Vortex of the Web. Potentials of the online environment

This volume compiles international contributions that explore the potential risks and chances coming along with the wide-scale migration of society into digital space. Suggesting a shift of paradigm from Spiral of Silence to Nexus of Noise, the opening chapter provides an overview on systematic approaches and mechanisms of manipulation – ranging from populist political players to Cambridge Analytica. After a discussion of the the juxtaposition effects of social media use on social environments, the efficient instrumentalization of Twitter by Turkish politicans in the course of the US-decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is being analyzed. Following a case study of Instagram, Black Lives Matter and racism is a research about the impact of online pornography on the academic performance of university students. Another chapter is pointing out the potential of online tools for the successful relaunch of shadow brands. The closing section of the book deals with the role of social media on the opinion formation about the Euromaidan movement during the Ukrainian revolution and offers a comparative study touching on Russian and Western depictions of political documentaries in the 2000s

The Political Campaign Industry and the Emergence of Social Media in Post-authoritarian Indonesian Electoral Politics

This dissertation analyses the emergence of social media for electoral campaigning in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Using a critical political economy perspective, it examines the interactions between social media, the political campaign industry, which is understood as a product of “the cross-development of political and commercial persuasion techniques in the 20th century” (Stockwell, 2000, p. 3), and electoral players. This thesis evaluates how the political campaign industry intersects with social media-enabled production and distribution of campaign messages (content), audience (users) mobilisation and labour organisation. It also assesses the impact of the political campaign industry’s social media work upon the web of relations between candidates, donors and voters during electoral periods. The findings confirm that social media has enabled the growing Indonesian political campaign industry to develop social media campaigning services that have been adopted widely in Indonesian elections. These findings contradict previous studies that have suggested that social media contribute to the nurturance of democracy in contemporary Indonesia by enabling citizens to discuss alternative issues to elite-generated ones carried by conventional media (Nuswantoro, 2014; Suaedy, 2014). By contrast, this dissertation demonstrates that during electoral campaign periods social media were not autonomous from heavy industry-driven engineering. Instead, social media enabled the political campaign industry to further encroach upon Indonesian electoral politics and thereby generate greater profits for the industry. These strategies were made possible because social media electoral campaigning serves not only as practical tool of persuasion but also a new mechanism to manage the temporary converging interests of political, economic and cultural forces during electoral campaign periods. Put differently, with the assistance of the political campaign industry, Indonesian political economy elites have been able to capture social media to safeguard their social ascendancy through competitive elections

Social Media and its Potential Effects on Civic Engagement

Social media has been predicted as a tool to change the democratic process and turn around the substantial decline in political participation that has occurred among American citizens in the most recent years. Yet, since it is still relatively young and unharnessed, many argue that any effect that social media can have on civic engagement cannot be determined yet. This thesis explores and discusses how the emergence of social media as a campaign tool could effect traditional forms of civic engagement as well as produce new forms. In the 2008 election, social media was capitalized by the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Through the analysis of the strategies employed by the Obama campaign as well as the insight into the emergence of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in politics, the understanding of the potential effect emerges. From the initial understanding, I was able to analyze two different 2010 midterm elections that occurred in Central New York. Those two case studies allowed me to analyze the strategies employed by the campaigns, the online interaction with citizens, and to discuss the potential offline activities. Finally, my research led me to conduct interviews with current undergraduates. The interviews provided an insight into the current generation’s understanding of civic engagement as well as how they used social media for their own political use. My research provides further discussion into the relatively new topic and how the 2012 general election and beyond could be changed as a result

The rules of engagement : what formats, moderators, and news values tell us about the content of electoral debates

U.S. democracy is one of the most inclusive in the world, yet levels of political knowledge and engagement remain markedly low. Moreover, the news media’s coverage of elections inadequately informs and engages the public. These shortcomings underscore the importance of campaign events like electoral debates – events that are designed not only to educate the public but also to provide the public a more active role in the electoral process. Journalistic news norms and values wield tremendous power over campaign news agendas – including post-debate coverage – but the extent to which they influence debate agendas remains unclear. Given what we know about patterns of campaign news coverage, a closer look at mediated debate agendas is warranted. To date, no comprehensive data on debate agendas exist. With a unique sample of debate questions spanning 52 years of electoral campaigns – including general election, primary, and state-level debates – this content analysis is the first of its kind to examine the debate agenda over time and across electoral contexts. This dissertation determines not only the extent to which news norms and routines influence electoral debate agendas but also the conditions (e.g. rules, formats, moderators, question sources) predictive of particular debate questions. In short, this study provides the first systemic insight into what influences the debate agenda and why we should care about the questions posed to the candidates. The findings presented herein suggest that debates are considerably more policy-driven than campaign news coverage; however, content and tone of agendas vary according to format rules, moderator characteristics, and question source. I find that local journalists offer a more substantive and less attack-driven agenda than members of the national press corps; that, contrary to expectations, nonprofit journalists are actually less substantive than commercial press in the debate questions they generate; and public influence through town hall formats does little to help nor hinder the substance of debate agendas. These findings are discussed in a broader democratic context, and the research presented herein offers organizers of these events best practices for future debates and recommendations for preserving their relevance and substance

What Happened to the Republican Party? The Right-Wing Media Ecosystem and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

