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Stormzy 1: The Sun 0—Three Reasons Why #GE2017 Was the Real Social Media Election

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by Helen Margetts

It could be the first election where the right wing tabloids finally ceded their influence to new media.

by Helen Margetts

After its initial appearance as a cynical but safe device by Teresa May to ratchet up the Conservative majority, the UK general election of 2017 turned out to be one of the most exciting and unexpected of all time. One of the many things for which it will be remembered is as the first election where it was the social media campaigns that really made the difference to the relative fortunes of the parties, rather than traditional media. And it could be the first election where the right wing tabloids finally ceded their influence to new media, their power over politics broken according to some. Social media have been part of the UK electoral landscape for a while. In 2015, many of us attributed the Conservative success in part to their massive expenditure on targeted Facebook advertising, 10 times more than Labour, whose ‘bottom-up’ Twitter campaign seemed mainly to have preached to the converted. Social media advertising was used more successfully by Leave.EU than Remain in the referendum (although some of us cautioned against blaming social media for Brexit). But in both these campaigns, the relentless attack of the tabloid press was able to strike at the heart of the Labour and Remain campaigns and was widely credited for having influenced the result, as in so many elections from the 1930s onwards. However, in 2017 Labour’s campaign was widely regarded as having made a huge positive difference to the party’s share of the vote—unexpectedly rising by 10 percentage points on 2015—in the face of a typically sustained and viscious attack by the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express. Why? There are (at least) three reasons. First, increased turnout of young people is widely regarded to have driven Labour’s improved share of the vote—and young people do not in general read newspapers not even online. Instead, they spend increasing proportions of their time on social media platforms on mobile…

Interviews, Politics & Government

Could Voting Advice Applications force politicians to keep their manifesto promises?

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by David Sutcliffe

A number of studies have shown that VAA use has an impact on the cognitive behaviour of users, on their likelihood to participate in elections, and on the choice of the party they vote for.

by David Sutcliffe

To what extent do VAAs alter the way voters perceive the meaning of elections, and encourage them to hold politicians to account for election promises? Image: ep_jhu (Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

In many countries, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have become an almost indispensable part of the electoral process, playing an important role in the campaigning activities of parties and candidates, an essential element of media coverage of the elections, and being widely used by citizens. A number of studies have shown that VAA use has an impact on the cognitive behaviour of users, on their likelihood to participate in elections, and on the choice of the party they vote for. These applications are based on the idea of issue and proximity voting—the parties and candidates recommended by VAAs are those with the highest number of matching positions on a number of political questions and issues. Many of these questions are much more specific and detailed than party programs and electoral platforms, and show the voters exactly what the party or candidates stand for and how they will vote in parliament once elected. In his Policy & Internet article “Do VAAs Encourage Issue Voting and Promissory Representation? Evidence From the Swiss Smartvote,” Andreas Ladner examines the extent to which VAAs alter the way voters perceive the meaning of elections, and encourage them to hold politicians to account for election promises. His main hypothesis is that VAAs lead to “promissory representation”—where parties and candidates are elected for their promises and sanctioned by the electorate if they don’t keep them. He suggests that as these tools become more popular, the “delegate model” is likely to increase in popularity: i.e. one in which politicians are regarded as delegates voted into parliament to keep their promises, rather than being voted a free mandate to act how they see fit (the “trustee model”). We caught up with Andreas to discuss his findings: Ed.: You found that issue-voters were more likely (than other voters) to say they would sanction a politician who broke their election promises. But also that issue voters are less politically engaged. So is this…

To what extent do VAAs alter the way voters perceive the meaning of elections, and encourage them to hold politicians to account for election promises? Image: ep_jhu (Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Interviews, Politics & Government

Using Open Government Data to predict sense of local community

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by David Sutcliffe

Advocates hope that opening government data will increase government transparency, catalyse economic growth, address social and environmental challenges.

by David Sutcliffe

Advocates hope that opening government data will increase government transparency, catalyse economic growth, address social and environmental challenges. Image by the UK’s Open Data Institute.

