Overview
Social media today provide an impressive amount of data about users and their societal interactions, thereby offering computer scientists, social scientists, economists, and statisticians many new opportunities for research exploration. Arguably one of the most interesting lines of work is that of forecasting future events and developments based on social media data, as we have recently seen in the areas of politics, finance, entertainment, market demands, health, etc.

But what can successfully be predicted and why? Since the first algorithms and techniques emerged rather recently, little is known about their overall potential, limitations and general applicability to different domains.

Better understanding the predictive power and limitations of social media is therefore of utmost importance, in order to, for example, avoid false expectations, misinformation or unintended consequences. Today, current methods and techniques are far from being well understood, and it is mostly unclear to what extent or under what conditions the different methods for prediction can be applied to social media. While there exists a respectable and growing amount of literature in this area, current work is fragmented, characterized by a lack of common evaluation approaches. Yet, this research seems to have reached a suficient level of interest and relevance to justify a dedicated special issue.

This special issue aims to shape a vision of important questions to be addressed in this field and fill the gaps in current research by soliciting presentations of early research on algorithms, techniques, methods and empirical studies aimed at the prediction of future or present events based on user generated content in social media.

Topics
To address this guiding theme the special issue will be articulated around, but not limited to, the following topics:

1. Politics, branding, and public opinion mining (e.g., electoral, market or stock market prediction).
2. Health, mood, and threats (e.g., epidemic outbreaks, social movements).
3. Methodological aspects (e.g., data collection, data sampling, privacy and data de-identification).
4. Success and failure case studies (e.g., reproducibility of previous research or selection of base-lines).

Schedule
- Manuscript due date: June 1, 2012
- Decisions due: August 1, 2012
- Revised paper due: September 15, 2012
- Notification of acceptance: October 1, 2012
- Submission of final manuscript: October 31, 2012
- Publication date: late 2012 / early 2013 (tentative)

Submission
All submitted manuscripts should be original contributions and not be under consideration in any other venue.

Publication of an enhanced version of a previously published conference paper is possible if the review process determines that the revision contains significant enhancements, amplification or clarification of the original material. Any prior appearance of a substantial amount of a submission should be noted in the submission letter and on the title page.

Submissions must adhere to the Author Guidelines available at:
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=intr
Detailed instructions will be announced later this year.

Guest editors
- Daniel Gayo-Avello [@PFCdgayo], University of Oviedo (Spain), dani@uniovi.es
- Panagiotis Takis Metaxas [@takis_metaxas], Wellesley College and Harvard University (USA), pmetaxas@seas.harvard.edu
- Eni Mustafaraj [@enimust], Wellesley College (USA), emustafa@wellesley.edu
- Markus Strohmaier [@mstrohm], Graz University of Technology (Austria), markus.strohmaier@tugraz.at
- Harald Schoen, University of Bamberg (Germany), harald.schoen@uni-bamberg.de
- Peter Gloor [@pgloor], MIT (USA), pgloor@mit.edu

Feel free to contact the guest editors if you have any question.

General Readings
Denis McQuail. 2010. “News Public Opinion and Political Communication,” in: McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory. 6. Auflage. London: Sage, 503-536.

Donald R. Kinder. 2003. “Communication and Politics in the Age of Information,” in: David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy and Robert Jervis (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 357-393.

Holli A. Semetko. 2004. “Media, Public Opinion, and Political Action,” in: John D. H. Downing, Denis McQuail, Philip Schlesinger and Ellen Wartella (eds.). The Sage Handbook of Media Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 351-374.

Winfried Schulz. 2008. Politische Kommunikation: Theoretische Ansätze und Ergebnisse empirischer Forschung. 2. Auflage. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

How To Do Presentations

Garr Reynolds. 2008. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. Berkeley: New Riders.

Nancy Duarte. 2008. slide: ology: The Art and Science of Presentation Design. Beijing (a.o.): O’Reilly.

