Political campaigning 2.0: The influence of online news and social networking sites on attitudes and behavior

This study aimed to examine differences in influence between online news (e.g., New York Times) and social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) on attitudes in political campaigns. In a web-based experiment, campaign, polls and election between two fictitious candidates were simulated. Participants’ explicit and implicit attitudes as well as voting behavior were assessed using self-report items and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The results reveal that information emanating from online news had a significant influence on explicit and implicit attitudes while that of social networking sites did not. Overall, negative items had a stronger impact than positive ones, more so in online news compared to social networking sites. Negative information from either type of media was more likely to change participants’ explicit attitudes in a negative direction and as a consequence also change their vote. Practical implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed

Concept-driven design for democracy : advancing co-creative media to support citizen participation and democratic engagement

This article elaborates a concept of co-creative media that aims to support citizens’ democratic engagement by facilitating participatory and co-creative processes. The research adopts a concept-driven design approach to theoretically underpin and empirically inform the concept. This was accomplished by adopting theoretical resources from the framework of actor-network theory (ANT), identifying criteria in an analysis of existing socio-technical systems for democratic engagement, and building on the results from four research studies. The main contribution of the article, namely the concept of co-creative media, could serve as a basis for further theoretical reflections and a point of departure to support future participatory design processes where relevant stakeholders collectively contribute to the implementation and evaluation of co-creative media. Co-creative media have the potentials to provide citizens with a new approach to democracy and could broaden citizens’ democratic engagement by means of creating virtual spaces in which new ideas, initiatives, knowledge, and solutions could emerge

Valence asymmetry in impression formation

Are implicit attitudes as easily formed as explicit attitudes? Fifty-four participants carried out an experiment regarding the behaviors of a fictional protagonist. Attitudes were obtained by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and by explicit evaluations. The results in the current study showed tendency towards a significant persistence effect for explicit attitudes and a positivity bias effect for implicit attitudes

Valence asymmetry in impression formation

Are implicit attitudes as easily formed as explicit attitudes? Fifty-four participants carried out an experiment regarding the behaviors of a fictional protagonist. Attitudes were obtained by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and by explicit evaluations. The results in the current study showed tendency towards a significant persistence effect for explicit attitudes and a positivity bias effect for implicit attitudes

Birth order effects on attitudes: a pilot study

Does birth order influence our attitudes? The present study examined the effects of birth order on attitudes toward climate change and racism. Three hundred and two par- ticipants from two American universities completed a questionnaire about climate change, family constellation, and racism. The results showed initially no significant correlations but after controlling for gender, age, sibship size, parent’s education, and conflict with parents the results showed that lastborns had significantly higher racial prejudice than only children and firstborns. Moreover, the results showed that gender and age influenced our attitudes. For the former, men were less concerned about cli- mate change and had a higher racial prejudice toward immigration compared to women. For the latter, the older we become, the less conservative attitudes we will hold

Co-creating democracy : Conceptualizing co-creative media to facilitate democratic engagement in society

Internet-based information and communication technology (ICT) have increasingly been used to facilitate and support democratic engagement in society. A growing body of research has demonstrated that the Internet and, in particular, social media have given citizens the opportunity to participate, interact, network, collaborate, and mobilize themselves within communities. While these media have broadened the means of exercising citizenship in many forms of participatory democracy, the technological prerequisites exist to go beyond the standard uses of social media (e.g., social networking, entertainment) and towards proactive and co-creative democratic engagement. Such engagement includes, but is not limited to, participatory activities for democratic purposes. Further, some researchers have argued that representative democracy is in decline and has several limitations related to citizens' trust in politicians and engagement with representative institutions. There is a recognition among scholars to infuse representative democracy with participatory bottom-up processes by employing ICT in an attempt to bridge these limitations. In order to further facilitate and support participatory as well as co-creative processes, this thesis elaborates a concept of co-creative media. The process of this work was guided by the following question: How can co-creative media be theoretically anchored and conceptualized in order to facilitate and support citizen engagement within democratic processes? A concept-driven design research approach was adopted to address this research question, and this resulted in five interconnected articles. Firstly, based on the results from each article, four design guidelines were formulated to further guide the design of co-creative media for democratic engagement. These design guidelines may support future participatory design processes in which stakeholders collectively contribute to the development and evaluation of co-creative media. The guidelines constitute a resource that stakeholders may use to develop adaptations of co-creative media for the purposes of facilitating democratic engagement. Secondly, the results from each article were fed forward into the concept-driven research process as theoretical and empirical insights, which were used to inform and elaborate the main contribution of this thesis, namely the concept of co-creative media. The concept of co-creative media in its form outlined by this thesis seeks to broaden citizens’ democratic engagement by means of creating virtual spaces in which new ideas, initiatives, knowledge, solutions, and digital tools could emerge. The implications of co-creative media could be to create, develop, and strengthen partnerships between communities and local services, extend digital skills in society through community-engaged practitioners, and propagate as well as coordinate large-scale co-creative practices.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Accepted.</p

Birth order effects on attitudes: a pilot study

Does birth order influence our attitudes? The present study examined the effects of birth order on attitudes toward climate change and racism. Three hundred and two par- ticipants from two American universities completed a questionnaire about climate change, family constellation, and racism. The results showed initially no significant correlations but after controlling for gender, age, sibship size, parent’s education, and conflict with parents the results showed that lastborns had significantly higher racial prejudice than only children and firstborns. Moreover, the results showed that gender and age influenced our attitudes. For the former, men were less concerned about cli- mate change and had a higher racial prejudice toward immigration compared to women. For the latter, the older we become, the less conservative attitudes we will hold

Flexibel utbildning : En fenomenografisk studie av distansutbildningen vid Umeå Universitet

Syftet med min undersökning var att studera studenters och lärares uppfattningar av den flexibla utbildningen. Detta har länge varit ett intresseområde för mig. Eftersom jag har erfarenheter av flexibel utbildning så underlättade det för mitt arbetssätt genom uppsatsen.För att förstå grunden till flexibel utbildning behandlades distansutbildningens historia i bakgrundskapitlet och där knöt an till hur informations- och kommunikationsteknologi kan användas i vår tid för att stödja denna form av utbildning.Detta genomfördes med den fenomenografiska ansatsen som forskningsmetod. I anslutning till denna metod använde jag mig av webbintervjuer som verktyg för att få svar på mina frågeställningar.Resultatet som jag kom fram till var att en stor majoritet av undersökningsdeltagarna hade tiden som en gemensam faktor till varför de upplevde den flexibla utbildningen på ett negativt sätt, det vill säga att man hann mindre än vad man trodde m.m. Andra faktorer som utkristalliserades var motivation, självdisciplin och brist på kommunikation. Dessa låg i fokus för en students utsikter att avsluta den flexibla utbildningen. Det var även intressant att se vilket stöd som studenten fick och vad som saknades enligt denne och skildra detta i förhållande till lärarens uppfattningar om flexibel utbildning