Referendums on EU matters

This study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament. It analyses the political and legal dynamics behind referendums on EU-related matters. It argues that we have entered a period of increasing political uncertainty with regard to the European project and that this new political configuration will both affect and be affected by the politics of EU-related referendums. Such referendums have long been a risky endeavour and this has been accentuated in the wake of the Great Recession with its negative ramifications for public opinion in the European Union. It is clear that referendums on EU matters are here to stay and will continue to be central to the EU’s future as they are deployed to determine the number of Member States within the EU, its geographical reach, its constitutional evolution and adherence to EU policies. Only now they have become an even riskier endeavour

Homophily among VAA users: Similarities and differences of node attributes in a VAA-generated social network

Users who successfully invited others to the EUvox 2014 online platform and users who accepted the invitation were used to form a network dataset. This report examines the tendency of Inviters and Invitees to be disproportionately similar with respect to their demographic, political orientation and attitudinal characteristics, i.e. Examines the homophily hypothesis in VAA generated data. We find that Inviters were not more similar to their respective Invitees with regards to demographic and political identity attributes, beyond what would be expected by chance, on the contrary we find that the pairs held consistency more similar attitudes toward the policy items in a statistically significant manner

Paying for online news: What? How Much? And Why (Not)? Predictors of paying intent for a non-mainstream but popular news organization

Funding digital journalism requires news organisations to reduce their reliance on advertising revenue, gain a clearer understanding of the economic value of news and develop better insight into consumers and their willingness to pay for news (Pickard, 2016). Although a recurrent issue in journalism studies, declining levels of trust in journalism and mounting evidence pointing to diminished professional autonomy (Peters & Broesma, 2012; Papadopoulou & Maniou, 2021) confirm a long-standing idea that the financial crisis of the press is closely related to a crisis of civic adequacy (Franklin, 2014). Not surprisingly, slow journalism endeavors trying to offer more civically useful and explanatory news diets (Le Masurier, 2015) and ‘hybrid outlets’ that do journalism which combines mainstream and alternative traits are on the rise. Whilst journalism is faced with the need – or almost the urgency – to rethink, reinvent and redefine messages, routines, and processes (Romero-Rodríguez et al, 2021), it is the first time in journalism’s history that identification of viable business models is so compelling and so hard to define. The collapse of the traditional advertising model on one hand, and the web’s free news culture on the other (Bakker, 2012) make it increasingly difficult for news organizations to cope with professional and commercial standards. The current hope is that “readers will come to the rescue” (Benson, 2019) through subscriptions, paywalls and micropayments. However, attention is a scarce and fluid commodity (Myllylahti, 2019), whilst the subscription model seems to work for well-established legacy media or for premium content (Benson, 2019). A relatively small amount of studies (Goyanes, 2014) have examined the relationship between individual-level attributes and the willingness to pay for online news with generally contradictory findings (Himma-Kadakas, 2015) that vary significantly between different national contexts (see Fletcher & Nielsen, 2017). This study provides evidence from a cooperative, Left-leaning Greek newspaper (EfSyn) that accounts for approximately 12% of the daily press market share and employs a voluntary contribution model for its online counterpart (similar to the e.g. the Guardian in the UK and die Tageszeitung in Germany). Data was collected through an online questionnaire posted on the paper’s website in January 2017. Approximately 3.5 thousand responses were collected to a questionnaire of about 50 items. Logistic regression was used to examine individual-level characteristics and attitudes that are associated with having made a monetary contribution to the newspaper and intention to do so in the future. In line with previous research, the majority of respondents have never contributed to the newspaper although a significantly larger segment of the sample claimed they would be willing to do so (39%). In terms of individual predictors, age, ideological self-placement and participatory behavior through Efsyn were found to be significant predictors of past contribution. Also, EfSyn’s attributes (plurality of topics, a critical stance and unique analysis) were found to be significant predictors of payment. Combining the results from past paying behavior and future paying intention, it may be argued that news consumers fall into three categories: (a) those who will never pay; for them online news is a free service, (b) those who might pay, but this decision is seen in the context of buying a product; for them the medium’s attributes are probably more important than ideology, and (c) those who might pay but who view such a voluntary contribution as a political/ideological act; for them specific product characteristics aren’t as important as the characteristics of the organization they are supporting.This study adds to the growing literature on the antecedents involved in paying behaviour for non-mainstream but popular news organizations

Paying for online news: What? How Much? And Why (Not)? Predictors of paying intent for a non-mainstream but popular news organization