Nancy Duarte. 2010. resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Hoboken (a.o.): John Wiley & Sons.

Introduction
Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard. 1992. “Scientific Method,” in: Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses in the Mass Media. 3. Auflage. New York: Longman, 19-35.

Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard. 1992. “Effects of Mass Communication,” in: Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses in the Mass Media. 3. Auflage. New York: Longman, 247-268.

Strong Media Effects and Propaganda
Mandatory Reading:
Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton. 1949. “Studies in Radio and Film Propaganda,” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 6, 58-79. Reprinted in: Robert K. Merton (ed.). 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press, 563-582.

Presentation on:
Klaus Merten. 2000. “Struktur und Funktion von Propaganda,” Publizistik 45 (2), 143-162.

Samuel J. Eldersveld. 1956. “Experimental Propaganda Techniques and Voting Behavior,” The American Political Science Review 50 (1), 154-165.

Opinion Leaders and Two-Step-Flow of Communication

Mandatory Reading:
Bernard R. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee. 1954. „Social Process: Small Groups and Political Discussion.“ In: Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago und London: The University of Chicago Press, 88-117.

Steven H. Chaffee and John L. Hochheimer. 1982. “The Beginnings of Political Communication Research in the US: Origins of the Limited Effects Model”, in: Everett M. Rogers and Francis Balle (eds.). The Media Revolution in America and Western Europe. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 263-283.

Presentation on:
John P. Robinson. 1976. Interpersonal Influence in Election Campaigns: Two Step-Flow Hypotheses. Public Opinion Quarterly 40 (3), 304-319.

W. Lance Bennett and Jarol B. Manheim. 2006. “The One-Step Flow of Communication,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 608, 213-232.

Minimal Effects: Reinforcement and Selectivity

Mandatory Reading:
Joseph T. Klapper. 1960. “Reinforcement, Minor Change, and Related Phenomena,” in: The Effects of Mass Communication. New York: Free Press, 15-52.

David O. Sears and Jonathan L. Freedman. 1965. “Selective Exposure to Information: A Critical Review,” Public Opinion Quarterly 31 (2), 194-213.

Presentation on:
Natalie Jomini Stroud. 2008. “Media Use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure,” Political Behavior 30 (3), 341-366.

Shanto Iyengar and Kyu S. Hahn. 2009. “Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use,” Journal of Communication 59 (1), 19-39.

Return to the Concept of Powerful Mass Media: Spiral of Silence

Mandatory Reading:
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. 1991. “The Theory of Public Opinion: The Concept of the Spiral of Silence,” in: James A. Anderson (ed.). Communication Yearbook 14. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 256-287.

Serge Moscovici. 1991. “Silent Majorities and Loud Minorities,” in: James A. Anderson (ed.). Communication Yearbook 14. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 298-308.

Presentation on:
Diana C. Mutz and Joe Soss. 1997. “Reading Public Opinion: The Influence of News Coverage on Perceptions of Public Sentiment,” Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (3), 431-451.

Carroll J. Glynn, Andrew F. Hayes, James Shanahan [@JamesShanahan]. 1997. “Perceived Support for One’s Opinion and Willingness to Speak Out,” Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (3), 452-463.

Agenda Setting

Mandatory Reading:
Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw. 1972. “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media,” Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (2), 176-187.

Everett M. Rogers und James W. Dearing. 1988. “Agenda-Setting Research: Where has it been? Where is it Going?” In: James A. Anderson (Hrsg.). Communication Yearbook 11, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 555-594.

Presentation on:
Stephen D. Reese. 1991. “Setting the Media’s Agenda: A Power Balance Perspective.” In: James A. Anderson (Hrsg.). Communication Yearbook 14. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 309-340.

Stefan Walgrave and Peter Van Aelst. 2006. “The Contigency of the Mass Media’s Political Agenda Setting Power: Toward a Preliminary Theory.” Journal of Communication 56 (1), 88-109.

