Category Publications

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Die Sichtbarkeit von Parteiwebseiten in den Ergebnislisten von Suchmaschinen

Sep 12, ’11 9:23 AM

Webseiten sind für politische Parteien die Online-Werkzeuge mit der größten potentiellen Reichweite. Anders als zum Beispiel bei Seiten sozialer Netzwerke oder Smart-Phone Apps sind Inhalte auf politischen Webseiten für jeden interessierten Nutzer mit Internetanschluss und Webbrowser zugänglich, unabhängig davon, ob er in einem sozialen Netzwerk ein Profil besitzt oder mit einem besonderen Telefonmodell im Internet surft. Damit Parteien aber mit ihren Webseiten interessierten Nutzern auffallen, müssen sie an prominenter Stelle in den Ergebnislisten von Suchmaschinen aufgeführt werden.

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.

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The Internet in German Campaigns

Mar 19, ’11 5:11 PM

Eva Schweitzer und Steffen Albrecht (Hrsg.): Das Internet im Wahlkampf: Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2009

Just got news that Eva Schweitzer’s and Steffen Albrecht’s edited volume “Das Internet im Wahlkampf: Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2009” is out. The book collects papers that address different aspects of the internet’s role in the campaign for the German general election of 2009. Pascal Jürgens and I contributed a paper on the use of Twitter during the campaign called “Wahlkampf vom Sofa aus: Twitter im Bundestagswahlkampf 2009″ [SpringerLink] [preprint in German].

The collection offers a broad perspective on the state of political internet use in Germany. It also contains interesting pieces by Steffen Albrecht who writes about blogs, Jesscia Kunert and Jan Schmidt who write about social networking sites, Thorsten Faas and Julia Partheymüller who write on political internet use in Germany, Thomas Roessing and Nicole Podschuweit who focus on political uses of Wikipedia, Christoph Bieber who comments on the role of online tools in the overall party campaigning strategies and Eva Schweitzer who focuses on political websites during the campaign. There are many other interesting articles in this collection so if you are interested in the topic be sure to check it out.

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Digital Tools for Political Activists

Jun 2, ’10 1:22 AM

Digital Activism Decoded Cover

Recently the debate about the nature and effiacy of digital activism has become increasingly heated. Compare for example the dialogue between Patrick Meier and Evgeny Morozov. The first optimism of the early days has given way to a more balanced view on the motivation and effects of digital activism. In this ongoing debate a new book “Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change” edited by Mary Joyce offers a collection of texts that deal with digital activism from different perspectives. Mary offers her rationale for the book in this interview.

For this collection I cowrote a chapter with Dan Schultz with the title “Applications: Picking the Right One in a Transient World”. The chapter discusses practical questions, which activists have to face when choosing digital tools for their campaigns. The chapter is no scientific text, instead it tries to offer a practical guideline by which activists can make sense out of the many digital tools out there.

You can download the entire book for free at the Meta-Activism Project or order a paperbased version at amazon be it .de or .com.

[Update 2010/07/29]
Since its publication the book has received a fair amount of coverage:

The German publication Der Freitag has a review of the book.

The blog Sealing the Generation Gap reviews Dan’s and my chapter: “All human wisdom is contained in two words: wait and hope.” Must say, any review that mentions “The Count of Monte Christo” and a text of mine in the same article puts a smile on my face.

Also the authors of other chapters have been actively blogging on the publication of the book:

Steven J. Murdoch blogs on his chapter: “Destructive Activism: The Double-Edged Sword of Digital Tactics“.

Dave Karpf blogs on his chapter: “Measuring the Success of Digital Campaigns“.

Simon Columbus blogs on his chapter: “The New Casualties: Prisons and Persecution“.

In addition to that there is a video of a discussion with Mary Joyce at the New America Foundation.

