Sunbelt 30: The location Lago di Garda

I went to Riva to present a paper, which I cowrote with Pascal Jürgens, during the “Collective Action and Social Movements” track organized by David Tindall and Mario Diani. The paper was called “Just a conversation like any other? A network analysis of digital activism in the German Twittersphere”. In this paper we examined the network structures of three different #networks on Twitter. More on that paper at a later point.

So what remains from the Sunbelt XXX except the amazing location, interesting (and quite unexpected) dinner conversations, and the fond recollection of Italian food and drink?

For one, the keynote of Tom Snijders, in which he gave a short “How we got here?” survey of social network analysis and its major building blocks together with his own estimation of the potential that the concept “reciprocity” might hold in future SNA research. I also enjoyed two talks by Steve Borgatti [@ittagroB] very much. In his talk “Some Thoughts on Analyzing Trajectories” Borgatti illustrated how to model social phenomena like coworking relationships of film directors or career trajectories of college coaches as directed traversals of networks. The second talk had the somewhat grandiose title “A Network Theory of Life, the Universe and Everything: A Progress Report”. In this talk Borgatti outlined his efforts to develop a more generative and integrative approach to network theory. Dawn Gilpin [@drgilpin] gave an interesting talk on her work on Twitter. In the paper “The Twitter network boost: Social amplification and attenuation of discourse in microblogging” she and her coauthors examined how contextual emotional charges influence the amplification and attenuation of online discourse on Twitter. In their presentation “Pride, Prejudice and Dynamic Triangles. Marriage Strategies within the Estate System in England at the End of the 18th Century” Jürgen Pfeffer and Betina Hollstein used the analysis of social networks to examine the social relationships in the TV version of Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice”. Based on this they characterized different marriage strategies in late 18th century England. Finally Michael Pearson’s talk on “Individual Profiles in Local Network Structures” gave me interesting perspectives on how to proceed with the longitudinal analysis of social networks.

For the abstracts of these and the other presentations have a look at the Sunbelt XXX program (pdf).

In the final account: inspiring conversations, instructive paper presentations, Italian food, espresso, and a great location. What more to ask from a conference?

[Update 2010/07/29]

For another account of this year’s sunbelt have a look a Drew Conway’s blog post Sunbelt XXX, and Other Loose Ends.

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.

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

If you are interested in the campaign, I also wrote about it here, here and here.

The workshop was organized by Julia H. Grace [@jewelia], Dejin Zhao [@djzaho] and danah boyd [@zephoria]. It was a great experience and very interesting to discuss the research challenges that microblogging poses with an international and highly interdisciplinary crowd of researchers. I‘ll post my thoughts on the workshop later this day. In this post I‘ll make my presentation and the rough draft of my talk available.

Since I tend to speak freely in presentations this draft might not be exactly what I said, still it should be pretty close. Anyhow this talk was meant as an appetizer to the position paper on the same topic. So, if you‘re looking for something to cite, kindly have a look at said position paper.

Twitter in Politics: Lessons Learned during the German Superwahljahr 2009

by Andreas Jungherr

Draft v.1.0
2010/04/13

In this ignite talk I want to take you on a short trip through my position paper Twitter in Politics: Lessons Learned during the German Superwahljahr 2009, so that by the end of this presentation, you‘ll have an idea on how and why the German party CDU used Twitter in the campaigns of 2009 like it did.

2009 was a special year for political campaigners in Germany. This had two reasons:

One was the relative high density of high-profile elections in this year. In 2009 there were elections in five important Bundesländern, elections to the European parliament, the election of the German Bundespräsident and in autumn, the German general election.This lead to the term Superwahljahr – the year of the super election.

The second reason was Barack Obama, or rather the things Obama did to win the US presidential election, or rather the things the media thought he was doing to win the election.

The German media was quick to identify the microblogging service Twitter as a key element to Obama‘s victory. And while one can find good reasons to disagree with their assessment, Twitter suddenly became the thing to do for up and coming politicians.

As anyone knows who worked with politicians, politicians tend to be like kids with regard to the adoption of knew technology. At first they want nothing to do with anything new, but when the cool kids are flashing a new toy there is nothing more important to them than to possess exactly THAT toy. This is exactly what happened with regard to Twitter in the German political scene from late 2008 onwards.

During 2008 most German politicians kept as far away from Twitter as humanly possible only to flock to the service in the aftermath of the press-storm about the online magic the Obama campaign managed to conjure up. In late 2008 and early 2009 many German politicians regardless of party and age found their inner Twitterer – or the inner Twitterer of a lucky staff member – and started a Twitter account.

This led to considerable concern in all parties since suddenly the campaigns had a social media component that was new to German campaigns. Fortunately the high frequency of campaigns in 2009 proved to be very fortunate for exactly this challenge. Campaigns on the state and European level could be used as prototypes for elements of social media campaigning. So by the time the national campaign went into its hot phase most German parties had had the chance to get acquainted with social media and incorporate it in some way in their grand strategy.