Framing

Mandatory Reading:
Dennis Chong and James N. Druckman. 2007. “Framing Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science 10, 103-126.

Robert M. Entman. 1993. “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm,” Journal of Communication 43 (4), 51-58.

Presentation on:
James N. Druckman. 2004. “Political Preference Formation: Competition, Deliberation, and the (Ir)relevance of Framing Effects,” American Political Science Review 98 (4), 671-686.

Dietram A. Scheufele [Blog] [@dietram] and David Tewksbury. 2007. “Framing, Agenda-Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media-Effects Models,” Journal of Communication 57 (1), 9-20.

Knowledge Gap and Digital Divide

Mandatory Reading:
Philip J. Tichenor, George A. Donohue and Clarice N. Olien. 1970. “Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge,” Public Opinion Quarterly 34 (2), 159-170.

Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Rasha Kamhawi and Narine Yegiyan. 2009. “Informing Citizens: How People with Different Levels of Education Process TV, Newspaper and Web News.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 53 (1), 90-111.

Presentation on:
Kasisomayajula Viswanath and John R. Finnegan. 1996. “The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: Twenty-Five Years Later.” In: Brant R. Burleson (Hrsg.). Communication Yearbook 19. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 187-227.

Eszter Hargiatti [Blog] [@eszter] and Amanda Hinnant. 2008. “Digital Inequality: Differences in Young Adults’ Use of the Internet,” Communication Research 35 (5), 600-621.

The Selection of News and the Construction of Reality

Mandatory Reading:
Hans Mathias Kepplinger. 1989. “Theorien der Nachrichtenauswahl als Theorien der Realität,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B15, 3-16.

W. Lance Bennett. 1990. “Towards a Theory of Press-State Relations in the United States,” Journal of Communication 40 (2), 103-125.

Presentation on:
Hans Mathias Kepplinger and Johanna Habermeier. 1995. “The Impact of Key Events on the Presentation of Reality.” European Journal of Communication 10 (3), 371-390.

W. Lance Bennett, Victor W. Pickard, David P. Iozzi, Carl L. Schroeder, Taso Lago and C. Evans Caswell. 2004. “Managing the Public Sphere: Journalistic Constructions of the Great Globalization Debate,” Journal of Communication 54 (3), 437-455.

Mass Media and Politics

Mandatory Reading:
Michael J. Robinson. 1976. “Public Affairs Television and the Growth of Political Malaise: The Case of The Selling of the Pentagon,” American Political Science Review, 70, 409-43.

Hans Mathias Kepplinger. 2002. “Mediatization of Politics: Theory and Data.” In: Journal of Communication 52, 972-986.

Presentation on:
Christina Holtz-Bacha. 1989. “Verleidet uns das Fernsehen die Politik? Auf den Spuren der Videomalaise,” in: Max Kaase and Winfried Schulz (eds.). Massenkommunikation. Theorien, Methoden, Befunde. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 239-252.

Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Katrin Voltmer. 2007. “The Mass Media in Third-Wave Democracies: Gravediggers or Seedsmen of Democratic Consolidation?” In: Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero und Hans-Jürgen Puhle (Hrsg.). Democracy, Intermediation, and Voting on Four Continents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75-134.

Political Learning: Hard News vs Soft News

Mandatory Reading:
James Curran, Shanto Iyengar, Anker Brink Lund and Inka Salovaara-Moring. 2008. “Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy: A Comparative Study,” European Journal of Communication 24 (1), 5-26.

Matthew A. Baum and Angela S. Jamison. 2006. “The Oprah Effect: How Soft News Helps Inattentive Citizens Vote Consistently,” Journal of Politics 68 (4), 946-959.

Presentation on:
Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris. 2006. “The Daily Show Effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth,” American Politics Research 34 (3), 341- 367.

