Jose Marichal, Ph.D.

About

I am a professor of political science at California Lutheran University. I specialize in studying the role that algorithms and AI play in restructuring social and political institutions. I am currently writing a book entitled "You Must Remain an Algorithmic Problem" that will come out in 2025 with Bristol University Press (UK). The book explores the unwritten social contract we have with the algorithms that shape what we see, hear and think. I have a number of projects with collaborators looking at how social media shapes political discourse. I also write about diversity, multiculturalism and citizenship and I’m a massive US soccer fan.  You can hear me talk about both on a recent podcast. 

Education

• B.S., Florida State University
• M.S., Florida Atlantic University
• Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder

Expertise

Courses I Teach (or Have Taught)

Technology and Politics

Social Media and Politics 

Social Media as Data - Intro to Natural Language Processing and Network Analysis

Scope and Methods of Political Science

Race, Multiculturalism and Politics

Contemporary Issues in Public Policy

Modern Political Thought

American Political Thought

Introduction to Political Science

The Politics of Community Development

Seminar in Citizenship and Civic Engagement

Publications

Books

Fall 2025. You are an Algorithmic Problem: Factory Farmed Citizenship in the Age of AI.  Under Contract: Bristol University Press.

2012.  Facebook Democracy: The Architecture of Disclosure and the Threat to Public Life. Routledge.

Scholarly Articles

Forthcoming. Data Rights Reconsidered: Reimagining Digital Freedom through Lefebvre's Right to the City. Communication +1.

2024. Why Do Some Shout and Others Stay Silent? Communication Context Consistency in Political Discourse Offline and on Facebook" International Journal of Communication with Don Waisenan and Carrie Anne Platt.

2024. The Critical Role of Lutheran Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Intersections: The Journal of Lutheran Higher Education. with Maya Goehner and Tyler Haug.

2023. Fracking Twitter: Utilizing Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing Tools for Identifying Coalition and Causal Narratives . Politics and Policy with Andy Pattison, Christopher Cherniakov and William Cipoli.

2021. "The Devil We Know & The Angel that Did Not Fly: An Examination of Devil/Angel Shift in Twitter Fracking “Debates” in NY 2008-2018." Review of Policy Research with Andy Pattison and William Cipoli

2020. "The social media commons: Public sphere, agonism, and algorithmic obligation." Journal of Information Technology and Politics. with Richard Neve and Brian Collins.

2019. "Developing a Typology of Agonistic Talk on Twitter Using Gun Control Networks." Online Information Review. 44(2). 343-363. With Richard Neve.

2015. "(Mis)Arguing Diversity: The Weakness of Diversity as a Civic Argument (and how to Make it Stronger)" Democratic Theory 2(1) 22-41.

2013.  "Politics on Facebook: Microactivism and Expressive Political Performance." First Monday.  December. 

2013. Review of Threat Talk: The Comparative Politics of Internet Addiction. by Mary Majikan. Perspectives on Politics. 11(3). 981-982.

2013. De volta à névoa: o futuro do Facebook  (Back to the Fog: The Future of Facebook). Revista Politics.  15(June).

2013. "The Role of Digital Skills in the Formation of Generalized Trust Among Latinos and African Americans in the United States" with Jessica Lavariega-Monforti.  Social Science Computing Review.

2010. "Will this Engagement Make it to the Alter? The Paradox of Diversity and Civic Engagement." The Journal of Public Deliberation. Volume VI, Issue 2. p. 142-162.

2010. "You Call This Service?: A Civic Ontology approach to Evaluating Service Learning in Diverse Communities." Journal of Political Science Education. Volume VI, Issue 2. 

2009. Frame evolution: A new approach to understanding changes in diversity reforms at public universities in the United States. The Social Science Journal.46(1): 171-191.

2009. Diversity in the Cloud. Web 2.0 and Negotiating Difference On-Line. Intersections: The Journal of Lutheran Higher Education. Winter (1) 34-40.

2007. Why Diversity and Civic Engagement Don’t Talk to Each Other on College Campuses: The Need for Public Work. Intersections: The Journal of Lutheran Higher Education. Spring.

2003. Examining Race and Gender Based Representation Using Federal Awards Assistance Data. Race, Gender, and Class. 10(1): (163-184).

