scholarly journals When do party supporters abandon the party leader? The intraparty conflict of the Alternative for Germany

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881985717
Author(s):  
Kai Jäger

Drawing on a unique panel data set of supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the study shows that programmatic differences between supporters of Frauke Petry and Bernd Lucke cannot sufficiently explain the crucial intraparty leadership contest of July 2015. Programmatic differences were minor in 2013 but became pronounced over time. Politically active supporters were disaffected with the old moderate leadership of Bernd Lucke, who pursued an organizational reform to reduce the influence of the rank-and-file. Social media also played a key role for the leadership turnover, as alternative news sources on social media were only politicized by the intraparty opposition. It is conceivable that the structure of social media networks influences opinion formation processes and internal affairs of right-wing populist parties in general, as their supporters tend to have low trust in mainstream news.

2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110091
Author(s):  
Magdalena Wojcieszak ◽  
Ericka Menchen-Trevino ◽  
Joao F. F. Goncalves ◽  
Brian Weeks

The online environment dramatically expands the number of ways people can encounter news but there remain questions of whether these abundant opportunities facilitate news exposure diversity. This project examines key questions regarding how internet users arrive at news and what kinds of news they encounter. We account for a multiplicity of avenues to news online, some of which have never been analyzed: (1) direct access to news websites, (2) social networks, (3) news aggregators, (4) search engines, (5) webmail, and (6) hyperlinks in news. We examine the extent to which each avenue promotes news exposure and also exposes users to news sources that are left leaning, right leaning, and centrist. When combined with information on individual political leanings, we show the extent of dissimilar, centrist, or congenial exposure resulting from each avenue. We rely on web browsing history records from 636 social media users in the US paired with survey self-reports, a unique data set that allows us to examine both aggregate and individual-level exposure. Visits to news websites account for about 2 percent of the total number of visits to URLs and are unevenly distributed among users. The most widespread ways of accessing news are search engines and social media platforms (and hyperlinks within news sites once people arrive at news). The two former avenues also increase dissimilar news exposure, compared to accessing news directly, yet direct news access drives the highest proportion of centrist exposure.


Author(s):  
A. Ravi Shankar ◽  
J. L. Fernandez-Marquez ◽  
B. Pernici ◽  
G. Scalia ◽  
M. R. Mondardini ◽  
...  

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Increase in access to mobile phone devices and social media networks has changed the way people report and respond to disasters. Community-driven initiatives such as Stand By Task Force (SBTF) or GISCorps have shown great potential by crowdsourcing the acquisition, analysis, and geolocation of social media data for disaster responders. These initiatives face two main challenges: (1) most of social media content such as photos and videos are not geolocated, thus preventing the information to be used by emergency responders, and (2) they lack tools to manage volunteers contributions and aggregate them in order to ensure high quality and reliable results. This paper illustrates the use of a crowdsourcing platform that combines automatic methods for gathering information from social media and crowdsourcing techniques, in order to manage and aggregate volunteers contributions. High precision geolocation is achieved by combining data mining techniques for estimating the location of photos and videos from social media, and crowdsourcing for the validation and/or improvement of the estimated location. The evaluation of the proposed approach is carried out using data related to the Amatrice Earthquake in 2016, coming from Flickr, Twitter and Youtube. A common data set is analyzed and geolocated by both the volunteers using the proposed platform and a group of experts. Data quality and data reliability is assessed by comparing volunteers versus experts results. Final results are shown in a web map service providing a global view of the information social media provided about the Amatrice Earthquake event.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 117-142
Author(s):  
Rune Karlsen ◽  
Kari Steen-Johnsen

In this chapter, we examine how voters relate to the local political public sphere through a study of the 2019 Norwegian local election. We ask whether local media and personal networks contribute to what we call “local political orientation”, measured by the degree to which voters consider local issues to be important for their vote choice and using the possibility of giving preference votes. We first study the voters’ overall news consumption in the election campaign, with particular emphasis on the role of social media. Then we investigate to what extent candidates running for election are included in voters’ offline networks (family, friends, acquaintances) and social media networks. Finally, we study whether different patterns of news consumption and offline and online political networks increase voters’ degree of local political orientation. Results show that voters use a wide range of news sources – national, local and social media – and that local media is considered more important in small municipalities. A large proportion of voters have political candidates in their personal network, but almost forty percent of those who have a political candidate as a Facebook friend have no candidate in their offline personal network. Hence, social media contribute to greater ties between voters and candidates in Norwegian local politics. Lastly, local media and personal networks do contribute to local political orientation, as they relate to an emphasis on local political issues and a tendency for giving preference votes (to candidates) at the election.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aengus Bridgman ◽  
Eric Merkley ◽  
Oleg Zhilin ◽  
Peter John Loewen ◽  
Taylor Owen ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has occurred alongside a worldwide infodemic where unprecedented levels of misinformation have contributed to widespread misconceptions about the novel coronavirus. Conspiracy theories, poorly sourced medical advice, and information trivializing the virus have ignored national borders and spread quickly. This information spread has occurred despite generally strong preferences for domestic national media and social media networks that tend to be geographically bounded. How, then, is (mis)information crossing borders so rapidly? Using social media and survey data, we evaluate the extent to which consumption and propagation patterns of domestic and international traditional news and social media can help inform theorizing about cross-national information spread. In a detailed case study of Canada, we employ a large multi-wave survey and a massive data set of Canadian Twitter users. We show that the majority of misinformation circulating on Twitter that is shared by Canadian accounts is retweeted from U.S.-based accounts. Moreover, exposure to U.S.-based media outlets is associated with COVID-19 misperceptions and increased exposure to U.S.-based information on Twitter is associated with an increased likelihood to post misinformation. We thus theorize and empirically identify a key globalizing infodemic pathway: disregard for national origin of social media posting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 2153-2174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Lin ◽  
Shuai Yang ◽  
Minghui Ma ◽  
Jian Huang