Photo (c) Mary Joyce

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Blast from the past No. 5: Twittering Activists: the Uses of Twitter for Political Activism

Mar 16, ’10 6:48 PM

Again to the archives, again a paper on Twitter: Twittering Activists: the Uses of Twitter for Political Activism. This is actually the first paper that I presented at a scientific conference, organised by the SFB Changing Protest and Media Cultures SFB/FK 615 Media Upheavals at the University of Siegen in late 2008. For a short recap of the conference have a look at this post.

In this paper I use four case studies to illustrate potential uses of Twitter for political activists. The paper was drafted in early 2008 and written in the autumn of the same year. So unfortunately I didn’t address Twitter’s Iran-moment. Still, although some of the examples in the paper may seem dated I hope the lessons drawn from the case studies are still relevant. Judge for yourself.

The paper runs at around 3900 words. If that is a bit daunting have a look at this presentation. This should contain the main idea of the paper. The complete text can be found here.

This paper laid the groundwork for the DigiActive Guide to Twitter for Activism. It also contains other ideas like the use of Twitter as an information distribution tool or as a communication backchannel which also found their way in other papers.

Andreas Jungherr (2008) ‘Twittering Activists: the Uses of Twitter for Political Activism’. Paper presented at “Social Web: Towards Networked Protest Politics?” Organized by the SFB Changing Protest and Media Cultures SFB/FK 615 Media Upheavals University of Siegen, Germany on 7-8 November.

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Blast from the past No. 4: Digital channels, the change in community structures and its consequences for social participation

Feb 21, ’10 5:21 PM

This trip to the archives digs up the paper Digital channels, the change in community structures and its consequences for social participation. I presented this paper in Belfast at the ISEA 2009.

For a short glance at the argument have a look at the presentation. The full paper can be found here.

Andreas Jungherr (2009) ‘Digital channels, the change in community structures and its consequences for social participation’. Paper presented at the ISEA 2009: International Symposium for the Electronic Arts, University of Ulster, Belfast, UK on 23 August – 1 September 2009.

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Blast from the Past No. 2: Twittering Dissent

Feb 6, ’10 9:27 PM

For a second trip to the back catalogue have a look at Twittering Dissent: Social Web Data Streams as Basis for Agent Based Models of Opinion Dynamics. A paper that Pascal Jürgens presented in Vienna, Austria in early 2009.

For the gist of the paper have a look at the presentation:

In this paper we build on the work we presented in Modeling Small-Group Interaction on Pervasive Digital Channels: New Influence on Public Opinion’. In contrast to the earlier work in this paper we focused on the potential agent-based modeling holds for the social sciences in general.

Pascal Jürgens and Andreas Jungherr (2009) ‘Twittering Dissent: Social Web Data Streams as Basis for Agent Based Models of Opinion Dynamics’, in: Martin Welker, Holger Geißler, Lars Kaczmirek, Olaf Wenzel (eds.), 11th General Online Research Conference, GOR 09: Proceedings, Vienna, p. 81.

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Blast from the Past No. 1: Modeling Small-Group Interaction on Pervasive Digital Channels

Feb 5, ’10 5:36 PM

The quiet days at the end of any semester are great for side projects. So for this semester I decided to go through my back catalogue of presentations and publications and make some of them available on this site. Today I’ll start with a poster from 2008 which Pascal Jürgens and I presented at the International Workshop on Challenges and Visions in the Social Sciences in Zurich, Switzerland.

Modeling Small Group Interaction on Pervasive Digital Channels

Modeling Small Group Interaction on Pervasive Digital Channels

In this poster we used the big Lacy/Zuckerberg dustup at the SXSW 2008 to gain some deeper understanding in the dynamics of communication via Twitter. To this end agent based modeling proved to be a very promising research tool.

The Lacy/Zuckerberg session gave a first glimpse on the negative effects of a communication backchannel running wild. Since then other incidents proved the relevance of more research into that phenomenon.

For a closer look at our poster check out the pdf on the publication page for Modeling Small-Group Interaction on Pervasive Digital Channels on this blog.

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