Community-based approaches are widely employed in programmes that monitor and promote socioeconomic development. And building the “capacity” of a community—i.e. the ability of people to act individually or collectively to benefit the community—is key to these approaches. The various definitions of community capacity all agree that it comprises a number of dimensions—including opportunities and skills development, resource mobilisation, leadership, participatory decision making, etc.—all of which can be measured in order to understand and monitor the implementation of community-based policy. However, measuring these dimensions (typically using surveys) is time consuming and expensive, and the absence of such measurements is reflected in a greater focus in the literature on describing the process of community capacity building, rather than on describing how it’s actually measured. A cheaper way to measure these dimensions, for example by applying predictive algorithms to existing secondary data like socioeconomic characteristics, socio-demographics, and condition of housing stock, would certainly help policy makers gain a better understanding of local communities. In their Policy & Internet article “Predicting Sense of Community and Participation by Applying Machine Learning to Open Government Data”, Alessandro Piscopo, Ronald Siebes, and Lynda Hardman employ a machine-learning technique (“Random Forests”) to evaluate an estimate of community capacity derived from open government data, and determine the most important predictive variables. The resulting models were found to be more accurate than those based on traditional statistics, demonstrating the feasibility of the Random Forests technique for this purpose—being accurate, able to deal with small data sets and nonlinear data, and providing information about how each variable in the dataset contributes to predictive accuracy. We caught up with the authors to discuss their findings: Ed.: Just briefly: how did you do the study? Were you essentially trying to find which combinations of variables available in Open Government Data predicted “sense of community and participation” as already measured by surveys? Authors: Our research stemmed from an observation of the measures of social…

Advocates hope that opening government data will increase government transparency, catalyse economic growth, address social and environmental challenges. Image by the UK’s Open Data Institute.

Interviews, Politics & Government

Is Left-Right still meaningful in politics? Or are we all just winners or losers of globalisation now?

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by David Sutcliffe

The Left–Right dimension is the most common way of conceptualising ideological difference. But in an ever more globalised world, are the concepts of Left and Right still relevant?

by David Sutcliffe

Theresa May meets European Council President Donald Tusk in April, ahead of the start of Brexit talks. Image: European Council President (Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The Left–Right dimension—based on the traditional cleavage in society between capital and labor—is the most common way of conceptualising ideological difference. But in an ever more globalised world, are the concepts of Left and Right still relevant? In recent years political scientists have increasingly come to talk of a two-dimensional politics in Europe, defined by an economic (Left–Right) dimension, and a cultural dimension that relates to voter and party positions on sociocultural issues. In his Policy & Internet article “Cleavage Structures and Dimensions of Ideology in English Politics: Evidence From Voting Advice Application Data”, Jonathan Wheatley argues that the cleavage that exists in many European societies between “winners” and “losers” of globalisation has engendered a new ideological dimension pitting “cosmopolitans” against “communitarians” and that draws on cultural issues relating to identity—rather than economic issues. He identifies latent dimensions from opinion data generated by two Voting Advice Applications deployed in England in 2014 and 2015—finding that the political space in England is defined by two main ideological dimensions: an economic Left–Right dimension and a cultural communitarian–cosmopolitan dimension. While they co-vary to a significant degree, with economic rightists tending to be more communitarian and economic leftists tending to be more cosmopolitan, these tendencies do not always hold and the two dimensions should be considered as separate. The identification of the communitarian–cosmopolitan dimension lends weight to the hypothesis of Kriesi et al. (2006) that politics is increasingly defined by a cleavage between “winners” and “losers” of globalisation, with “losers” tending to adopt a position of cultural demarcation and to perceive “outsiders” such as immigrants and the EU, as a threat. If an economic dimension pitting Left against Right (or labour against capital) defined the political arena in Europe in the twentieth century, maybe it’s a cultural cleavage that pits cosmopolitans against communitarians that defines politics in the twenty-first. We caught up with Jonathan to discuss his findings: Ed.: The big thing that happened…

Theresa May meets European Council President Donald Tusk in April, ahead of the start of Brexit talks. Image: European Council President (Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Economics, Interviews, Politics & Government

Should citizens be allowed to vote on public budgets?

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by David Sutcliffe

Considered to be a successful example of empowered democratic governance, participatory budgeting has spread among many cities in Brazil.

by David Sutcliffe

Image: a youth occupation of Belo Horizonte to present and discuss different forms of occupation of urban space, by upsilon (Flickr CC BY-SA).

