scholarly journals To Whom Do Politicians Talk and Listen? : Mapping Swiss Politicians’ Public Sphere on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-202
Author(s):  
Tobias R. Keller

Abstract Politicians use social media platforms such as Twitter to connect with the public. However, it remains largely unknown who constitutes the public sphere to whom politicians actually connect, talk, and listen. Focusing on the Twitter network of all Swiss MPs, I identified 129,063 Twitter users with whom politicians connected (i.e., their follower‐followee network) or with whom they interacted (e.g., [were] replied to or retweeted). I qualitatively analyzed top connected, talking, and listening MPs, and conducted a semi-automated content analysis of the Twitter users to classify them (N = 70.589). Politicians’ audience consists primarily of ordinary citizens, who also react most often to the politicians’ messages. However, politicians listen more often to actors close to politics and the media than to ordinary citizens. Thus, politicians navigate between engaging with everyone without losing control over the communication situation and address key multipliers such journalist to get their messages out.

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-400
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Hallarn ◽  
Stephen L. Shapiro ◽  
Marion E. Hambrick ◽  
D.E. Wittkower ◽  
Lynn Ridinger ◽  
...  

Popular social media platforms have faced recent criticism because of the tendency for users to exhibit strongly negative behaviors, threatening the open, prodemocratic discourse that proponents believe was made possible when social media sites first gained widespread adoption a decade ago. A conceptual model suggests that the microblogging site Twitter, and especially sport-themed debate through hashtags, can still realize these ideals. Analyzing a dataset of tweets about the firing of former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling by ESPN on April 20, 2016, as well as a qualitative questionnaire given to the users of the hashtag, this study attempted to ascertain how closely the discourse comes to realizing the ideal of the Habermasian public sphere. The findings demonstrate that although users draw value from participation in the discussion, they are less inclined to desire interaction with other hashtag users, particularly those who disagree with them. This suggests that Twitter hashtags provide an open forum that approaches the participatory requirement of the public sphere, but the lack of back-and-forth engagement suggests the medium is not ideal for the generation of deliberative public opinion.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Schwemmer

This paper investigates how right-wing movements strategically utilize social media for communication with supporters. I argue that movements seek to maximize user activity on social media platforms for increasing on-site mobilization. To examine what factors affect social media activity and how right-wing movements strategically adjust their content, I analyze the German right-wing movement Pegida, which uses Facebook for spreading its anti-Islam agenda and promoting events in the Internet. Data from Pegida’s Facebook page are combined with news reports over a period of 18 months to measure activity on Facebook and in the public sphere simultaneously. Results of quantitative text and time series analysis show that the quantity of posts by Pegida does not increase user activity, but it is the content of posts that matters. Moreover, findings highlight a strong connection between Facebook activities and the public sphere. In times of decreasing public attention, the movement changes its social media strategy in response to exogenous shocks and resorts increasingly to radical mobilization methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Rahmi Nur Fitri ◽  
Indah Rama Jayanti

Religious behavior nowadays has became a sector which has a lot of change. Modernity and globalization formed a society that was worried on their religious identity. This problem deliver to a new trend amongst young people and Indonesian celebrities. Campaigns of movement extensively spread on media social, self convertion to religious individuals also known as “seleb hijrah”. The massive movement of hijrah lead by various groups that caused alteration the meaning of it and increased activities of religion commodification. Society today has liberation to select literature of hijrah concept that are available in the media. Media extention facilitate spreading of the existence of seleb hijrah which eventually form new communities such as “Kajian MuSaWaRah”. Data obtain through social media, various video and articles discussing the same topic. This paper aims to scientifically explore and critically examine the phenomenon of seleb hijrah that have occurred among artists in recent years. Examine further the emergence of tendency of exclusivism in modern social circle. In addition, the article also explain the tendency of religious commodification in artists circle, in which called them selves with preacher. Nadirsyah Hosen said that hijrah activity amongst celebrities should not only be a popular trend to moving stage in seek of audiences. The majority of artists who are members of the group, innovate to maintain their existence in the public sphere. Keywords: hijrah, artist, exclusivism, identity  Abstrak Perilaku keagamaan masa kini telah menjadi bidang yang banyak mengalami perubahan. Modernitas dan globalisasi kemudian membentuk masyarakat yang terguncang akan identitas keagamaannya. Kekhawatiran ini kemudian menghasilkan tren baru di kalangan anak muda dan selebriti Indonesia. Kampanye gerakan untuk menjadi pribadi religius yang dilakoni para artis kemudian marak ditemukan di media sosial atau yang juga dikenal dengan seleb hijrah. Gerakan massif hijrah yang dilakukan oleh berbagai kalangan, menyebabkan terjadinya pergeseran makna hijrah serta meningkatnya aktivitas komodifikasi yang menjadikan agama sebagai obyeknya. Masyarakat dewasa ini bebas untuk memilih referensi hijrah dari sekian banyak sumber yang telah tersedia di media. Ekstensi media mempermudah penyebaran eksistensi artis hijrah yang akhirnya membentuk sebuah komunitas baru seperti Kajian MuSaWaRah. Data didapatkan melalui media sosial, berbagai video kajian serta artikel-artikel yang membahas topik yang sama. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk menelusuri dan mengkritisi secara ilmiah fenomena seleb hijrah yang terjadi di kalangan artis beberapa tahun terakhir. Menelaah lebih jauh munculnya kecenderungan ekslusivisme kelompok sosial modern. Selain itu, artikel juga memaparkan terjadinya kecenderungan komodifikasi agama di dalam kelompok artis yang mulai mengidentifikasikan diri sebagai kelompok pendakwah. Mengutip tulisan Nadirsyah Hosen, aktivitas hijrah di kalangan artis seharusnya tidak hanya menjadi tren populer perpindahan panggung dalam mencari audiensi. Mayoritas artis yang tergabung ke dalam kelompok ini kemudian berinovasi untuk tetap mempertahankan eksistensi mereka di ranah publik. Kata kunci: hijrah, artis, eksklusivisme, identitas  