W. Lance Bennett. 2005. “Beyond Pseudoevents: Election News as Reality TV,” American Behavioral Scientist 49 (3), 1-15.

Mass Media and and Campaigning
Mandatory Reading:
Klaus Schönbach and Edmund Lauf. 2002. “The Trap Effect of Television and its Competitors,” Communication Research 29 (5), 564-583.

Pippa Norris and David Sanders. 2003. “Message or Medium? Campaign Learning during the 2001 British General Election,” Political Communication 20 (3), 233-62.

Presentation on:
Jürgen Wilke and Carsten Reinemann. 2006. “Die Normalisierung des Sonderfalls? Die Wahlkampfberichterstattung der Presse 2005 im Langzeitvergleich,” in: Christina Holtz-Bacha (ed.). Die Massenmedien im Wahlkampf: Die Bundestagswahl 2005. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 306-337.

Winfried Schulz and Reimar Zeh. 2010. “Die Protagonisten in der Fernseharena: Merkel und Steinmeier in der Berichterstattung über den Wahlkampf 2009.” In: Christina Holtz-Bacha (Hrsg.). Die Massenmedien im Wahlkampf: Das Wahljahr 2009. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 313-338.

Professionalization
Mandatory Reading:
Jens Tenscher. 2011. “Defizitär – und trotzdem professionell? Die Parteikampagnen im Vergleich.” In: Jens Tenscher (Hrsg.). Superwahljahr 2009: Vergleichende Analysen aus Anlass der Wahlen zum Deutschen Bundestag und zum Europäischen Parlament. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 65-96.

Presentation on:
Ralph Negrine. 2007. “The Professionalisation of Political Communication in Europe.” In: Ralph Negrine, Christina Holtz-Bacha, Paolo Mancini und Stylianos Papatha (Hrsg.). The Professionalisation of Political Communication. Chicago: Intellect Books, 27-46.

Christina Holtz-Bacha. 2010. “Wahljahr 2009 – Professionalisierung verzögert?” In: Christina Holtz-Bacha (Hrsg.). Die Massenmedien im Wahlkampf: Das Wahljahr 2009. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 7-21.

Political Communication Online
Mandatory Reading:
Christian Vaccari. 2010. “Technology is a Commodity: The Internet in the 2008 United States Presidential Election.” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 7 (4), 318-339.

Birgit van Eimeren and Beate Frees. 2011. “Drei von vier Deutschen im Netz – ein Ende des digitalen Grabens in Sicht?” Media Perspektiven 7-8, 334-349.

Presentation on:
Matthew Hindman. 2005. “The Real Lessons of Howard Dean: Reflections on the First Digital Campaign,” Perspectives on Politics 3 (1), 121-128.

Eva Johanna Schweitzer. 2010. “Normalisierung 2.0: Die Online-Wahlkämpfe deutscher Parteien zu den Bundestagswahlen 2002-2009.” In: Christina Holtz-Bacha (Ed.). Die Massenmedien im Wahlkampf: Das Wahljahr 2009. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 189-244.

So, what is missing?

Zusammen mit Harald Schoen und den Firmen Neolox und Searchmetrics habe ich in einem kurzem Report untersucht, wie Parteiseiten von der Suchmaschine Google bewertet werden und zu welchen Suchbegriffen Parteiwebseiten an prominenter Stelle in den Google Ergebnislisten angezeigt werden. Im Einzelnen untersuchten wir die Webseiten von Parteien im Bund sowie von Parteien in Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Niedersachsen. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse sind:

Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Webseiten der Bundesparteien prominent in den Google Ergebnislisten zu Anfragen nach Parteinamen und Spitzenpolitikern platziert sind. Wird nach tagesaktuellen oder allgemein politischen Begriffen gesucht, erscheinen die Webseiten der Bundesparteien nur vereinzelt und unsystematisch in den Ergebnislisten. Einzige Ausnahme ist die Piratenpartei.

