A data-driven analysis to question epidemic models for citation cascades on the blogosphere

Citation cascades in blog networks are often considered as traces of information spreading on this social medium. In this work, we question this point of view using both a structural and semantic analysis of five months activity of the most representative blogs of the french-speaking community.Statistical measures reveal that our dataset shares many features with those that can be found in the literature, suggesting the existence of an identical underlying process. However, a closer analysis of the post content indicates that the popular epidemic-like descriptions of cascades are misleading in this context.A basic model, taking only into account the behavior of bloggers and their restricted social network, accounts for several important statistical features of the data.These arguments support the idea that citations primary goal may not be information spreading on the blogosphere.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, to be published in ICWSM-13 proceeding

State of Alaska Election Security Project Phase 2 Report

A laska’s election system is among the most secure in the country, and it has a number of safeguards other states are now adopting. But the technology Alaska uses to record and count votes could be improved— and the state’s huge size, limited road system, and scattered communities also create special challenges for insuring the integrity of the vote. In this second phase of an ongoing study of Alaska’s election security, we recommend ways of strengthening the system—not only the technology but also the election procedures. The lieutenant governor and the Division of Elections asked the University of Alaska Anchorage to do this evaluation, which began in September 2007.Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. State of Alaska Division of Elections.List of Appendices / Glossary / Study Team / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Summary of Recommendations / Part 1 Defense in Depth / Part 2 Fortification of Systems / Part 3 Confidence in Outcomes / Conclusions / Proposed Statement of Work for Phase 3: Implementation / Reference

Social networks in east Cleveland: a study of powerlessness and non-participation

This thesis is based on material gathered as part of a larger, multi-methodological study of public participation in Structure Planning in Cleveland County in the North East of England. The variations in local responses to planning policies were investigated through the use of the social networks approach, in which the interaction between individuals and sets of individuals was the main focus of the analysis. The case-study in this thesis covers an area in which there was little, if any, response to the Structure Plans. It is, therefore, primarily an explanation of non-participation. The former "ironstone mining settlements of the Skelton and Brotton area of East Cleveland are marked by declining employment opportunities, poor roads and facilities, and much old and obsolete housing. The image of dereliction, fragmentation and deprivation is reinforced by the planners' treatment of the area, both in the plans and in the way that public participation in the area was managed. Analysis of interaction in networks shows some inter- penetration of group membership, but no coherent, enduring involvement by participators from more than one village together, raising questions of cohesion and conflict. Within the context of fragmentation and competition between villages, the impact of major demolition and renovation schemes is assessed. The explanation of non-participation in a situation of clear inequality and disadvantage necessitates the use of power theory of a more radical type than that which has usually been applied to the inherently political process of planning. A theoretical frame work adequate to deal with the powerlessness of a population whose interests are adversely affected by those in power, is a modified version of Lukes' three-dimensional approach. Ideological factors such as deference can thus be related to the acquiescence found

Of Echo Chambers and Contrarian Clubs:Exposure to Political Disagreement Among German and Italian Users of Twitter

Scholars have debated whether social media platforms, by allowing users to select the information to which they are exposed, may lead people to isolate themselves from viewpoints with which they disagree, thereby serving as political “echo chambers.” We investigate hypotheses concerning the circumstances under which Twitter users who communicate about elections would engage with (a) supportive, (b) oppositional, and (c) mixed political networks. Based on online surveys of representative samples of Italian and German individuals who posted at least one Twitter message about elections in 2013, we find substantial differences in the extent to which social media facilitates exposure to similar versus dissimilar political views. Our results suggest that exposure to supportive, oppositional, or mixed political networks on social media can be explained by broader patterns of political conversation (i.e., structure of offline networks) and specific habits in the political use of social media (i.e., the intensity of political discussion). These findings suggest that disagreement persists on social media even when ideological homophily is the modal outcome, and that scholars should pay more attention to specific situational and dispositional factors when evaluating the implications of social media for political communication

Environmental NGOs : Channels of democracy for the European Union

The notion of democratic deficit has been at the centre of many debates on the European Union for the last 30 years. The reason is, to a certain degree, linked to the lack of legitimacy of the European Commission, which is not elected and remote from the European citizens. However, the Commission seems to have found a positive way to increase its legitimacy by the inclusion of civil-society in the decision-making process. The interaction between the Commission and two Environmental NGOs will therefore be analysed in order to make a constructive contribution to the debate. The present paper does not limit itself to normative statements on reality and considers that there is more to socio-political relations than “true” verifiable facts. Therefore, it is not limited to the formal decision-making process, and goes deeper into the socialisation process at play between the different actors. The outcome is that the Environmental NGOs studied appears as valuable models for the implementation of new democratic channels for the representation and participation of European citizens

Coordinating the Competition, Pre-electoral Coalitions in the Indian General Elections

The number and variety of pre-electoral coalitions in the Indian general elections make India a prime case to examine why parties chose to join forces with their rivals during elections. Yet, existing theories, which emphasise narrow definitions of party size and shared ideology, are unable to explain the tangled alliances that emerge between Indian political parties. In order to examine why parties pursue certain pre-electoral coalitions, I employ a mixed-methods strategy that combines statistical network analysis (exponential random graph models) with case study analysis, using a new dataset of pre-electoral coalitions 1999-2014. The network analysis suggests that pre-electoral coalitions in India are driven by the parties’ wish to increase their odds of winning in particular constituencies and, to a smaller degree, their wish to combine their parliamentary strength afterwards. The analysis also suggests that the network structure of the party system has a significant impact on pre- electoral coalition formation in that parties are attracted to ‘high-connector parties’ that allow them to form indirect alliances with a number of parties, and that parties build denser, regional coalitions that allow smaller parties to buy leverage against bigger allies. Finally, even though pre-electoral coalitions in India appear highly changeable, parties are more likely to renew an existing pre-electoral coalition than to build a new one. I explore the implications of the network analysis in three case studies, namely a pre- electoral coalition that took place as the model predicted (a true positive case), one that did not take pace despite being predicted (a false positive case), and one that took place despite not being predicted (a false negative case). The case studies corroborate the statistical findings but also demonstrate that network structures can both encourage and hinder pre-electoral coalitions