Politics

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.

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 communicative exchanges, which may be in the process of emerging, though this, too is contentious.

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 approaches may be suited to researching these questions? First, there is an elite bias in traditional mass media; they tend to exclude ‘outside’, non-mainstream actors, and the hope is that the Net removes such biases. Second, media agenda building depends on local contexts: the political system, the media system, and the constellation of current conflicts in a country, for example. How does traditional media agenda setting change because of the Internet, as new challengers make their views heard?

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 on adaptation and interdependence, and actors create, tap, or steer information flows in ways that suit them.

Reykjavík.
The next paper at ECPR 2011 is by Carol Galais, whose focus is on the effect of digital media on civic attitudes. This was triggered by the Arab Spring and other popular uprisings in which Internet media have played a role; does digital media use affect political pattitudes and political participation? Carol’s study found that digital media can affect political attitudes, but that this effect is not the same in all contexts: Web 2.0 environments enhance autonomy and political interest; they can be used to build communities; and its users may be exposed to more political stimuli than others.

Reykjavík.
From the very intensive ten-day workshop with our research partners in Münster which started this trip (more on this on the Mapping Online Publics site some time soon) I’ve made it to the ECPR conference in Reykjavík. There’s more parallel sessions here than could be comfortably wiped out by a single exploding whale, so my conference blogging from here will necessarily follow my own interests, more or less; don’t take it as an accurate representation of all that’s going on here.

I’m starting the day with a panel on comparing digital media and politics across regimes, which begins with a paper by Susana Salgado, whose interest is in the impact of digital media in African countries. What kind of democratic impact is there; is the Net promoting participation; is it repeating the history of other media? Susana’s focus is on Portuguese-speaking Luso-African nations (Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde); these are very impoverished nations, and Internet penetration is generally very low (Cape Verde was up to nearly 30% Internet penetration in 2010, Mozambique is below 3%).