Politics

Reykjavík.
We move on at ECPR 2011 to Andrea Calderaro, who zooms in on the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement as a form of political struggle in the network society. It is important here to move beyond digital media as a mere tool, but to question the code itself; FOSS does this by open-sourcing code to allow greater interaction and transparency.

Closed code creates new forms of power inequality, and restrictions of access and participation are imposed through legislation which is supported and requested by software companies; this creates and maintains new elites. By contrast, FOSS delivers four …

Reykjavík.
The next speaker at ECPR 2011 is Lance Bennett, whose interest is in connective action (as opposed to collective action). Understanding the logic of such action is important, as it may mean that political organisations need to rethink their outreach activities.

There have been significant self-organising large-scale connective actions recently – from the Arab Spring to the Spanish Indignados –, with substantial media and political successes. Collective action, by contrast, has its problems: the free rider problem, for example, which can be addressed through formal organisation (but this in turn creates problems with resource mobilisation, collective identity and action …

Reykjavík.
The afternoon panel at ECPR 2011 starts with a paper by Bruce Bimber, whose focus is on the role of digital media in encouraging political participation in the US. Does digital media use lead to (or relate to) civic and political involvement? There appears to be a modest relationship, which is moderated by interest; interpretations vary about the substantive importance of that link, though. (Ultimately, effects of Internet use on engagement appear to be positive, but may not be substantial.)

Further, the association between the two may be growing with involvement over time – but that may not continue …

Reykjavík.
The final paper in this ECPR 2011 session is Virginie van Ingelgom, who returns us to the question of European legitimacy. There are two dimensions to this: internal (perceived by European citizens) and external (objectively legitimated by international law). The former is problematic: European integration has been found to have low salience for European citizens when examined using qualitative data, but quantitative methods may provide better insights.

Such analysis usually shows that levels of support for the EU has fallen since the Maastricht treaty in the early 90s, after stronger support during the 80s – but another perspective on …

Reykjavík.
Next up at ECPR 2011 is Maria Heller, whose focus is on the emerging ‘democrature’ in Hungary and the public discourse around this, especially in the context of Hungary’s role in the EU. The project found that the everyday reflections of lay persons about this are incoherent and confused, incorporating contradictory notions and feelings; in particular, they have very vague notions about the EU.

Further, individual interests play an important role in how people conceive of the EU; personal experience and attributes (travel, expected economic advantages, etc.) are also relevant here. Identification with the national community in Hungary is …

Reykjavík.
Next up at ECPR 2011 is Pieter de Wilde, whose focus is on Euroscepticism during the 2009 European Parliament elections. If I understand it correctly, this was examined by surveying a range of Websites discussing the elections, across a substantial number of member states.

Pieter’s project examined contestations of EU legitimacy, and developed three dimensions of contestation – contestation of core EU principles as such (such as European integration – which is challenged by a comparative minority of contributions to the debate), of EU polity (by which he means the European Union institutions set to deliver such principles – …

Reykjavík.
The next ECPR 2011 speaker is Magdalena Gora, whose interest is in conceptualising the transformation of collective identities in the new European member and candidate states. There are three broad possibilities here: national identities could remain as they are; could become embedded into a stronger European identity; or could take on a more cosmopolitan flavour.

There are two possible levels of identity conflict today: at a level of the content, and at a level of the form and function of political identity. There is a significant difference in debates in the new member states, which are lagging behind in …

Reykjavík.
The second panel at ECPR 2011 is on civil society, identity and the public sphere in the EU, and begins with a paper by Helene Pristed Nielsen, whose focus is on European social movements. Her argument is that further inclusion of social movements in public sphere deliberation represents both a potential and a pitfall for the future of EU democracy.

Social movements are defined here as communities of interest: a distinctive form of contentious politics that make specific claims which if realised may clash with other communities’ views. The European public sphere is regarded as an open field of …

Reykjavík.
The next speaker at ECPR 2011 is Barbara Pfetsch, whose focus is on media agenda building in online and offline media. She suggests that research is needed to assess the impact of the Net on public debate: how could one go about this work? There have been hopes that the Net may lead to greater public participation and deliberation; also, however, what is the discursive opportunity structure which is provided by the Net? What is the potential for new civil society actors to enter the debate, and how may they be included in the process?

What theoretical and empirical …

Reykjavík.
The next paper at ECPR 2011 is by Andrew Chadwick, whose argument is that old and new media scholars often talk past one another, and that political communication scholarship as well as Internet studies need to draw on one another’s ideas more effectively. The interrelationship between old and new media, in particular, needs to be examined more closely. This requires system-level perspectives and a conceptual understanding of power which can be illustrated empirically.

So, we need a hybrid media system perspective, recognising the technologies, genres, norms, behaviours, and organisations of all its components. Power relations between them are based …