Maurice Vergeer

Campaigning on Twitter: Microblogging and online social networking as campaign tools in the 2010 general elections in the Netherlands

The present study focuses on how candidates in the Dutch general elections of 2010 use Twitter, a popular microblogging and social networking service. Specifically the study focuses on explaining why some candidates are more likely to adopt Twitter, have larger networks, and show more reciprocation than other candidates. The innovation hypothesis, predicting that candidates from less established and smaller parties will use Twitter more extensively, is unsupported. This suggests that normalization of campaign practices is present on Twitter, not changing existing communication practices. The findings do show that being an early adopter of these new technologies is more effective than adoption shortly before Election Day.

Web campaigning in the 2009 European Parliament elections: A cross-national comparative analysis

Political communication has transformed drastically since the Internet made its way into the political arena. Political parties seem unable to do without a website or a social networking profile any longer, particularly in election campaigns. One of the many approaches to studying online political communication is measuring specific website features political parties, politicians and candidates utilize in order to engage visitors in the political process. Even though the analysis of online political communication has evolved over the years, website-feature analysis is still a valid instrument to study political actors. The explanations sought to understand website-feature utilization are found in earlier cross-national comparative studies (technological and human development) as well as new ones (political systems characteristics, ideology, participation and engagement). This study looks back on two prior cross-national comparative research projects and reports on a cross-national comparative analysis of 1026 candidate and party websites from 17 countries participating in the European Parliament (EP) elections of 2009. To analyze these data, some methodological improvements are made compared to earlier studies.

Personalization in e-campaigning: A cross-national comparison of personalization strategies used on candidate websites of 17 countries in EP elections 2009:

Candidate websites provide politicians with opportunities to present themselves in an individual way. To a greater or lesser extent politicians share personal information in their biographies and provide options to connect with citizens by putting links on their websites to their social networking sites (SNS). In this paper, although acting on different levels, both strategies are indicated as forms of personalization strategies used by politicians in their online communication. This cross-national study explores the use of these strategies on candidate websites in 17 countries during the elections for the European Parliament (EP) in June 2009. This is a comparative study of the personalized and individualized campaigning styles used during elections. Findings show that three general dimensions of personalization can be distinguished; ‘professional’, ‘home and family’ and ‘personal preferences’. While the first two dimensions show a higher level of use among candidates, the third dimension on private information is hardly used. Results show also that countries from Central Europe inform their citizens more about their professional and personal circumstances, and Mediterranean countries use personalization strategies the least. Furthermore, the overall findings show that SNS were not frequently used during the 2009 e-campaigning. West European countries use links to SNS more frequently than countries in other regions. In general these findings suggest cross-cultural differences regarding online personalized political campaigning.

Peers and Sources as Social Capital in the Production of News: Online Social Networks as Communities of Journalists

In a very short time span, Twitter has become a major force in modern societies and also in the production of news by journalists. How journalists use Twitter is studied extensively, particularly on a small scale (i.e., qualitative research, specific events, mostly descriptive). However, studies on how Twitter has impacted journalism as a whole are relatively scarce. This study focuses on the adoption of Twitter and its emerging community network structure in the Netherlands. Using the social network data of 2,152 journalists as retrieved from Twitter, analysis shows that the social network among journalists is well connected. The journalists who are extremely popular are also able to influence the flow of information through the network more than others (cf. gatekeeper role). Still, even though gatekeeping positions in the network are present due to the absence of specific relations, and the network consists of eight tightly knit network communities, the entire network is very well connected. The adoption of Twitter as a microblogging and networking service over time indicated that adoption increased particularly in early 2009. The possible consequences of these tightly knit communities for the production of news are discussed in terms of pack journalism, echo chambers, and information cascades.

Weather conditions and daily television use in the Netherlands, 1996–2005

This study examines the impact of daily atmospheric weather conditions on daily television use in the Netherlands for the period 1996–2005. The effects of the weather parameters are considered in the context of mood and mood management theory. It is proposed that inclement and uncomfortable weather conditions are associated with lower human mood, and that watching entertainment and avoiding informational programs may serve to repair such mood. We consequently hypothesize that people spend more time watching television if inclement and uncomfortable weather conditions (low temperatures, little sunshine, much precipitation, high wind velocity, less daylight) coincide with more airtime for entertainment programs, but that they view less if the same weather conditions coincide with more airtime devoted to information fare. We put this interaction thesis to a test using a time series analysis of daily television viewing data of the Dutch audience obtained from telemeters (T = 3,653), merged with meteorological weather station statistics and program broadcast figures, whilst controlling for a wide array of recurrent and one-time societal events. The results provide substantial support for the proposed interaction of program airtime and the weather parameters temperature and sunshine on aggregate television viewing time. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Adopting, networking, and communicating on Twitter: A cross-national comparative analysis