There is a general understanding that public decision-making could generate greater legitimacy for political decisions, greater trust in government action and a stronger sense of representation. One way of listening to citizens’ demands and improving their trust in politics is the creation of online communication channels whereby issues, problems, demands, and suggestions can be addressed. One example, participatory budgeting, is the process by which ordinary citizens are given the opportunity to make decisions regarding a municipal budget, by suggesting, discussing, and nominating projects that can be carried out within it. Considered to be a successful example of empowered democratic governance, participatory budgeting has spread among many cities in Brazil, and after being recommended by the World Bank and UN-Habitat, also implemented in various cities worldwide. The Policy & Internet article “Do Citizens Trust Electronic Participatory Budgeting? Public Expression in Online Forums as an Evaluation Method in Belo Horizonte” by Samuel A. R. Barros and Rafael C. Sampaio examines the feelings, emotions, narratives, and perceptions of political effectiveness and political representation shared in these forums. They discuss how online messages and feelings expressed through these channels can be used to assess public policies, as well as examining some of the consequences of ignoring them. Recognised as one of the most successful e-democracy experiences in Brazil, Belo Horizonte’s electronic participatory budgeting platform was created in 2006 to allow citizens to deliberate and vote in online forums provided by the city hall. The initiative involved around 174,000 participants in 2006 and 124,000 in 2008. However, only 25,000 participants took part in the 2011 edition, indicating significant loss of confidence in the process. It is a useful case to assess the reasons for success and failure of e-participation initiatives. There is some consensus in the literature on participants’ need to feel that their contributions will be taken into consideration by those who promote initiatives and, ideally, that these contributions will have effects and practical…

Image: a youth occupation of Belo Horizonte to present and discuss different forms of occupation of urban space, by upsilon (Flickr CC BY-SA).

Ethics, Politics & Government

Five Pieces You Should Probably Read On: Fake News and Filter Bubbles

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by David Sutcliffe

Do social media divide us, hide us from each other? Are you particularly aware of what content is personalised for you, what it is you’re not seeing?

by David Sutcliffe

This is the second post in a series that will uncover great writing by faculty and students at the Oxford Internet Institute, things you should probably know, and things that deserve to be brought out for another viewing. This week: Fake News and Filter Bubbles! Fake news, post-truth, “alternative facts”, filter bubbles—this is the news and media environment we apparently now inhabit, and that has formed the fabric and backdrop of Brexit (“£350 million a week”) and Trump (“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period”). Do social media divide us, hide us from each other? Are you particularly aware of what content is personalised for you, what it is you’re not seeing? How much can we do with machine-automated or crowd-sourced verification of facts? And are things really any worse now than when Bacon complained in 1620 about the false notions that “are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein”? 1. Bernie Hogan: How Facebook divides us [Times Literary Supplement] 27 October 2016 | 1000 words | 5 minutes “Filter bubbles can create an increasingly fractured population, such as the one developing in America. For the many people shocked by the result of the British EU referendum, we can also partially blame filter bubbles: Facebook literally filters our friends’ views that are least palatable to us, yielding a doctored account of their personalities.” Bernie Hogan says it’s time Facebook considered ways to use the information it has about us to bring us together across political, ideological and cultural lines, rather than hide us from each other or push us into polarised and hostile camps. He says it’s not only possible for Facebook to help mitigate the issues of filter bubbles and context collapse; it’s imperative, and it’s surprisingly simple. 2. Luciano Floridi: Fake news and a 400-year-old problem: we need to resolve the ‘post-truth’ crisis [the Guardian] 29 November 2016 | 1000…

Politics & Government

Five Pieces You Should Probably Read On: The US Election

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by David Sutcliffe

Here are five pieces that consider the interaction of social media and democracy—the problems, but also potential ways forward.

by David Sutcliffe

Image from Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons

This is the first post in a series that will uncover great writing by faculty and students at the Oxford Internet Institute, things you should probably know, and things that deserve to be brought out for another viewing. This week: The US Election. This was probably the nastiest Presidential election in recent memory: awash with Twitter bots and scandal, polarisation and filter bubbles, accusations of interference by Russia and the Director of the FBI, and another shock result. We have written about electoral prediction elsewhere: instead, here are five pieces that consider the interaction of social media and democracy—the problems, but also potential ways forward. 1. James Williams: The Clickbait Candidate 10 October 2016 | 2700 words | 13 minutes “Trump is very straightforwardly an embodiment of the dynamics of clickbait: he is the logical product (though not endpoint) in the political domain of a media environment designed to invite, and indeed incentivise, relentless competition for our attention […] Like clickbait or outrage cascades, Donald Trump is merely the sort of informational packet our media environment is designed to select for.” James Williams says that now is probably the time to have that societal conversation about the design ethics of the attention economy—because in our current media environment, attention trumps everything. 2. Sam Woolley, Philip Howard: Bots Unite to Automate the Presidential Election [Wired] 15 May 2016 | 850 words | 4 minutes “Donald Trump understands minority communities. Just ask Pepe Luis Lopez, Francisco Palma, and Alberto Contreras […] each tweeted in support of Trump after his victory in the Nevada caucuses earlier this year. The problem is, Pepe, Francisco, and Alberto aren’t people. They’re bots.” It’s no surprise that automated spam accounts (or bots) are creeping into election politics, say Sam Woolley and Philip Howard. Demanding bot transparency would at least help clean up social media—which, for better or worse, is increasingly where presidents get elected. 3. Phil Howard:…