Die Webseiten der Landesverbände von Parteien erscheinen nur prominent in Ergebnislisten, wenn gezielt nach Parteinamen und Kandidaten gesucht wird. Bei Suchanfragen zu tagesaktuellen und allgemein politischen Begriffen bleiben die Webseiten der von uns untersuchten Landesverbände (Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Niedersachsen) überwiegend unsichtbar.

Gründe für die geringe Sichtbarkeit der Parteiwebseiten könnten unter anderem die für Suchmaschinen schwer verständliche Codierung der Seiten, ein vor allem auf eine ansprechende Optik bedachtes Seitendesign sowie die mangelnde redaktionelle Betreuung der auf den Seiten angebotenen Inhalte sein.

Die Ergebnisse unserer Untersuchung dokumentieren wir ausfürlich unter Sichtbarkeitsreport.de.

[Update: 26 September 2011]
Die folgenden Beiträge beziehen sich auf den Report:

Anika Kreller (26 September 2011) ‘Die Unsichtbaren’ news.de.

Thorsten Stegemann (26 September 2011) ‘Webseiten der politischen Parteien sind unsichtbar’ Telepolis – heise online.

fgpk.de (13 September 2011) ‘Wie sichtbar sind die Websiten politischer Parteien für Suchmaschinen?’.

Philipp Albrecht (12 September 2011) ‘Was Parteien online verbessern können’ politik-digital.de.

Andreas Jungherr, David J. Ludwigs und Harald Schoen (12 September 2011) ‘Wie sichtbar sind die Webseiten politischer Parteien für Suchmaschinen?’ ZEIT Online: Zweitstimme.

Andreas Jungherr (12 September 2011)‘ Die Suchmaschinensichtbarkeit von Parteiwebseiten’ PolitCamp Blog.

In this essay the economist Tyler Cowen advances an enlightening conjecture on the reasons for the ongoing troubles of the US economy. He argues that there are two sources for widespread economic growth. To him one source is the development of new technologies and the attempt to solve hard social and scientific problems. As a second source he identifies economic growth based on the widespread adoption of new technologies and solutions of formerly hard problems. For Cowen the US, and probably in extensio the West, has spent the last century caching in the dividends of technological and social revolutions of the late 19th century. He calls this process “eating the low-hanging fruit”. Nothing wrong with that except that this source of economic growth over time yields increasingly low results and the ongoing allocation of ressources to these low-hanging fruits keeps a society from working on the hard problems. To Cowen this is the reason for the current economic stagnation in the US. The solution:

Raise the social status of scientists.

Which sounds about right to me, since who wants to live in a world run by glorified accountants and process optimizers?

To me, the most interesting argument was the chapter in which Cowen focuses on innovations brought on by the internet. He argues that the internet, while bringing its innovations to an ever increasing number of users, has not created significant revenue for society as a whole since most of its services are brought to the users for free. Also he points out that the most successful internet companies employ comparably few people. For Cowen this is one of the reasons for the “jobless recovery”.

This book advances a very interesting argument and offers an original perspective on how to think about innovation and economic growth. For an in-depth review of someone who actually knows economics have a look at The great stagnation on the Economist’s Free Exchange blog.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010) The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms. Random House: New York, NY.

This is a fun read that I suspect I’ll come back to many times. In this little book Taleb is his usual self, if his public persona is his usual self. In this collection of aphorisms he comments on the present with the eyes of a man steeped in classical thought. Taleb writes with a healthy distrust in institutions, especially academia, and with furor against thought practices that

“squeeze a phenomenon into the Procrustean bed of a crisp and known category (amputating the unknown), rather than suspend categorization, and make it tangible.” (p. 105)

To him this leads to sucker problems that lay also at the heart of his earlier writings:

“when the map does not correspond to the territory, there is a certain category of fool – the overeducated, the academic, the journalist, the newspaper reader, the mechanistic ‘scientist’, the pseudo-empiricist, those endowed with what I call ‘epistemic arrogance,’ this wonderful ability to discount what they did not see, the unobserved – who enter a state of denial, imagining the territory as fitting his map.” (p. 106)

For everyone interested in reality and bored by the accountant’s truths of our present day, for everyone who feels the present is lacking in erudition, wit, effortless style, and greatness – in short sprezzatura – this book will be a joy.