Twitter is one of the most popular online social network platforms for political communication. This study explains how political candidates in five countries increase their online popularity and visibility by their behavior on Twitter. Also, the study focuses on cultural differences in online social relations by comparing political candidates in five countries in the East and West: South Korea, Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands. Findings show that signing up to Twitter as early as possible increases one’s online popularity as predicted by the process of preferential attachment. Candidates actively following citizens and sending undirected tweets also increases the group of followers. This doesn’t apply however to conversational tweets, which decreases the number of a candidate’s followers slightly. South Korea, having a collectivistic culture, shows higher levels of reciprocity on Twitter, although this does not increase the group of followers. In other countries, including collectivistic Japan, candidates reciprocate less frequently with citizens, effectively using Twitter more as a mass medium for broadcasting.

M. Thelwall,Introduction to Webometrics: Quantitative Web Research for the Social Sciences San Rafael, CA:Morgan Claypool ,2009

It is not necessary to state to readers of JITP that the advent of the Internet has provided science in general with enormous challenges and opportunities. Activities on the Internet are massive, while the number of sites on the Web is staggering. For scholars, it is a challenge to study this rapid adoption of Web technology: for instance, how and why it is being used and its consequences. Because the amount of data is enormous but seemingly readily available on the Internet, the need for tools to collect, structure, and analyze these data is great. As a research area, “Webometrics,” defined as “the study of Web-based content with primarily quantitative methods for social science research goals using techniques that are not specific to one field of study” (p. 6), was initially developed and used in information sciences. Its use in social sciences has been quite limited, even though there are many areas where it could prove to be very productive. By providing readers with numerous examples of data collection and data analysis using online (search engines such as Yahoo! and Google) and offline tools (dedicated software such as Socscibot and Lexiurl), Michael Thelwall’s Introduction to Webometrics serves as a cross-pollinator of Webometrics to other disciplines such as political sciences and social science in general. The book is organized around the following main themes: Web impact analysis, hyperlink analysis, and blog searching. Web impact analysis focuses on the extent to which certain keywords, ideas, or references are present on the Web—basically assuming that the more these keywords or ideas are present, the more important they are—as well as using information from URLs to identify the sources of the content. Link analysis is an extension of Web impact analysis, focusing on the number of links that refer to a particular Web site or Web document. However, because almost all Web sites (or a sample thereof) link to these Web sources, a full network analysis of these links enables one to uncover the Web’s structure. In this way, dominant Web sites or clusters of Web sites can be detected, indicating differences in structure, betweenness, or centrality. The short chapter on blog searching shows how to use blog search engines to uncover trends in blog postings on specific themes. It tries to uncover how the blogosphere changes over time. Yet, as blog searches rely on online search engines and visualizations, the blog search fails to show how these numerical data could be collected for further analyses, such as content analysis. This is a major drawback of many online interfaces, producing mostly eye candy instead of actual data. Similarly, how the search results are produced often remains a black box. Thelwall has written two software programs (LexiURL and SocSciBot), both freely available (see http://socscibot.wlv.ac.uk and http://lexiurl. wlv.ac.uk), to support these types of data collection techniques. Chapters 5 and 6 provide ample information on how to use these software packages. LexiURL is used for Web impact analysis (automatic search engine searches) on Yahoo!, Live Search (replaced by Bing), and YouTube. However, although not mentioned in the book but observed in the latest version of LexiURL, it also can undertake data collection for other

Commentary and Debate Special Section Introduction: Defining media diversity

Abstract Against the background of the current European competitive media landscape, the media are more and more compelled to legitimize their activities in their own national context as well as at a European level. Meanwhile, the nature of the media diversity in The Netherlands has changed tremendously; from a society divided along political and religious lines, it has evolved towards a multi-ethnic society. Hence, both the conceptualizing and operationalizing of media diversity from an academic as well as a media practical perspective prove to be hot topics. An expert meeting was held at the Department of Communication at Radboud University Nijmegen in December 2004 in which the contours of media diversity in general and in The Netherlands in particular were explored. Institutional performance as well as program-related aspects linked to the notion of media diversity were discussed. Media diversity was explored from the angle of media economics (How many media actors are there? What about the competition? Is competition deadly or just healthy or somewhere in between?) as well as from the perspective of the program/format level (Is it more of the same? A lot of imports? What about criteria for quality, innovation? Does the public broadcaster make any difference?). In addition, the audience reception perspective (Are these media production and distribution trends followed by media use patterns?) as well as methodologically problematic aspects one encounters when measuring media diversity were assessed. What follows here is a selection of several most pertinent views on this complex topic. We welcome each critical insight from other geographical contexts which might stimulate the debate on measures of open and reflective diversity in the media.