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Claudia Lenssen

Abstract As traditional media in Germany have lost their relevance in the digital age, so has the perpetually embattled authority of film criticism diminished. The article addresses current debates about the state of criticism while critics are confronting the collapse of the media having traditionally defined their work. What does it mean that writing on film is supposed to function as the “taste tester for cultural gastronomy” (Wolfram Schütte)? Do social media marginalize critical expertise? How does film criticism work under the omen of changing concepts of the public sphere? The article discusses the prospects of film criticism “at a time when the architectonic, mythic, and social unity of film is no longer self-evident and has ceased to function hegemonically” (Georg Seeßlen). What does it mean that “writing about the audiovisual must change” and young film critics open up spaces to win back film criticism as a counterbalance to market-driven film policies?


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 230
Author(s):  
Miski Miski

This paper is a netnographic study of hadith memes prohibition women from traveling without mahram on Indonesian social media. there are three main questions that are in focus: 1) how does classical literature record hadiths related to this theme? 2) how does this hadith exist in memes on Indonesian social media? 3) how did this phenomenon give birth to the amplification of Islamic doctrine? By using content analysis, this study shows: 1) the hadith in this theme is a hadith that is widely known among the Companions of the Prophet and the gatherers of the hadith, and is considered mutually reinforcing, 2) on social media, the hadith exists in various memes; besides the media factor, also the factors of its users which still carry theological aspects, 3) the massive spread of memes in this theme triggers the creation of the Islamic doctrine, and has an effect on the neglect of other more essential aspects of Islamic doctrine. This study also found that the existence of the meme hadith is a re-actualization of classical discourse that is intended as resistance to a variety of religious social phenomena that are deemed deviant, especially in relation to women's freedom in the public sphere. To this point, it must be acknowledged that the memes that are spread are methodologically problematic or irrelevant in a contemporary context. Beyond these findings, the existence of memes with different interpretations but in limited quantities and intended as a counter to memes that have been widespread will further enrich the discourse of hadith studies. Keywords: hadith, memes, netnographic study, mahram


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (s1) ◽  
pp. 788-813
Author(s):  
Asunción Bernárdez-Rodal ◽  
Maria Luz Congosto ◽  
Nuria López-Priego

Abstract1 June 2018 marked a historic moment in Spanish politics, when the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) announced a cabinet with the largest proportion of female ministers in the world. This announcement received extensive coverage in the traditional media. The objective of this research was to measure whether the news had an equivalent impact on Twitter users. To this end, we analyzed the reaction to the appointments based on the popularity of the hashtags #GobiernoSanchez (“Sanchez Government”), #GobiernoFeminista (“Feminist Government”) and #ConsejoMinistras (“Council of Female Ministers”). The most significant findings are that women had even less visibility than they were given in traditional media because of what is not retweeted does not exist, and that the extreme polarization of political life and the media in the public sphere appears to extend to the digital environment of Twitter.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13(49) (1) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Tomasz Goban-Klas

The contemporary political scene, especially the public debate, is dominated by eristic forms of argumentation, i.e., verbal fights per fas et nefas — by any persuasive means, not only regardless of ethics and respect for dignity of adversary, but also regardless of the adequacy of arguments. Although classical rhetoric is not considered by everyone (following Plato’s example) as the best means of achieving the truth (here the Socratic dialectic and dialogic method are considered more appropriate), the effective and honest rhetoric is based on reliable arguments, although it does not avoid pathos, and therefore emotions. Social media do not improve, but worsen the quality of public debate, and in turn, the constantly increasing flood of insignificant, not to mention even false media information, does not form a conscious citizen, but a political ignorant. Father Professor Leon Dyczewski, with his life-long scientific and didactic activity in the field of media and journalism, criticized this trend of degradation of the media, the public sphere and journalism, even at a time when it was not dominant, but inferior, or rather marginal. Especially now, his works deserve all the more remembrance and continuation not only as a form in memoriam, but also in the form of a creative and updating continuation.


Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645


Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645


Author(s):  
Lene Rimestad

Columns generally take up a lot of space in the media. But what can an employed journalist write in his column? How is this particular freedom managed and shaped? In this article the columns written by journalists working for Berlingske Tidende are analyzed. The analysis covers two months before and after substantial changes in the paper in 2003. Two parameters are used in the analysis: Political: Is the column pro-government, anti-government, apolitical or mixed. And what sphere does the column cover: Does the column take place in the private sphere or the public sphere? Finally the changes in the period are discussed. But initially the column as a genre is defined.


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