This is a very good natured book on how to approach academic writing. The simplest, while probably also the hardest, advice Silvia offers is to stick to a regular writing schedule instead of trusting the spur of the moment or the occasional inspiration to provide writing impulses. To this recovering binge writer this seems to be very sound advice, indeed. The upbeat prose and some practical tips for the journal submission process makes this a very agreeable and helpful read.

Clay Shirky (2010) Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Aged. The Penguin Press: New York.

There seems to be a pattern with me and books by Clay Shirky. I see the talk, like the basic idea and leave it at that, only to return a few months later to actually read the book and find much of value there. This was true for “Here Comes Everybody” and it’s also true this time around for “Cognitive Surplus”. Let’s see if the pattern holds in the future.

In “Cognitive Surplus” Shirky argues that during the second half of last century the majority of people in the West suddenly found themselves with a lot of spare time on their hands. Shirky calls this the Cognitive Surplus. To Shirky social media would enable users to do better things with that surplus than watch TV. Shirky starts by describing the new media environment and the ermergent possibilities to use social media for social good. Still, he does not argue in favor of a simplistic technological determinism the likes of: “We have the tools now they will be used for good”. Instead, he discusses preconditions for the successful use of social media, the strongest being: intrinsic motivation of the contributors and a supportive culture among groups of users. He closes with some rules of thumb of elements that, in his experience, contribute to the success of social media ventures. Usually I am not a big fan of those list, but his remarks seem sensible enough and might actually help in the development of social media services.

As usual with Shirky, “Cognitive Surplus” is a very readable book. Shirky uses well chosen stories to illustrate the possibilities of social media use. He combines these stories with accounts of research relevant to his argument. For me “Cognitive Surplus” works as a very useful addition to his prior book “Here Comes Everybody”. While in his prior book he argued very convincingly in favor of the transformative potential of widespread social media use, in “Cognitive Surplus” he adds some useful conjectures on the reasons why people might be motivated to invest significant time and effort into producing content through social media.

Warum entstehen die sichtbarsten politischen Online-Initiativen in Deutschland nicht in den Parteizentralen sondern dezentral? Kann man daraus auf ein Versagen der Parteien im Netz schliessen?

These 1: Erfolge von Online Initiativen können als Ergebnisse eines politische Seismographen gelesen werden

Im Internet drehen sich Konversationen nicht um Organisationen sondern um Personen, Objekte oder Themen. Wenn politische Kampagnen im Netz Geschwindigkeit gewinnen, dann geschieht dies häufig in bereits bestehenden Interessen-Communities (z.B. in der Kommentarspalte eines Blogs) oder in den privaten Netzwerken von Betroffenen. Häufig werden Menschen online spontan politisch aktiv, die ansonsten mit Politik nicht viel zu tun haben. Nicht langfristige Einbindung in politische Prozesse oder Organisationen motiviert sondern plötzliche Ereignisse oder Themen, die in den ansonsten unpolitischen Alltag einbrechen. Und so wird auf Kommunikationswegen dieses Alltags lautstark politische Zustimmung oder Ablehnung kommuniziert. So ist es auch kein Wunder, dass im Netz erfolgreich ist was routinierte Berufspolitiker und Hauptstadtjournalisten spontan erst einmal als Nichtthemen einordnen würden. Einige Beispiele: Netzsperren-Petition, Yeaahh-Flashmobs, My-Gauck, S21 Gegner, GuttenPlag Wiki, zu Guttenberg Unterstützer.

