Social media use, online political discussion and UK political events 2013-2018: a phenomenographic study

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D.Social media has had observably significant effects on the way many ordinary people participate in politics and appears both symptomatic and causal of a changing landscape. Research, often data-led, has shown marked trends in online behaviour, such as political polarisation, the tendency to form echo chambers and other distinct patterns in the way people debate, share opinions, express their self-identities, consume media and think critically, or otherwise, about political issues. A review of the literature shows that current research in this area across disciplines explores an increasingly wide range of potential influencing factors behind these phenomena, from the social to the psychological to the physiological. However, there have been – far - fewer phenomenological or phenomenographical studies into people’s lived experience of being part of this cultural shift, how their own inclinations, practices and behaviour might be helping to shape the bigger picture, and to what extent they understand this. Starting from an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, and based on in-depth conversations with 84 mostly UK-based adults spoken to one-to-one or in focus groups and webinars over an 18-month period, this study asked people’s about their own perceptions and understanding of their online engagement, focusing on recent major UK political events between 2013 and 2018, (including the Scottish Independence Referendum, The EU Referendum and the Labour Party leadership contests) and considers some of the inferences that might be drawn from people’s own insights. It shows:  People’s experiences are varied, influenced by a range of factors but there is a focus on personal needs and concerns as much as wider political ones  Participants often struggle with behavioural self-awareness and understanding of the motives and actions of others  They can have profound emotional responses owing to the difficulties of using social media but still value it as a medium for political learning and self-expression  A lot of activity takes places in covert, limited or private spaces  Social media itself is an unprecedented learning environment where people begin to understand their own behaviour better and adap

Radio evolution: conference proceedings

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

BlogForever: D3.1 Preservation Strategy Report

This report describes preservation planning approaches and strategies recommended by the BlogForever project as a core component of a weblog repository design. More specifically, we start by discussing why we would want to preserve weblogs in the first place and what it is exactly that we are trying to preserve. We further present a review of past and present work and highlight why current practices in web archiving do not address the needs of weblog preservation adequately. We make three distinctive contributions in this volume: a) we propose transferable practical workflows for applying a combination of established metadata and repository standards in developing a weblog repository, b) we provide an automated approach to identifying significant properties of weblog content that uses the notion of communities and how this affects previous strategies, c) we propose a sustainability plan that draws upon community knowledge through innovative repository design

Public Discourse in the Russian Blogosphere: Mapping RuNet Politics and Mobilization

We analyzed Russian blogs to discover networks of discussion around politics and public affairs. Beginning with an initial set of over five million blogs, we used social network analysis to identify a highly active ‘Discussion Core’ of over 11,000. These were clustered according to long term patterns of citations within posts, and the resulting segmentation characterized through both automated and human content analysis. Key findings include: * Unlike their counterparts in the US and elsewhere, Russian bloggers prefer platforms that combine features typical of blogs with features of social network services (SNSs) like Facebook. Russian blogging is dominated by a handful of these “SNS hybrids.” * While the larger Russian blogosphere is highly divided according to platform, there is a central Discussion Core that contains the majority of political and public affairs discourse. This core is comprised mainly, though not exclusively, of blogs on the LiveJournal platform

European E-Democracy in Practice

This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcomings of e-participation practices in connection with EU decision-making procedures and institutions. The book features case studies on parliamentary monitoring, e-voting practices, and e-publics, and offers recommendations for improving the integration of e-democracy in European politics and governance. Accordingly, it will appeal to scholars as well as practitioners interested in identifying suitable e-participation tools for European institutions and thus helps to reduce the EU’s current democratic deficit. This book is a continuation of the book “Electronic Democracy in Europe” published by Springer

Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia

This open access book examines Malaysian politics using a linguistic perspective. It explores how language serves to (de)legitimise governance, and its subsequent policies and activities in Malaysia. Grounded in discourse studies, this edited volume presents research on the discourses produced by and on Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional from 2008 to 2020, studying how political actors (de)legitimise their governance through discursive means. The thirteen original chapters select spoken, print and digital texts in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and deploy varied theoretical and methodological approaches. Their linguistic analysis unearths the language features and strategies that facilitate (de)legitimation. It shows how political actors shape the discursive representation and evaluation of multiple concerns in Malaysia. Consequently, Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia: Legitimising Governance improves our understanding of contemporary Malaysian political discourse. It is of interest to graduates and researchers in the field of discourse studies, seeking to understand the discursive contours of politics in this developing Asian country. ; This open access book examines Malaysian politics using a linguistic perspective. It explores how language serves to (de)legitimise governance, and its subsequent policies and activities in Malaysia. Grounded in discourse studies, this edited volume presents research on the discourses produced by and on Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional from 2008 to 2020, studying how political actors (de)legitimise their governance through discursive means. The thirteen original chapters select spoken, print and digital texts in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and deploy varied theoretical and methodological approaches. Their linguistic analysis unearths the language features and strategies that facilitate (de)legitimation. It shows how political actors shape the discursive representation and evaluation of multiple concerns in Malaysia. Consequently, Discursive Approaches to Politics in Malaysia: Legitimising Governance improves our understanding of contemporary Malaysian political discourse. It is of interest to graduates and researchers in the field of discourse studies, seeking to understand the discursive contours of politics in this developing Asian country