Learning about the unknown Spitzenkandidaten: The role of media exposure during the 2019 European Parliament elections

The Spitzenkandidaten were meant to personalize European Parliament elections. This paper asks whether and through which channels the lead candidates were actually able to make themselves known among voters – a necessary precondition for any electoral effect. Combining panel surveys and online tracking data, the study explores candidate learning during the German 2019 European Parliament election campaign and relates learning to different types of news exposure, with a special focus on online news. The results show that learning was limited and unevenly distributed across candidates. However exposure to candidate-specific online news and most types of offline news helped to acquire knowledge. The findings imply that Spitzenkandidaten stick to voters’ minds when they get exposed to them, but that exposure is infrequent in high-choice media environments.

To track or not to track: examining perceptions of online tracking for information behavior research

PurposeThis study investigates perceptions of the use of online tracking, a passive data collection method relying on the automated recording of participant actions on desktop and mobile devices, for studying information behavior. It scrutinizes folk theories of tracking, the concerns tracking raises among the potential participants and design mechanisms that can be used to alleviate these concerns.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses focus groups composed of university students (n = 13) to conduct an in-depth investigation of tracking perceptions in the context of information behavior research. Each focus group addresses three thematic blocks: (1) views on online tracking as a research technique, (2) concerns that influence participants' willingness to be tracked and (3) design mechanisms via which tracking-related concerns can be alleviated. To facilitate the discussion, each focus group combines open questions with card-sorting tasks. The results are analyzed using a combination of deductive content analysis and constant comparison analysis, with the main coding categories corresponding to the thematic blocks listed above.FindingsThe study finds that perceptions of tracking are influenced by recent data-related scandals (e.g. Cambridge Analytica), which have amplified negative attitudes toward tracking, which is viewed as a surveillance tool used by corporations and governments. This study also confirms the contextual nature of tracking-related concerns, which vary depending on the activities and content that are tracked. In terms of mechanisms used to address these concerns, this study highlights the importance of transparency-based mechanisms, particularly explanations dealing with the aims and methods of data collection, followed by privacy- and control-based mechanisms.Originality/valueThe study conducts a detailed examination of tracking perceptions and discusses how this research method can be used to increase engagement and empower participants involved in information behavior research.

How Can and Would People Protect From Online Tracking?

Online tracking is complex and users find it challenging to protect themselves from it. While the academic community has extensively studied systems and users for tracking practices, the link between the data protection regulations, websites’ practices of presenting privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and how users learn about PETs and practice them is not clear. This paper takes a multidimensional approach to find such a link. We conduct a study to evaluate the 100 top EU websites, where we find that information about PETs is provided far beyond the cookie notice. We also find that opting-out from privacy settings is not as easy as opting-in and becomes even more difficult (if not impossible) when the user decides to opt-out of previously accepted privacy settings. In addition, we conduct an online survey with 614 participants across three countries (UK, France, Germany) to gain a broad understanding of users’ tracking protection practices. We find that users mostly learn about PETs for tracking protection via their own research or with the help of family and friends. We find a disparity between what websites offer as tracking protection and the ways individuals report to do so. Observing such a disparity sheds light on why current policies and practices are ineffective in supporting the use of PETs by users.

Visual MAV Tracker with Adaptive Search Region

Tracking a micro aerial vehicle (MAV) is challenging because of its small size and swift motion. A new model was developed by combining compact and adaptive search region (SR). The model can accurately and robustly track MAVs with a fast computation speed. A compact SR, which is slightly larger than a target MAV, is less likely to include a distracting background than a large SR; thus, it can accurately track the MAV. Moreover, the compact SR reduces the computation time because tracking can be conducted with a relatively shallow network. An optimal SR to MAV size ratio was obtained in this study. However, this optimal compact SR causes frequent tracking failures in the presence of the dynamic MAV motion. An adaptive SR is proposed to address this problem; it adaptively changes the location and size of the SR based on the size, location, and velocity of the MAV in the SR. The compact SR without adaptive strategy tracks the MAV with an accuracy of 0.613 and a robustness of 0.086, whereas the compact and adaptive SR has an accuracy of 0.811 and a robustness of 1.0. Moreover, online tracking is accomplished within approximately 400 frames per second, which is significantly faster than the real-time speed.

Religious Community Movement Online: Tracking History And Transformation Of Islamic Dakwah in Indonesia

This article generally examines online religious communities; more specifically, this article reviews religious communities in Indonesia with the object of study by the United Muslim community. Muslim United is one of the online religious communities in Indonesia. This community has various kinds of programs, including conducting da'wah activities through social media and a massive alms program at dawn which is carried out to assist in distributing fruits to class communities lewd. This article explains specifically about the united Muslim community that exists on social media. The method used in this article is ethnography, a method that collects data through the Muslim United Instagram account and also searches for other data from the YouTube, Twitter accounts that are specific about activities in the Muslim United community. This study indicates that the Muslim community is united in opening up hijrah spaces for young people and carrying out religious, social movements without any politics.

Online Tracking: When Does it Become Stalking?

Online user activities are tracked for many purposes. In e-commerce, cross-domain tracking is used to quantify and pay for web-traffic generation. Our previous research studies have shown that HTTP cookie-based tracking process, though reliable, can fail due to technical reasons, as well as through fraudulent manipulation by traffic generators. In this research study, we evaluate which of the previously published tracking mechanisms are still functional. We assess the efficacy and utility of those methods to create a robust tracking mechanism for e-commerce. A failsafe and robust tracking mechanism does not need to translate into further privacy intrusions. Many countries are rushing to introduce new regulations, which can have a negative impact on the development of robust technologies in an inherently stateless eco-system. We used a multi-domain, purpose-built simulation environment to experiment common tracking scenarios, and to describe the parameters that define the minimum tracking requirement use-cases, and practices that result in invading privacy of users. This study will help practitioners in their implementations, and policy developers and regulators to draw up policies that would not curtail the development of robust tracking technologies that are needed in e-commerce activities, while safeguarding the privacy of internet users.