1998. "Exploring Politics on the Sports Page: The Role of Local Media in Sports Stadium Developments," with Robyne Turner. Policy Studies Review 15(1): 31-44.

2000. Reprinted in: Wilbur Rich (ed.) The Economics and Politics of Sports Facilities. Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books. 

Book Chapters

Forthcoming. AI's Algorithmic Re-Enchantment of the World and its Socio-Political Prospects. Religion and AI: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches (Bloomsbury Publishing)

2016. "Networked Representation: Latina Legislators on Twitter." in S. Navarro, S. Hernandez and L. Navarro eds. Latinas in American Politics. Rowman and Littlefield.

2013. "Profile Politics: Examining Polarization through Congressional Member Facebook Pages" in S. Kelly and S. Frisch eds. Politics to the Extreme: American Political Institutions in the 21st Century. Palgrave McMillan.

2013. "Facebook's Imact on American Politics" in D. Hartman and C. Uggen eds. The Social Side of Politics  W.W. Norton Press.

Articles and Essays

2024. "Is TikTok an Early Casualty of the China-US AI "Cold War"?" Tech Policy Press

2023. Strategic Vexing to Prepare Students for the Age of AI. (London) Times Higher Education.

2023. The Real Danger of AI. Democracy Paradox.

2023. Section 230 Rightly Protects Voice, but Allowing Platforms to Use Amplification Algorithms With Total Impunity Does Harm. Tech Policy Press.

2022. Trust and Algorithm or Trust your Neighbor?  New_Public

2021. "Teaching Students to Make Good Choices in an Algorithm-Driven World. EdSurge.

2021. "Twitter Finally Suspended Trump’s Account, but Did They Do It for the Right Reasons?" Tech Policy Press.

2021. "Why the Instaspinions on Finstagate"? Tech Policy Press.

2019. Is Facebook a Community? Digital Experts Weigh In. Just Security.

2019. Teaching what I do not Know. VC Reporter.

2018. My Concern with John Lott's Arizona Study. Latino Decisions.

2018. "Learning from the world’s Facebook experiment," AAPS Forum.

2018. "Overcoming our Fake News Moment," Los Angeles Daily News.

2018. My Concerns with John Lott's Arizona Study. Latino Decisions.

2015. "The Debates Should Be a TV Mini-Series Instead of a Marathon," New York Times.

2011. "Can the Internet be a Door to Increased Latin@ and African American Participation"? with Jessica Lavriega-Monforti. Latino Decisions.

Presentations

2024. "You are an Algorithmic Problem: AI and the Threat of Factory Farmed Citizens" at the 2024 Socio-technical Consequences of AI conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on September 13th, 2024.

2024. "The Promise of LLM based AI Classification in Expanding Narrative Policy Analysis" at the Workshop on Generative AI as a Method in Social Sciences organized by the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University and the Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures (Aalto University, Finland) on June 24, 2024.

2024.  "The Importance of Thinking Small: Incorporating Case Study and Fuzzy Set Methodology to the study of Social Media" at the Researching Social Media After The API workshop hosted by the Center for Digital Politics, Media and Democracy at the University of Liverpool.

2021. “Fracking Twitter: Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing Tools for the Identification of Coalition and Causal Narratives”. With Will Cipolli and Jose Marichal. Presented at the Midwest Political Science Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. April 9, 2022. 

2019. Topic Modeling Trump Tweets: A Computational Grounded Theory Approach to Understanding Social Media Political Talk. Presented at the 2019 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. San Diego, CA. April 19-22.

2019. Fracking Twitter: Applying the Narrative Policy Framework to fracking debates in New York. Presented at the 2019 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. April 4-7. With Andy Pattison and William Cipioli.

2018. Factory Farmed Citizens: Social Media, the Public Sphere and Algorithmic Obligation. Presented at the Eight Annual International Symposium on Digital Ethics at Loyola University.  Chicago, IL. November 9, 2018. With Brian Collins and Richard Neve.

2018. Antagonistic Bias: Developing a Typology of Agonistic Talk on Twitter Using Gun Control Networks. Presented at the 2018 Western Political Science Assocation Annual Conference.  San Francisco, CA. April 14-16. With Richard Neve.

2018. The Role of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in Democratic Life. Invited Talk at Whitman College. Walla Walla, Washington. April 23, 2018.

