Who is leading the campaign charts? Comparing individual popularity on old and new media

Traditionally, election campaigns are covered in the mass media with a strong focus on a limited number of top candidates. The question of this paper is whether this knowledge still holds today, when social media outlets are becoming more popular. Do candidates who dominate the traditional media also dominate the social media? Or can candidates make up for a lack of mass media coverage by attracting attention on Twitter? This study addresses these question by paring Twitter data with traditional media data for the 2014 Belgian elections. Our findings show that the two platforms are indeed strongly related and that candidates with a prominent position in the media are generally also most successful on Twitter. This is not because more popularity on Twitter translates directly into more traditional media coverage, but mainly because largely the same political elite dominates both platforms

Modeling the formation of attentive publics in social media: the case of Donald Trump

Previous research has shown the importance of Donald Trump’s Twitter activity, and that of his Twitter following, in spreading his message during the primary and general election campaigns of 2015–2016. However, we know little about how the publics who followed Trump and amplified his messages took shape. We take this case as an opportunity to theorize and test questions about the assembly of what we call “attentive publics” in social media. We situate our study in the context of current discussions of audience formation, attention flow, and hybridity in the United States’ political media system. From this we derive propositions concerning how attentive publics aggregate around a particular object, in this case Trump himself, which we test using time series modeling. We also present an exploration of the possible role of automated accounts in these processes. Our results reiterate the media hybridity described by others, while emphasizing the importance of news media coverage in building social media attentive publics.Accepted manuscrip

The Digital Architectures of Social Media: Comparing Political Campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. Election

The present study argues that political communication on social media is mediated by a platform's digital architecture, defined as the technical protocols that enable, constrain, and shape user behavior in a virtual space. A framework for understanding digital architectures is introduced, and four platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat) are compared along the typology. Using the 2016 US election as a case, interviews with three Republican digital strategists are combined with social media data to qualify the studyies theoretical claim that a platform's network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication model affect political campaign strategy on social media

Practitioner perceptions: critical junctures and the global emergence and challenges of fact-checking

Since 2003 and the emergence of FactCheck.org in the United States, fact-checking has expanded both domestically and internationally. As of February, 2016, the Duke Reporter’s Lab identified nearly 100 active initiatives around the world. This research explores why fact-checking is spreading globally at this point in time. Seen as a professional reform movement in the journalistic community (Graves, 2016), historical research on reform movements suggest several possible factors influencing the emergence of fact-checking including a decline in journalism, easy access to technology for the masses, and socio-political strife (McChesney, 2007; Pickard, 2015; Stole, 2006). Using a phenomenological approach, two focus groups were conducted among fact-checkers during the 2015 Global Fact-checking Summit in London, England. Participants shared rich experiences about conditions and contexts surrounding the emergence and challenges facing their organizations. Ultimately, as the purpose of this research is to help future fact-checkers around the world become aware of the circumstances under which fact-checking is most likely to emerge and thrive (or fail), recommendations from current global practitioners are offered.Accepted manuscrip

Elite Tweets: Analysing the Twitter Communication Patterns of Labour Party Peers in the House of Lords

The micro-blogging platform Twitter has gained notoriety for its status as both a communication channel between private individuals, and as a public forum monitored by journalists, the public, and the state. Its potential application for political communication has not gone unnoticed; politicians have used Twitter to attract voters, interact with constituencies and advance issue-based campaigns. This article reports on the preliminary results of the research team’s work with 21 peers sitting on the Labour frontbench. It is based on the monitoring and archival of the peers’ activity on Twitter for a period of 100 days from 16th May to 28th September 2012. Using a sample of more than 4,363 tweets and a mixed methodology combining semantic analysis, social network analysis and quantitative analysis, this paper explores the peers’ patterns of usage and communication on Twitter. Key findings are that as a tweeting community their behavior is consistent with others, however there is evidence that a coherent strategy is lacking. Labour peers tend to work in ego networks of self-interest as opposed to working together to promote party polic

Conceptualizing the parliamentarization and politicization of European policies

In the past 20 years, two related literature strands have gradually moved centre stage of the attention of EU Studies scholars. The first is preoccupied with the ‘politicization of European integration’, a multi-faceted concept that aims to tie together a multitude of political and societal manifestations underlying an increasing controversiality of the EU. A second concerns the parliamentarization of the EU, referring to the changing (institutional) role and EU-related activities national parliaments engage in. The key point of this contribution is simple, but often overlooked: We can and should be seeing parliamentarization as a necessary, yet insufficient, component of a wider process of politicization. Doing so goes beyond the often ad hoc or pars pro toto theoretical assumptions in both literature strands, sheds new light on the normative consequences attached to these phenomena, and furthers a more complete understanding of how a ‘comprehensive’ politicization of European policies develops

Undocumented Queer Latinx Students: Testimonio of Survival

Recent U.S. political turmoil has deliberately embedded fear into many marginalized and underrepresented people living in the U.S. The fact that the United States was founded on the demanding work of diverse populations of immigrants is vitally important to how immigrants are being treated today. In 2016, the U.S. presidential electoral win for Donald Trump left many marginalized communities—including Undocumented Queer Latinx students—fearful of how his administration would affect their communities. This paper reviews literatures on Queer immigration history, the homophobic and transphobic psychological history behind legal immigration barriers, and the recent mobilization to include Undocumented Queer Latinx students in the Immigration Rights Movement as foundational elements for an ethnographic research case study of the Undocumented Queer Latinx student community. The historical and current adversities these students face will be the main point of this research due to the increased legal barriers, deportations, and uncertain future that extremely conservative politicians have set―or will set―in motion. The proposed project explores the intersectionality of the historical heterosexism of immigration law, current government debate over DACA, Queer Manifestos about immigration rights, and the gray politics that emphasize the importance of Undocumented Queer Latinx student voices. This research is a subject not many mainstream media sources investigate; however, it is vitally important due to the injustices faced by this community

Policy forums: Why do they exist and what are they used for?

Policy forums are issue-based intermediary organizations where diverse types of political and societal actors repeatedly interact. Policy forums are important elements of modern governance systems as they allow actors to learn, negotiate, or build trust. They can vary in composition, size, membership logic, and other distinct features. This article lays the foundation of a theory of policy forums based on three interrelated elements: First, it discusses conditions for the formation of a forum and describes the logic of these organizations as one of an asymmetric multipartite exchange. Second, it enumerates the potential set of goals and motivations of participating actors that are fed into this exchange. Third, it proposes eight different dimensions on which policy forums differ and which affect the exchange mechanisms among actors. We claim that empirical work on policy forums should systematically take these elements into account and propose elements of a research agenda

A Retrospective Look at the Winding Paths to Legalizing Afro-Colombian Rights in Law 70 of 1993

August 2013 marked twenty years since the passing of Law 70, which legally recognizes the ethnic, territorial, and socioeconomic rights of black communities in Colombia. In the past two decades its implementation has been mixed at best, and the actual political and economic status of most Afro-Colombians remains grim. Yet this flawed law remains an important icon and political instrument of Afro-Colombian struggles. A retrospective look at the processes and peoples that led up to Law 70 may be useful in the context of ongoing Afro-Latin(o) struggles to obtain real and sustained cultural, political, and economic rights