New Media and Youth Political Action

To rigorously consider the impact of new media on the political and civic behavior of young people, The MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) developed and fielded one of the first large-scale, nationally representative studies of new media and politics among young people. The two principal researchers for the survey component of the YPP, Cathy J. Cohen of the University of Chicago and Joseph Kahne of Mills College, oversaw a research team that surveyed nearly 3,000 respondents between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age. Unlike any prior study of youth and new media, this study included large numbers of black, Latino, and Asian American respondents, which allows for unique and powerful statistical comparisons across race with a focus on young people.Until now there has been limited opportunity and data available to comprehensively explore the relationship between new media and the politics of young people. One of the few entities to engage in this type of rigorous analysis has been the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The YPP study expands on this field-leading work by including an extensive battery of items addressing participatory politics and adequate numbers of participants from different racial and ethnic groups, thus allowing for analysis of how different groups of young people were engaged with new media in the political realm.The YPP study findings suggest that fundamental changes in political expectations and practices may be occurring -- especially for youth. The analysis of the data collected reveals that youth are taking advantage of an expanded set of participatory practices in the political realm in ways that amplify their voice and sometimes their influence, thus increasing the ways young people participate in political life. The YPP researchers label this expanded set of opportunities and actions participatory politics

Assessing Electoral Process Challenges Through Poll Workers\u27 Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa-Togo

Contenders disputing electoral results in Sub-Saharan African countries often attribute defects in presidential electoral processes to the implementation of rules and procedures. Yet despite the considerable decision-making authority poll workers are entrusted with and the significance of the tasks performed by therm, scholars have not closely investigated poll workers\u27contributions to elections\u27 management in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using principal-agent theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to examine the challenges encountered in the organization of the presidential election in Togo, held on April 25, 2015, with a particular emphasis on poll workers\u27 job performance. Research questions focused on whether poll workers in Togo have the ability and the resources necessary to carry out quality elections and the perceived effects of poll workers\u27 performance on the integrity of the presidential electoral process. Data were obtained from interviews with 11 purposely selected poll workers and review of social media audio and video records of the election. These data were inductively coded and subjected to thematic analysis. A key finding was that deficiencies in poll workers\u27 performance reflect a complex interplay of ill-conceived legal framework, lack of infrastructure, poor training, personal ineptitude, underfunding, partisanship, and tribalism. Further findings indicated that poll workers performing poorly resulted in long lines of voters, voter suppression, inaccuracies in vote counts, and delay in results announcement. Implications for positive social change include election practitionners\u27 increased awareness that improving the quality of service delivery to voters on election day may foster confidence in and legitimacy of election results, seen as prerequisite to peaceful presidential elections in this part of the world

Legitimizing Sexism: Critical Discourse Analysis on Sexism in a Political U.S. Podcast

Sexism in media and in politics is not a new phenomenon, yet the current U.S. political landscape and new forms of media, such as podcasts, demand the issue to be researched further. In this thesis, I analyze the sexist language used in a The Ben Shapiro Show podcast episode. Research questions explore what kind of sexist language is used and how sexism is legitimatized in the podcast. Additionally, the impact of sexist discourses on the podcast’s audience’s attitudes and stances is discussed. The analysis is based on Critical Discourse Analysis, focusing on especially its feminist branches as well as the Foucauldian understanding of power. Works of Michelle Lazar, Sarah Mills, and Alice Freed are used to form a base for sexism analysis. The legitimation analysis is completed by basing it on Theo Van Leeuwen’s Social Actors Approach and legitimization theory and realized via M.A.K Halliday’s transitivity analysis. The analysis shows that the most used type of sexism is overt sexism and that legitimations via authorization and evaluation are used equally. The results suggest that sexist language is utilized in right-wing conservative media to limit women’s participation in politics. Sexist attitudes are fostered and naturalized via podcasts and a podcaster creates a community from their audience which trusts the information spread by the podcaster. The study on sexism in podcasts adds to the research on sexist language in media. As podcasts have a unique position in the field of media, located somewhere between traditional and social media, the current study provides a unique point of view on media sexism and sexism in politics

Will the Real News Reporters Please Stand Up?: A Study of Bias in the Media

The goal of my project is to define what news media bias is and examine its history and the effects it currently has on our country and democracy. I will examine its electoral effects as well as how media bias has contributed to lower trust in the news media as a whole. My project will consist of a general news story on the subject of media bias; a smaller news story focusing on the history of media bias and public perception of the press; an abbreviated research paper on newspaper endorsements and their efficacy in a modern news landscape; and a personal reflective essay. My project will feature research papers, surveys from sources such as the Pew Research Center, Gallup and Poynter, interviews, and other news stories. This project is significant because it can help equip people to better understand the media and how they operate, how to recognize bias, and how to distinguish biased news from factual reporting

Identity-motivated elaboration : the role of partisan social identities and elaboration in political persuasion and learning

Persuasive political messages play a central role in the attitude formation process. The unification of the social identity theory, the theory of motivated reasoning, and the elaboration likelihood model better explains the way individuals learn from and are persuaded by messages in the evolving political media landscape. Partisanship is a social identity that biases the processing of new political information. The current dissertation employs an experimental design (with replication) to test the process of identity-motivated elaboration and structural equation modeling to test hypothesized relationships. The results reveal that the insertion of partisan cues to a political message, indicating partisan social group norms, conditions persuasion by partisan social identity, limits learning, and valences elaboration. Citizens engage in partisan motivated reasoning, not just to defend prior beliefs, but to defend their partisan social identity. Identifying with the Democratic or Republican Party creates a partisan lens through which all new political information is processed. The integration of the three psychological theories avails a new perspective on the political persuasion process, one that is more nuanced and extensive than that provided by any isolated theoretical perspective. The current study extends our understanding of this complex political communicative process by synthesizing the social identity approach, partisan motivated reasoning, and valenced cognitive elaboration into a unified theory of political persuasion.Includes bibliographical references