Funding digital journalism requires news organisations to reduce their reliance on advertising revenue, gain a clearer understanding of the economic value of news and develop better insight into consumers and their willingness to pay for news (Pickard, 2016). Although a recurrent issue in journalism studies, declining levels of trust in journalism and mounting evidence pointing to diminished professional autonomy (Peters & Broesma, 2012; Papadopoulou & Maniou, 2021) confirm a long-standing idea that the financial crisis of the press is closely related to a crisis of civic adequacy (Franklin, 2014). Not surprisingly, slow journalism endeavors trying to offer more civically useful and explanatory news diets (Le Masurier, 2015) and ‘hybrid outlets’ that do journalism which combines mainstream and alternative traits are on the rise. Whilst journalism is faced with the need – or almost the urgency – to rethink, reinvent and redefine messages, routines, and processes (Romero-Rodríguez et al, 2021), it is the first time in journalism’s history that identification of viable business models is so compelling and so hard to define. The collapse of the traditional advertising model on one hand, and the web’s free news culture on the other (Bakker, 2012) make it increasingly difficult for news organizations to cope with professional and commercial standards. The current hope is that “readers will come to the rescue” (Benson, 2019) through subscriptions, paywalls and micropayments. However, attention is a scarce and fluid commodity (Myllylahti, 2019), whilst the subscription model seems to work for well-established legacy media or for premium content (Benson, 2019). A relatively small amount of studies (Goyanes, 2014) have examined the relationship between individual-level attributes and the willingness to pay for online news with generally contradictory findings (Himma-Kadakas, 2015) that vary significantly between different national contexts (see Fletcher & Nielsen, 2017). This study provides evidence from a cooperative, Left-leaning Greek newspaper (EfSyn) that accounts for approximately 12% of the daily press market share and employs a voluntary contribution model for its online counterpart (similar to the e.g. the Guardian in the UK and die Tageszeitung in Germany). Data was collected through an online questionnaire posted on the paper’s website in January 2017. Approximately 3.5 thousand responses were collected to a questionnaire of about 50 items. Logistic regression was used to examine individual-level characteristics and attitudes that are associated with having made a monetary contribution to the newspaper and intention to do so in the future. In line with previous research, the majority of respondents have never contributed to the newspaper although a significantly larger segment of the sample claimed they would be willing to do so (39%). In terms of individual predictors, age, ideological self-placement and participatory behavior through Efsyn were found to be significant predictors of past contribution. Also, EfSyn’s attributes (plurality of topics, a critical stance and unique analysis) were found to be significant predictors of payment. Combining the results from past paying behavior and future paying intention, it may be argued that news consumers fall into three categories: (a) those who will never pay; for them online news is a free service, (b) those who might pay, but this decision is seen in the context of buying a product; for them the medium’s attributes are probably more important than ideology, and (c) those who might pay but who view such a voluntary contribution as a political/ideological act; for them specific product characteristics aren’t as important as the characteristics of the organization they are supporting.This study adds to the growing literature on the antecedents involved in paying behaviour for non-mainstream but popular news organizations

Replication Data for: Does mode of administration impact on quality of data? Comparing a traditional survey versus an online survey via a Voting Advice Application

This dataset (in .csv format), accompanying codebook and replication code serve as supplement to a study titled: “Does the mode of administration impact on quality of data? Comparing a traditional survey versus an online survey via a Voting Advice Application” submitted for publication to the journal: “Survey Research Methods”). The study involved comparisons of responses to two near-identical questionnaires administered via a traditional survey and through a Voting Advice Application (VAA) both designed for and administered during the pre-electoral period of the Cypriot Presidential Elections of 2013. The offline dataset consisted of questionnaires collected from 818 individuals whose participation was elicited through door-to-door stratified random sampling with replacement of individuals who could not be contacted. The strata were designed to take into account the regional population density, gender, age and whether the area was urban or rural. Offline participants completed a pen-and-paper questionnaire version of the VAA in a self-completing capacity, although the person administering the questionnaire remained present throughout. The online dataset involved responses from 10,241 VAA users who completed the Choose4Cyprus VAA. Voting Advice Applications are online platforms that provide voting recommendations to users based on their closeness to political parties after they declare their agreement or disagreement on a number of policy statements. VAA users freely visited the VAA website and completed the relevant questionnaire in a self-completing capacity. The two modes of administration (online and offline) involved respondents completing a series of supplementary questions (demographics, ideological affinity & political orientation [e.g. vote in the previous election]) prior to the main questionnaire consisting of 35 and 30 policy-related Likert-type items for the offline and online mode respectively. The dataset includes all 30 policy items that were common between the two modes, although only the first 19 (q1:q19) appeared in the same order and in the same position in the two questionnaires; as such, all analyses reported in the article were conducted using these 19 items only. The phrasing of the questions was identical for the two modes and is described per variable in the attached codebook