Purpose In recent years, hotels in China have been interested in leveraging social media platforms to facilitate interactions with and among consumers. Such brand engagement efforts on social media networks are believed to promote brands through co-creation of consumer experiences and values. This study was conducted in the context of Chinese hotels. The paper aims to identify two forms of brand engagement via social media platforms – consumer-initiated engagement and firm-initiated engagement – and to examine their effects on hotels’ display advertising effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach This study collected a comprehensive data set. First, the authors collected display advertisement data from two hotel chains in China. Second, the authors gathered the two hotels’ engagement data from Weibo. A generalized linear mixed model was used in data analysis. Findings The findings of the study indicate that both forms of brand engagement on social media network sites positively influence display advertising effectiveness. Moreover, for a strong brand, consumer-initiated engagement is more influential in increasing display advertising effectiveness; however, for a weak brand, firm-initiated engagement gains more clicks and conversions from advertisements. Practical implications As hotels in China continue to leverage online media platforms to reach, engage with and co-create value with potential and existing consumers, this study provides managers with insight as to how they can achieve higher advertising effectiveness by engaging with consumers on a consistent basis on social media. Originality/value This study mainly contributes to recent increasing research on engagement and value co-creation by providing a lens through which to assess the relationship between brand engagement via social media networks and online display advertising effectiveness.


Infoman s ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Yopi Hidayatul Akbar ◽  
Muhammad Agreindra Helmiawan

Social media is one of the information media that is currently widely used by several companies and personally to convey information, with the presence of social media companies no longer need to spread offers through print media, they can use information technology tools in this case social media to submit offers the products they sell to users globally through social media. This social media marketing technique is the process of reaching visits by internet users to certain sites or public attention through social media sites. Marketing activities using social media are usually centered on the efforts of a company to create content that attracts attention, thus encouraging readers to share the content through their social media networks. The application of the QMS method is certainly not only submitted through search engine webmasters, but also on a website keywords must be applied that relate to the contents of the website content, because with the keyword it will automatically attract visitors to the university website based on keyword phrases that they type in the search engine. With Search Media Marketing Technique (SMM) is one of the techniques that must be applied in conducting sales promotions, especially in car dealers in Bandung, it is considered important because each product requires price, feature and convenience socialization through social media so that sales traffic can increase. Each dealer should be able to apply the techniques of Social Media Marketing (SMM) well so that car sales can reach the expected target and provide profits for sales as car sellers in the field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Gregor Zons ◽  
Anna Halstenbach

AbstractDespite its right-wing populist character, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) shows no signs of a strong party leadership. We ascribe this state of the party leadership to the AfD’s institutionalization as a new party and show how organizational features interact with the skill set and goals of the party leaders. At the party level, we, firstly, outline the organizational change at the top of the party and the party leader selection rules. Secondly, we depict leadership turnover and competitiveness. At the leader level, we investigate the failure of Bernd Lucke, the key founder and one of the initial party leaders, as a manifestation of the leadership-structure dilemma of new parties. Embedded in a leadership team and faced with a growing extra-parliamentary party structure, Lucke tried to secure his initial autonomy and position of power by an attempt to become the sole party leader. His subsequent exit from the AfD laid bare the fact that he was not able to manage the challenges of the organizational consolidation phase, in which a new party needs a coordinator and consensus-builder. The AfD itself has proven its organizational autonomy from its initial leaders and its distaste for a strong and centralized party leadership. The barriers for the latter remain in place while, at the same time, the party institutionalization is still on-going, especially regarding its place in the German party competition.


MedienJournal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Isabell Koinig

The youth constitutes the largest user base of social media networks. While this generation has grown up in a digitally immersed environment, they are still not immune to the dangers the online space bears. Hence, maintaining their privacy is paramount. The present article presents a theoretical contribution, that is based on a review of relevant articles. It sets out to investigate the importance adolescents attribute to online privacy, which is likely to influence their willingness to disclose data. In line with a “new privacy paradox”, information disclosure is seen as unavoidable, given the centrality of social networks to adolescents’ lives. This goes hand in hand with individual privacy management. As individuals often lack knowledge as to how to protect their privacy, it is essential to educate the youth about their possibilities, equipping them with agency and self-responsibilization. This corresponds with a teen-centric approach to privacy as proposed by the TOSS framework.


MedienJournal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Isabell Koinig

The youth constitutes the largest user base of social media networks. While this generation has grown up in a digitally immersed environment, they are still not immune to the dangers the online space bears. Hence, maintaining their privacy is paramount. The present article presents a theoretical contribution, that is based on a review of relevant articles. It sets out to investigate the importance adolescents attribute to online privacy, which is likely to influence their willingness to disclose data. In line with a “new privacy paradox”, information disclosure is seen as unavoidable, given the centrality of social networks to adolescents’ lives. This goes hand in hand with individual privacy management. As individuals often lack knowledge as to how to protect their privacy, it is essential to educate the youth about their possibilities, equipping them with agency and self-responsibilization. This corresponds with a teen-centric approach to privacy as proposed by the TOSS framework.


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