17,310 research outputs found
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Towards a conceptualization of casual protest participation: Parsing a case from the Save RoĆia MontanÄ campaign
There is currently an empirical gap in the literature on protest participation in liberal democracies which has overwhelmingly focused on Western Europe and North America at the expense of Eastern Europe. To contribute to closing that gap, this article reviews findings from a multi-method field study conducted at FĂąnFest, the environmental protest festival designed to boost participation in Save RoĆia MontanÄ, the most prominent environmental campaign in Romania. By contrast to its Western counterparts, Romania has seen markedly lower levels of involvement in voluntary organizations that are a key setting for mobilization into collective action. Concurrently, experience with participation in physical protests is limited amongst Romanians. Specifically, the article probes recent indications that social network sites provide new impetus to protest participation as an instrumental means of mobilization. Dwelling on a distinction between experienced and newcomers to protest, results indicate that social network site usage may make possible the casual participation of individuals with prior protest experience who are not activists in a voluntary organization. Whilst this finding may signal a new participatory mode hinging on digitally networked communication which is beginning to be theorized, it confounds expectations pertaining to a net contribution of social network site usage to the participation of newcomers to protest
Does Campaigning on Social Media Make a Difference? Evidence from candidate use of Twitter during the 2015 and 2017 UK Elections
Social media are now a routine part of political campaigns all over the
world. However, studies of the impact of campaigning on social platform have
thus far been limited to cross-sectional datasets from one election period
which are vulnerable to unobserved variable bias. Hence empirical evidence on
the effectiveness of political social media activity is thin. We address this
deficit by analysing a novel panel dataset of political Twitter activity in the
2015 and 2017 elections in the United Kingdom. We find that Twitter based
campaigning does seem to help win votes, a finding which is consistent across a
variety of different model specifications including a first difference
regression. The impact of Twitter use is small in absolute terms, though
comparable with that of campaign spending. Our data also support the idea that
effects are mediated through other communication channels, hence challenging
the relevance of engaging in an interactive fashion
Pre and post-election 2010 online: What happened to the conversation?
Study of use of social media by Australian federal politicians in the 60 days immediately following the 2010 election
Selling European Democracy : The European Parliament's communication strategy on Facebook
After the all-time low voter turnout in the European elections in 2014, the European Parliament faces its legiti-macy being undermined. While the mass media is often made responsible for being a major contributor to the lack of an active political European public sphere where the EU governance can be debated, social media has been considered as a means to connect the European institutions and its citizens through direct communi-cation. From the viewpoint of deliberative democratic theory, the European Parliament can restore legitimacy through engaging citizens in public deliberation and involving them in the European decision-making process. At the same time, political institutions are known for their attempts to generate legitimacy in social media through promotional campaigns that do not stipulate policy impact.
This study contributes to the debate about the European public sphere by exploring the motivations behind the European Parliamentâs institutional communication on the social networking site Facebook. Its theoreti-cal underpinning hence links together the debates about the EUâs democratic deficit on the one hand, and the democratic potential of social media on the other. Specifically, this research scrutinises how the members of the European Parliamentâs Web Communication unit make sense of their work practices on Facebook and which role they ascribe to themselves and other actors in the construction of a European public sphere. The goal is to offer a critical assessment of the European Parliamentâs Facebook communication against the back-drop of the normative framework derived from the deliberative theory of public sphere.
The qualitative research is based on two data sets: The first data set was collected through participant obser-vation in the European Parliamentâs Web Communication unit in February 2018; the second one through eight semi-structured interviews with the Unitâs communication officials working with Facebook. Based on positioning theory, an interpretative interview analysis is conducted.
