial intelligences (AI) related to politics and electoral processes during the 2024 United States elections. We extend social media platform governance and content moderation theories to the study of AI, illustrating how large language models (LLMs), and the companies that own these technologies, shape and influence political information environments. Notably, we argue that the shift from social media to generative AI represents a fundamental evolution in platform power: a move from curative governance (providing information by sorting human speech) to generative governance (providing information by generating speech). Through a novel mixed-methods audit approach to studying ChatGPT-4o mini outputs regarding politics and elections collected less than two weeks before election day, we find that ChatGPT largely failed to provide users with accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information during a crucial election period. Our analysis identifies and categorizes potential democratic harms embedded in ChatGPT’s responses – such as inaccuracies, hedging, bullshit, and omissions – that paint a picture of a technology ill-equipped for democratic elections. This study illustrates the need for new frameworks for accountability in generative AI, particularly as voluntary industry safeguards fail to protect democratic information environments.

3. *Kreiss, D., Neill, L., & Wihbey, J. (2026). Disinformation in the US: Overview and Responses. In L. Ginsborg & P. Gori (Eds.), Disinformation: A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis (pp. 577–600). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00480-2_29  

Abstract: In recent years, the field of disinformation research in the United States has emerged as a prominent area of inquiry across a broad array of social science disciplines, including communication, media studies, political science, psychology, and cybersecurity. This contemporary wave of US disinformation research took shape in response to the global Cambridge Analytica scandal, Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and the election of President Donald Trump. Since then, there has been a considerable number of studies conducted on the content, reception, and production of disinformation. Major findings include the weaponization of disinformation as a tool of societal elites to amass political power, undermine public institutions (particularly relating to public health and democracy), and exacerbate social inequalities. The US has seen significant investment in disinformation research from public and private entities such as the National Science Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. The field of disinformation has emerged as a significant topic of study in the US, especially in the wake of the country’s democratic backsliding and the rise of new artificial intelligence technologies that could drastically impact information environments writ large.

2.*Kreiss, D., & Neill, L. (2025). Platforms and Global Democracies. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1524 

Abstract: Platforms have a complicated past when it comes to regulating political content. The role of mis/disinformation on social media platforms in the wake of the international Cambridge Analytica scandals and the rise of populist, authoritarian, or anti-democratic leaders and parties led to new global calls for increased regulation of these technologies once thought to be tools of liberation and democracy. Between 2016 and 2020, platforms responded by instituting a number of different content-moderation policies, strategies, and partnerships to address issues surrounding their role in democratic politics. Platforms took more seriously the propagation of conspiratorial content, the correction of misleading information, and the policing of content that undermined electoral processes. Since that time, platforms have generally rolled back trust and safety efforts, with stated justifications of freedom of expression. This article provides an overview of what is known about social media platforms and democratic processes, including their social and psychological effects. It analyzes platform policies belonging to Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), X, YouTube, and TikTok regarding political and election-related content in six countries (Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States) as well as the European Union—all places holding elections in 2024 or 2025. The article focuses on the civic integrity, artificial intelligence, fact-checking, and political advertising policies of these platforms, given their importance to global politics and elections.

1. Reid, A., Neill, L., & Ringel, E. (2025). Nerd Harder: A Typology of Techno‐Legal Solutionist Logics in Child Online Safety Laws. Policy & Internet, 17(3), e70012. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.70012 

Abstract: As jurisdictions worldwide grapple with regulating social media's effects on youth, US state legislatures have emerged as important laboratories for “techno-legal solutionism”—the belief that complex social problems can be solved through legally mandated technical fixes. Although similar approaches are evident in the EU's Digital Services Act and various national regulations, US states offer particularly revealing cases for understanding how technical mandates get operationalized into specific requirements. Our analysis of recently enacted state-level child online safety laws (COSLs) demonstrates how techno-solutionist logic manifests in three interdependent patterns: (1) the checklist fallacy (reducing safety to discrete technical features), (2) the false promise of age verification (assuming identity verification will prevent harm), and (3) the design determinism myth (overestimating design's power to shape social outcomes). The United States offers unique insights through its state-level experimentation, while similar techno-solutionist approaches are emerging worldwide (e.g., UK's Online Safety Bill, EU's Digital Services Act). The appeal of techno-legal solutionism transcends borders: from California to Brussels, it offers policymakers seemingly clear solutions to complex problems. However, our analysis shows that this approach fundamentally misunderstands both the social shaping of technology and the complexity of youth well-being. Technologies can influence outcomes by offering (or not) certain design features (i.e., affordances); yet these designs do not determine the outcomes. This overconfidence that technology can determine an outcome risks ignoring the more complex and nuanced forces shaping children's online experiences. Moving forward requires abandoning the fallacy that we can simply “nerd harder” our way to youth safety—and instead embracing the more challenging work of developing comprehensive, nuanced approaches that recognize both the limitations and possibilities of technical intervention.

Invited Scholarly Publications

*Alphabetical ordering of authorship, equal authorship 

3. *Brennen, S., Kreiss, D., & Neill, L. (forthcoming). Digitalization. In K. B. Jensen, E. W. Rothenbuhler, J. D. Pooley, & R. T. Craig (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy (2nd ed.). Wiley. 

2. *Kreiss, D., & Neill, L. (in press). Militant platform democracy: A framework for democracy-worthy platform principles. Information, Communication & Society. 

Abstract: This commentary draws on the long-established concept of “militant democracy” to outline “democracy-worthy principles” for commercial platform content moderation. First developed during democratic struggles against fascism in the 1930s, the central idea of militant democracy is that democratic states can and should preemptively restrict the rights of individuals, groups, and parties who threaten democratic institutions. We apply insights from militant democracy to platforms at a time of global democratic backsliding and argue that they should proactively define their normative commitment to protecting democracy. We propose that they adopt eight “democracy-worthy principles” that protect and strengthen democratic norms, institutions, and publics. These principles include elevating the democratic public’s rights over individual expressive rights, drawing a red line around strategic attempts to undermine public faith in elections, placing responsibility for democratic norms on political leaders and candidates, accounting for the differential status of social groups, protecting against political violence, and addressing country-specific threats to democracy. Drawing on case studies from Brazil, India, and the United States, we show how these principles would help protect against democratic threats, especially from anti-democratic political leaders. 

1. Livingston, S., & Neill, L. (2025). Connective Action and Digital Surrogate Organizations. In S. Samoilenko & S. Simmons (Eds.),  The Wiley Handbook on Social and Political Conflict. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119895534.ch6     

Abstract: This chapter proposes a novel conceptualization of the role that digital surrogate organizations play in the organization of political parties. It applies a connection action theory of democratic backsliding to analyze the impact digital surrogate organizations have had on growing illiberalism within conservative parties. Using the Republican Party as an example, this chapter shows that far-right surrogate organizations are able to leverage the affordances of social media platforms and digital technology to weaken the ideological boundaries of parties. In doing so, conservative parties become ideologically porous and susceptible to being captured by fringe movements. Illiberal conservative parties—in the United States and around the world—present a danger to the health of future political conflict and threaten the survival of democratic institutions. This chapter will take up each of these ideas. To close, this chapter offers reflections on what the failure of liberal democracy in the United States might look like.