Image from Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons

Politics & Government

Of course social media is transforming politics. But it’s not to blame for Brexit and Trump

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by Helen Margetts

Mark Zuckerberg has responded with the strange claim that his company does not influence people’s decisions. So what role did social media play in the political events of 2016?

by Helen Margetts

After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, 2016 will be remembered as the year of cataclysmic democratic events on both sides of the Atlantic. Social media has been implicated in the wave of populism that led to both these developments. Attention has focused on echo chambers, with many arguing that social media users exist in ideological filter bubbles, narrowly focused on their own preferences, prey to fake news and political bots, reinforcing polarisation and leading voters to turn away from the mainstream. Mark Zuckerberg has responded with the strange claim that his company (built on $5 billion of advertising revenue) does not influence people’s decisions. So what role did social media play in the political events of 2016? Political turbulence and the new populism There is no doubt that social media has brought change to politics. From the waves of protest and unrest in response to the 2008 financial crisis, to the Arab spring of 2011, there has been a generalised feeling that political mobilisation is on the rise, and that social media had something to do with it. Our book investigating the relationship between social media and collective action, Political Turbulence, focuses on how social media allows new, “tiny acts” of political participation (liking, tweeting, viewing, following, signing petitions and so on), which turn social movement theory around. Rather than identifying with issues, forming collective identity and then acting to support the interests of that identity—or voting for a political party that supports it—in a social media world, people act first, and think about it, or identify with others later, if at all. These tiny acts of participation can scale up to large-scale mobilisations, such as demonstrations, protests or campaigns for policy change. But they almost always don’t. The overwhelming majority (99.99%) of petitions to the UK or US governments fail to get the 100,000 signatures required for a parliamentary debate (UK) or an official response (US). The very few that…

Politics & Government

Can we predict electoral outcomes from Wikipedia traffic?

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by taha yasseri

Data show that the relative change in page views to the general Wikipedia page on the election can offer an estimate of the relative change in election turnout.

by taha yasseri

2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump in a residential backyard near Jordan Creek Parkway and Cody Drive in West Des Moines, Iowa, with lights and security cameras. Image by Tony Webster (Flickr).

As digital technologies become increasingly integrated into the fabric of social life their ability to generate large amounts of information about the opinions and activities of the population increases. The opportunities in this area are enormous: predictions based on socially generated data are much cheaper than conventional opinion polling, offer the potential to avoid classic biases inherent in asking people to report their opinions and behaviour, and can deliver results much quicker and be updated more rapidly. In their article published in EPJ Data Science, Taha Yasseri and Jonathan Bright develop a theoretically informed prediction of election results from socially generated data combined with an understanding of the social processes through which the data are generated. They can thereby explore the predictive power of socially generated data while enhancing theory about the relationship between socially generated data and real world outcomes. Their particular focus is on the readership statistics of politically relevant Wikipedia articles (such as those of individual political parties) in the time period just before an election. By applying these methods to a variety of different European countries in the context of the 2009 and 2014 European Parliament elections they firstly show that the relative change in number of page views to the general Wikipedia page on the election can offer a reasonable estimate of the relative change in election turnout at the country level. This supports the idea that increases in online information seeking at election time are driven by voters who are considering voting. Second, they show that a theoretically informed model based on previous national results, Wikipedia page views, news media mentions, and basic information about the political party in question can offer a good prediction of the overall vote share of the party in question. Third, they present a model for predicting change in vote share (i.e., voters swinging towards and away from a party), showing that Wikipedia page-view data provide an important increase…

2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump in a residential backyard near Jordan Creek Parkway and Cody Drive in West Des Moines, Iowa, with lights and security cameras. Image by Tony Webster (Flickr).

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