The findings assert that the European Parliamentâs Facebook communication must be understood as a politi-cal, top-down, promotional campaign rather than an attempt to engage ordinary citizens in an online delibera-tion. Thus, it does not provide for a systematic political bottom-up policy impact. The findings hence support the view that the narrative of social media connecting political actors and the citizens is most of all put forward to legitimise political promotion. This study moreover emphasises a liberal representative understanding rather than a deliberative understanding of European democracy within the European Parliamentâs administration. Accordingly, the role of the European Parliament web communication officials in the European public sphere is to substitute the weak media coverage about the Parliament and raise aware-ness about its benefits to the voters
Addressing the cyber safety challenge: from risk to resilience
Addressing the cyber safety challenge: from risk to resilience describes the cyber safety issues emerging from a range of technology trends, how different populations are using technologies and the risks they face, and how we can effectively respond to each groupâs unique cyber safety needs.
Written by the University of Western Sydney for Telstra Corporation Ltd, the report advocates for continuing to move cyber safety from a ârisk and protectionâ framework to one that focuses on building digital resilience, as well as fostering trust and confidence in the online environment. To do this we need to:
Address the needs of populations often neglected by current policies and programs â including adults, seniors, parents, and small to medium enterprises
Continue to build the digital literacy skills of all populations, because digital literacy strongly influences usersâ ability to engage safely online â this is best achieved by a hands-on learning approach
Keep risk in perspective â the risks and benefits of digital participation go hand in hand
Broaden the focus from awareness-raising to long-term behaviour change.
As digital technologies become further integrated into the everyday lives of Australians, users are potentially exposed to greater risks. However, the risks and benefits of digital participation go hand in hand. The challenge, therefore, is to support users to minimise the risks without limiting their digital participation and their capacity to derive the full benefits of connectivity. If Australians are to benefit as either consumers or providers of online services and products in the e-commerce environment, consumer safety and trust need to be improved.
Cyber safety needs to be considered against a transforming backdrop of technology trends, products and practices. While the rise of social media has tended to dominate recent debate and developments in cyber safety, particularly in relation to young people, a range of other trends is also shaping how users engage online, the risks they potentially face in the new media landscape, and the strategies used to address them. These trends include the rise of user generated content and content sharing platforms; the uptake of mobile technologies and, in particular, the adoption of smartphones; cloud computing; platform integration and single sign-on mechanisms; and the rise of GPS and location based services
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Theorizing Digital Journalism: The Limits of Linearity and the Rise of Relationships
For more than 50 years, our understanding of journalism drew on theories that emerged in an environment in which the components of a mediated message could be isolated well enough to measure and track. Yet today we live in a media world that is simultaneously immersive and interconnected, instantaneous and iterative, and individualized to an extent unimaginable a generation ago. In this environment, theories positing âmedia effectsâ are considerably less practical or meaningful than they once were, a topic explored in the first half of this chapter. Some of the ways that contemporary journalism scholars are actively recontextualizing the field are then outlined, followed by consideration of the proposition that our best hope for understanding the âeffectsâ of digital journalism may be to focus on the diversity of relationships it engenders. Looking at connections and interactions can profitably guide our study of this fluid, holistic media world
What are political parties doing on TikTok? The Spanish case
TikTok, already widely used before the pandemic, boomed during the quarantine that locked down large parts of the world, reaching 2 billion downloads and 800 million monthly active users worldwide by the end of 2020. Of these 800 million users, 41% are aged between 16 and 24 years. This social network, widely known for its entertainment videos, is increasingly becoming a place for political discussion and therefore a unique opportunity for political actors to (re)connect with young people. Acknowledging that the political uses of TikTok are still understudied, this paper aims to explore whether and how Spanish political parties are including TikTok as part of their communication strategy. Through an affordance-centered content analysis of all the posts published by the five most important Spanish political parties (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos, Podemos, and Vox), the current results show that, although all Spanish political parties have adopted this platform, their usage is unequal. From a quantitative perspective, PP was the first party to open a TikTok account, but its usage has been discontinuous; Podemos and Ciudadanos are the parties that publish the most and most constantly, while Vox has only published nine posts and the PSOE one. Nonetheless, from a qualitative perspective, Podemos and Vox generate more engagement and seem to understand and exploit TikTok's specific affordances better. The findings allow it to be concluded that, although globally Spanish political parties do not fully exploit the platform's affordances and tend to use it as a unilateral tool for promotion, the most engaging posts are those favoring interaction and geared toward politainment
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