2017. A Social network Analysis of the Resistance Twitter Ecology. Presented at the 2017 APSA Political Neworks Conference. Columbus, OH. June 14-16.  With Ryan Mundy and Jack Rockwood.

2015. Microactivism: Explaining the Determinants of Effective Campaigns through Social Media Ecologies. Presented at the 2015 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. Las Vegas, NV. April 2-4. 

2014. Civic Hacking, Place Based Social Networks and Urban Power. Presented at the 2014 Western Political Science Assocation Annual Conference.  Seattle, WA. April 17-19.

2013. Roundtable: Public Intellectualism: Academics who Engage in Real-Time Politics Through New Media. Presented at the 2014 Western Political Science Assocation Annual Conference.  Hollywood, CA. April 17-19.  

2012. Latino Participation Dynamics in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement.  Presented at the 2012 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. Portland, OR. March 22-24, 2012.

2011. Bringing the Blogosphere into the Classroom: Strategies for Incorporating External Discourses. Presented at the 2011 American Sociological Association Annual Conference. Las Vegas, NV. August 22, 2011.

2011.  The Role of Digital Skills in the Formation of Trust and Efficacy Among Latinos.  Presented at the 2011 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference.  San Antonio, TX.  April 23, 2011. With Jessica Lavariega Monforti.

2010. "Political Facebok Groups: Microactivism and the Digital Front Stage." Presented and the Oxford Internet Institute's Internet, Poltics, Policy: an Impact Assessment Conference. Oxford, England. September 16-17, 2010.

2010. "Red State, Red Blog, Blue State, Blue Blog?" with Ryan Kushigemachi. Presented at the 2010 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. March 31, 2010.

2010. Citizenship in the Cloud: Exploring Civic Obligations in Web 2.0 Space. Presented at the 2010 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. April 1, 2010.

2009. CyberPower: Social Production and Urban Politics. Presented at the 2009 American Sociological Association Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. August 10, 2009.

2008. "Diversity in the Cloud." Keynote Talk at the 2008 Association of Lutheran College Faculty Annual Conference. Decorah, IA. June 30.

2008. "When Diversity Works: Revising Putnam's Hunkering Thesis Using Off The Line Case Selection." Presented at the Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. San Diego, CA. March 17.

2007. “Improving HIV Prevention and Care for Ventura County Latinos: A Case Study of Community-Based Action Research” with Adina Nack. Presented as part of the CLU Center for Leadership and Values Alma Peterson Distinguished lecture Series. May 3, 2007 and as part of the Social for the Study of Social Problems Annual Conference. New York, New York. August 10.

2007. “Youth Civic Engagement: Diversifying Neighborhood Councils in Los Angeles” with Haco Hoang. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Urban Affairs Association, Westin Hotel, Seattle, Washington. April 23.

2007. “Will this Engagement Make it to the Alter? The Paradox of Diversity and Civic Engagement.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, California. February 17.

2006. “Creating Cross-Culturally Engaged Citizens: The Challenge and Opportunities for Lutheran Higher Learning.” presented at the 2006 Association of Lutheran College Faculty annual conference, Nelson Room, Thousand Oaks, CA. October 5.

2006. “You Call This Service? The Effect of Project Type on Deficiency Paradigms in a Service Learning Project.” Presented at the annual meeting of the The Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 20.

2006. ”Boliamos Solos o Juntos? (Do we Bowl Alone or Together?): A Survey of Leadership Framings among Latino Youth.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mar 17. Also presented at the 2006. Segerhammer Faith and Life Conference. February 10, 2006.

2006. “The Role of Frames in Promoting Diversity at Public Universities.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 20.

2005. “Diversity Regimes: Building Coalitions for Increased Access at Public Universities” Presented at the 2005 Western Political Science Association Annual Conference. Oakland, CA.

2005. “When Does Gender fit into Diversity: Unpacking the Micropolitics of Diversity” Presented as part of the CLU Gender and Women’s Studies Speaker Series. March.

2005. “The Struggle Over "Scapes": Bringing Identity into Minority Incorporation Theory”  Presented as part of the CLU Gender and Women’s Studies Speaker Series. March.

2005. Urban Affairs Association Annual Meeting. Salt Lake City, CA. 2004. “Governing Difference: The Role of Diversity Ecologies.” American Association of Colleges and Universities Diversity and Learning Conference. Nashville, TN. October 2004.