This proved to be a very interesting time to work for political campaigns in Germany. In early 2009 I entered the campaign to reelect the Ministerpräsident of Hessia, Roland Koch. During that campaign my work focused pretty much on the use of Twitter by our online campaign, the webcamp09. Later that year I entered the national campaign for the general elections. There I also worked on the use of Twitter by the campaign but I also worked on the approach the campaign took to social media in general.

This already hints at the way the CDU treated their campaigns in the Bundesländer. These campaigns were not isolated but were used as test cases and prototypes for the use of Twitter and social media in general. Two of the most valuable prototypes for the national campaign proved to be the online campaigns in the Bundesländern Hessia and Saarland. Both campaigns centered their online campaigns with their respective volunteer campaigns, the webcamp09 and the Peter Müller Team 09. Both campaigns used Twitter feeds under the names [@webcamp09] and [@pmt09]. The experiences with these accounts led the national campaign to start a Twitter feed [@teAMDeutschland]. And in turn the lessons learned during the campaign for the general elections in 2009 led to the way the campaign to reelect the Ministerpräsident Jürgen Rüttgers uses their Twitter account [@nrwruettgers] in early 2010, a campaign which I advise on their online activities.

So which were some of the lessons learned? Twitter proved a very important tool to do some classic community building. The Twitter feeds [@webcamp09] and [@teAMDeutschland] were both used to get online supporters in contact with each other and to react to their comments or critiques.

Twitter proved to be a very successful channel for the distribution of social objects (after Hugh MacLeod). Most of the time these social objects were not content designed by the campaign but content that was either created by supporters or party candidates who strayed from the official CI.

Twitter proved also to be a very useful backchannel to campaign events. It was possible for supporters and critics alike to follow and comment on campaign events, political TV shows or the debate between Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel and the SPD candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier through Twitter. This proved to be valuable addition to classical campaign events.

Still, the experiences with Twitter during the campaign were not completely unproblematic. One of the biggest issues raised through the widespread adoption of Twitter was a sudden surge in negative campaigning. The content that was distributed the widest through Twitter was mostly negative in nature or contained attacks on the the political opponent. This was true for all political parties. This leads to fundamental questions about the political use of social media and how we can avoid that widespread political use of social media leads to a surge in negative campaigning.

So how are the Twitter efforts of these campaigns to be evaluated. Did they decide the election? Probably not. Personally I think the most important element in the political twittering of 2009 was the active learning process that it started in the party CDU. In the final account it is nor all that important which campaign did use Twitter the best or had the most followers. In the end it matters which political party is able after a campaign to clearly articulate lessons learned and to establish processes that guarantee perpetual learning and prototyping to ensure that said party keeps in contact with its online supporters and online critics.

This was a little appetizer to the content covered in the position paper. For a more detailed discussion of the issues raised in this presentation please have a look at the position paper itself.

Thank you.

During the workshop I will present my position paper Twitter in Politics: Lessons learned during the German Superwahljahr 2009 in a short Ignite Talk. Although I have a narrative in mind which could fill the presentation I want to give the old unknown unknown a chance. Therefore I want to ask you which are the points you would be interested in hearing in an Ignite Talk about a paper called “Twitter in Politics: Lessons learned during the German Superwahljahr 2009?”

Eine Präsentation gehalten während des Politcamp 2010 in Berlin am 21. März 2010.

Während des Politcamp 2010 in Berlin präsentierte ich am 21. März den aktuellen Zwischenstand der CDU Onlinekampagne zur Landtagswahl in Nordrhein-Westfalen am 9. Mai 2010. Dies ist eine ausformulierte und leicht erweiterte Version meiner Präsentation.

Disclaimer: Ich berate die Onlinekampagne der CDU Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Nach den guten Erfahrungen mit Onlineunterstützerteams im Hessenwahlkampf wird auch in NRW der Großteil der Onlineaktivitäten von einem freiwilligen Unterstützerteam organisiert. Die Lektionen des hessischen webcamp09 sind die Basis für das NRW Onlineunterstützerteam NRW für Rüttgers.

Ausführlichere Informationen zum webcamp09 finden sich in dieser Präsentation die Alexander Kurz [@alexander_kurz] während des Politcamp 2009 hielt und in einem Report der Kampagnenpraxis.

Die Internetseite NRW für Rüttgers bildet das Rückgrat der Onlinekampagne. Hier werden unsere verschiedenen Kommunikationskanäle gebündelt.

Hier bloggen freiwillige Unterstützer zum Beispiel von Veranstaltungen,

oder stellen kampagnenbegleitende Materialien zur Verfügung.

Zusätzlich binden wir auf dieser Webseite Videos ein, die im Laufe der Kampagne erstellt wurden.

Eine Sammlung aller von uns für die Kampagne erstellten Videos finden sich im YouTube Kanal von NRW für Rüttgers.

