Presentation given by Nils Gustafsson & Yana Breindl on the 10th of July 2009 at the OII Summer doctoral Program in Brisbane, Australia.

1. Political participation &
mediated networks
A joint creative presentation by
Yana Breindl
Nils Gustafsson
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

2. Political participation in the
21st Century
‣ Media-saturated world, ideology of
communication - political communication
‣ Perceived political detachment
‣ New forms of political participation
emerging?
‣ Place of the internet?
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

3. Theories
‣ Collective action & ICTs, interest
representation, network theories
‣ Network theories, standard political
participation theories, social capital
theories, democratic theory
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

4. What does the Internet
change?
‣ Increased quantity, velocity and scale of
information flows
‣ Disrupts the dominance of elites in the
production and diffusion of knowledge
(Bimber, 2003)
‣ Connects the global to the local (Castells, 2001)
‣ Empowers resource poor actors/new
actors or mobilises the already engaged?
‣ Gap between utopian/dystopian discourse
and empirical evidence.
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

5. Research Questions
‣ How do digital activists use the internet in
order to influence EU policy-making?
‣ Double perspective: activist’s use of by decision-
the way their actions are perceived
the Net and
makers.
‣ What effects does the use of social media
have on the form and level of political
participation?
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

6. Digital activists
Who (says)
What
(to) Whom
(in) What Channel
(with) What Effect
(Harold Lasswell)
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

7. Participation in social networks
‣ Politics migrates into social media
‣ If politics is discussed in your network, will you
follow?
‣ Pilot study: annoyed participation
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

8. Nils’ Methods
‣ Mixed-methods approach
‣ Focus groups & interviews
‣ SNA on people active in politics
‣ Large scale survey
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

9. Yana’s Methods
‣ Case study research design
‣ Interviews
‣ Online & offline observations
‣ Network exploration (Issue crawler)
‣ Secondary sources of data
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

10. Challenges
‣ How to measure influence/impact?
‣ How to select participants
(sampling,...)?
‣ How to make sense of qualitative data?
How to connect data with theory?
Keep a focus?
‣ How to manage transdisciplinarity?
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009

11. Discussion
‣ because enthusiastic aboutof the
Are we
we form the elite
the Internet
information age?
‣ Is the growing importance of technical
capital an exclusionary force?
‣ How to build a “democratic” (inclusive)
information society?
‣ How to open up (internet) research (e.g.
Scientific publication)? Should it be opened
up?
OII SDP 2009 - July 10th, 2009