Diese Initiativen entstanden neben dem üblichen politischen Prozess und ihr Erfolg war in der Regel sowohl für Politiker, Medien als auch häufig für die Initiatoren selbst überraschend. Auch wenn einige dieser Initiativen im Umfeld von Parteien entstanden oder nach Anfangserfolgen von etablierten Parteien und Politikern unterstützt wurden, ist das nicht der Grund für ihren Erfolg. Stattdessen sprachen diese Initiativen Themen an, die durch den politischen Betrieb vernachlässigt wurden, die aber die Unterstützer der Initiativen für wichtig hielten. Der Erfolg einzelner Online-Initiativen lässt sich also wie ein politischer Seismograph lesen.

These 2: Die Stärkung von Online-Partizipation ist zur Zeit eine Ermächtigung der Ermächtigten

In Deutschland haben Bürger Interesse an der politischen Partizipation über Online-Kanäle. Diese Bürger stellen aber keinen repräsentativen Ausschnitt der Gesamtbevölkerung dar. Stattdessen zeigen Nutzungsstudien von Online-Partizipationskanälen, dass diese in der Regel von einer politisch aktiveren, formal besser gebildeteren und männlicheren Bevölkerungsgruppe genutzt wird als dem Schnitt der Bundesbürger (vgl. z.B. Linder und Riehm 2011, Marschall 2011). Eine politische Stärkung von Online-Partizipation ist also zur Zeit wohl eine Ermächtigung der Ermächtigten.

These 3: In Deutschland wird das Internet von der Bevölkerung überwiegend noch nicht als Medium der politischen Partizipation gesehen

Im Gegensatz zu den USA ist das Internet in Deutschland noch kein dominierendes Medium für Bürger, um sich über Politik zu informieren. Die Mannheimer Forscher Thorsten Faas und Julia Partheymüller fanden in einer Untersuchung zur politischen Onlinenutzung während des Bundestagswahlkampf 2009, dass nur 18,8% der von Ihnen Befragten in der Woche bevor dem Befragungszeitpunkt mindestens an einem Tag das Internet genutzt hatte, um sich über den Wahlkampf zu informieren (Faas und Partheymüller 2011). Ähnliche Ergebnisse finden sich in Studien, die sich mit der aktiven politischen Partizipation über Soziale Netzwerkplattformen befassen (vgl. z.B. von Pape und Quandt). Das Internet wird also zur Zeit von den meisten Deutschen nicht als Medium für politische Information oder Partizipation gesehen.

These 4: Der Schwerpunkt des parteipolitischen Community-Managements liegt offline ganz richtig

Für einen Großteil der deutschen Parteimitglieder und Unterstützer ist das Telefon, der Bürgerbrief oder der Besuch der Bürgersprechstunde eines Politikers immer noch der bevorzugte Weg für politisches Feedback. Solange dies so bleibt, solange sind Parteien und Politiker gut beraten, auch weiterhin den Schwerpunkt ihres Community-Managments offline zu sehen.

Literatur:

Thorsten Faas und Julia Partheymüller (2011) “Aber jetzt?! Politische Internetnutzung in den Bundestagswahlkämpfen 2005 und 2009,” In: Eva Johanna Schweitzer und Steffen Albrecht (Hrsg.): Das Internet im Wahlkampf. Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2009. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. S. 119 – 135. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-531-92853-1_4.

Ralf Lindner und Ulrich Riehm (2011) “Broadening Participation Through E-Petitions? An Empirical Study of Petitions to the German Parliament,” Policy & Internet: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.2202/1944-2866.1083

Stefan Marschall (2011) “Wahlen, Wähler, Wahl-O-Mat,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B 61, S. 40-46.

Thilo von Pape und Thorsten Quandt (2010) “Wen erreicht der Wahlkampf 2.0? Eine Repräsentativ-studie zum Informationsverhalten im Bundestagswahlkampf 2009,” Media Perspektiven, 9/2010, S. 390-398.