Die dort gesammelten Videos sind fast ausschließlich von Freiwilligen produziert. Eine Ausnahme stellt die Vorstellung des Freiwilligen-Teams dar.

Bisher lassen sich die Videos überwiegend drei Themengruppen zuordnen. Die für deutsche Onlinekampagnen wahrscheinlich am innovativsten Videos sind regelmäßige direkte Videobotschaften des Generalsekretärs der CDU Nordrhein-Westfalens Andreas Krautscheid.

In diesen Videobotschaften stellte er sich seinen Unterstützern vor,

reagierte spontan auf tagesaktuelle Entwicklungen,

oder rief zu thematischen Aktionen auf.

Ein anderes viel genutztes Format ist die Vox Populi. In diesen von Freiwilligen konzipierten, gedrehten und geschnittenen Videos werden Menschen aus Nordrhein-Westfalen auf der Straße zu ihrer Meinung zu tagesaktuellen Themen gefragt.

Zusätzlich begleiten wir mit Videos klassische politische Veranstaltungen.

Zusätzlich zu diesem von dem Untersützerteam NRW für Rüttgers genutzten YouTube Kanal gibt es einen YouTube Kanal der CDU Nordrhein-Westfalen auf dem von CDU NRW-TV produzierte Videos präsentiert werden.

Wurde noch in der Kampagne zur Bundestagswahl 2009 von der CDU große Aufmerksamkeit auf die Erstellung und den Betrieb der teAM 2009 Online-Community gelegt, so werden viele dieser Funktionen in der Onlinekampagne zur Landtagswahl 2010 in Nordrhein-Westfalen durch die Nutzung von Facebook sicher gestellt.

Zentrum unserer Aktivitäten auf Facebook ist das von uns betriebene Facebook Fanprofil für Jürgen Rüttgers, das mit der Unterstützerseite NRW für Rüttgers verknüft ist.

Zusätzlich hierzu ist die CDU Nordrhein Westfalen auch mit einem weiteren Fanprofil auf Facebook vertreten:

Ein weiterer Unterschied zur Bundeskampagne liegt in unserer Nutzung der VZ-Netzwerke. Während die Bundeskampagne noch grosse Energie auf Aktionen um das Edelprofil der Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel verwendete, so betreiben wir zwar ein Edelprofil für Jürgen Rüttgers, fokusieren unsere Aktivitäten jedoch auf Facebook.

Zusätzlich hierzu nutzt die Kampagne auch Twitter mit dem Account @NRWRuettgers:

Auf diesem Account twittern die Unterstützer Ulrich Gelsen #ug [@gelsen], David J. Ludwigs #dl [@cronenbuerger] und Florian Braun #fb [@flobraun]. Um der Unpersönlichkeit eines Teamfeeds zu entgehen nutzen wir eindeutig zugewiesene Hashtags, so dass zu jeder Zeit nachvollziehbar ist welcher der Autoren gerade twittert.

Über den Twitter Account @NRWRuettgers twittert das Unterstützteam von Veranstaltungen,

von der täglichen Arbeit und antwortet auf Anfragen.

Generell ist uns die Interaktion um unsere Beiträge gleich auf welchem Kanal sehr wichtig. Auch wenn manchem die Zeit von dem posten eines Kommentars und seiner Freischaltung etwas zu lange dauert wir freuen uns über Kommentare und Aktivität um unsere Beiträge. Zeigt dies doch, dass wir mit unserem Angebot auf Interesse stossen und Debatten auslösen.

Die oben beschriebenen Elemente der Onlinekampagne sind für uns zur Zeit die wichtigsten Bausteine, auf die wir den Großteil unserer Aufmerksamkeit konzentrieren. Zusätzlich zu diesen Onlineangeboten findet die Kampagne aber auch auf anderen Onlinekanälen statt: Flickr, CDU Nordrhein-Westfalen, Jürgen Rüttgers und CDU NRW/Blog.

Für eine Diskussion weiterer Aspekte der Onlinekampagnen zur Landtagswahl 2010 in Nordrhein-Westfalen haben Oliver Zeisberger für die SPD und ich für die CDU im Westen ein Interview gegeben. Dieses Interview ist eine gute Ergänzung zu dieser Beschreibung unserer Kampagnenelementen.

[Update 2010/04/04]
Dieser Beitrag wurde inzwischen ebenfalls sowohl auf dem CDU NRW / Blog als auch auf dem Blog Homo Politicus veröffentlicht.

Oliver Zeisberger betreut mit seiner Agentur den Onlinewahlkampf der NRW SPD während ich das Onlineunterstützerteam der CDU Nordrhein-Westfalen NRW für Rüttgers berate.

Unsere Präsenz beim Politcamp 2010 scheint übrigens auch vom neuen Nerd-Zentralorgan wahrgenommen worden zu sein.

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.

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.