[Update: 2011/06/06]
Bei Blogfraktion habe ich die These 2 noch etwas ausführlicher formuliert: “Wer hat, dem wird gegeben: Politische Beteiligung im Internet“.

We first happened upon the idea that certain users, based on their position in conversation networks of politically interested users, were able to keep political information from reaching specific sections of the network in a paper on the use of Twitter during the run up to the German federal election of 2009, Wahlkampf vom Sofa aus: Twitter im Bundestagswahlkampf 2009 [Preprint]. In that paper we called these users New Gatekeepers in reference to the Gatekeeper concept in mass communication research.

We met the New Gatekeepers again in a blogpost for the ZEIT blog Zweitstimme. In the post “Alle Twitterer sind gleich, aber manche sind gleicher: Neue Gatekeeper und ihre Bedeutung für die Verbreitung von Nachrichten auf Twitter” we constructed a network based on Twitter conversations between politically vocal users during one day. We showed that the unity of the network depended critically on a few well connected users. Once we excluded these users from the network it scattered into many isolated components. This shows that these users, because of their position in the structure of the network, are vital for the distribution of information to different sections of the network.

Conversation network of politically interested Twitter users on 9/1/2009

In “Small Worlds with a Difference: New Gatekeepers and the Filtering of Political Information on Twitter” we decided to look for a specific metric in quantitative social network analysis that corresponded with our interpretation of New Gatekeepers and to check if users existed in our network that corresponded with said metric. We ended up using a concept based on work by Stephen Borgatti (2005) and Daniel Ortiz-Arroyo (2010). Based on their reasoning we decided to identify those nodes in the network whose exclusion had the strongest impact on the entropy of the whole network. Our analysis showed that the exclusion of only a few nodes critically impacts the entropy of the network. For us this is an indicator for the ability of a small number of users to effectively filter the flow of information on Twitter.

For a more detailed discussion of this and the bias these users showed in their Twitter activities please have a look at the paper. Please let us know what you think of the concept and its operationalization in the context of social network analysis.

[Update: 2011/06/21]
Meanwhile Pascal has uploaded his presentation.

Also, our contribution was mentioned in “The Science of the Web” by David De Roure [@dder] on his nature network blog eResearch.

[Update: 2011/07/21]
Pascal’s presentation has been posted as a video on videolectures.net [Video: Small Worlds with a Difference: New Gatekeepers and the Filtering of Political Information on Twitter]

Further Reading:
Stephen P. Borgatti (2005) ‘Centrality and network flow’, Social Networks 27, 55-71. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2004.11.008.

Andreas Jungherr, Pascal Jürgens and Harald Schoen (2011) ‘Alle Twitterer sind gleich, aber manche sind gleicher: Neue Gatekeeper und ihre Bedeutung für die Verbreitung von Nachrichten auf Twitter’ Zweitstimme.

Pascal Jürgens and Andreas Jungherr (2011) ‘Wahlkampf vom Sofa aus: Twitter im Bundestagswahlkampf 2009’, in: Eva Johanna Schweitzer and Steffen Albrecht (eds.), Das Internet im Wahlkampf: Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2009, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-92853-1_8.

Pascal Jürgens, Andreas Jungherr and Harald Schoen (2011) ‘Small Worlds with a Difference: New Gatekeepers and the Filtering of Political Information on Twitter’. Paper presented at the conference ‘ACM WebSc ’11: 3rd International Conference on Web Science’ Koblenz, Germany on 14-17 June. [pdf at the conference's website]

Daniel Ortiz-Arroyo (2010) ‘Discovering Sets of Key Players in Social Networks’, in: Abraham, A., Hassanien, A.-E., and Snásel , V. (eds.). Computational Social Network Analysis. Springer Verlag, Dordrecht et al., 27-46. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-229-0_2.