Digital Platforms and Democratic Relations - join us on 10 Nov online/in-person

Workshop

Digital Platforms and Democratic Relations: Reinventing participation?

Thursday 10 November 2022, 17.00 (UK time)

MS Teams link here

Are digital platforms good or bad for democracy? The first workshop of the series ‘the Politics of Platform Societies’ will unpack this apparently simple question. The 2010s begun with the enthusiasm for how online communities could communicate and organise resistance to authoritarianism. Hope lay in the ‘Arab Spring’, and non-hierarchical protests to disrupt the politics of austerity – the ‘Occupy’ movements. 2016, however, marked a turning point. It became clear that social media can be hacked for authoritarian ends. Cambridge Analytica harvested data from millions of citizens to support Trump’s election. That are the long-lasting effects of these processes? Under what conditions can platforms make our societies more democratic? And how do new gigantic flows of information through platforms reshape how public opinion forms? Meanwhile, new debates have arisen around ‘digital parties’. Podemos in Spain and the 5 Stars Movement in Italy were born under the promise of advancing direct democracy through their platforms. Were they a new and more participatory form of political organisation? Or did platforms still worsen leadership engagement with grassroots activism? Our workshop will address these questions through the contributions of leading academics in the field of digital politics and communication.

Professor Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths, University of London) will deliver a keynote speech to the workshop. Prof Fenton is a leading scholar on the relations between new media ecosystems and the engagement of citizen in radical democratic processes. Among others, she authored the book Digital, Political, Radical (2016), in which she argues against the notion that digital activism is inherently democratic. Instead of considering social media and movements in isolation from the structures of capitalism and liberal democracies, Fenton claims the need to re-politicise the economy and re-socialise politics as the condition for radical movements to advance democracy through digital media. More recently, in her book The Media Manifesto (2020), co-authored with  Des Freedman, Justin Schlosberg, and Lina Dencik, Fenton makes a compelling case for the need to envision a media system around news co-operatives run by local communities to face the current power imbalances in the flows of information governed by big social media and traditional broadcasters.

Professor Oscar Barbera (University of Valencia, Spain) will be our panellist. Prof Barbera is a leading scholar on parties’ digitalisation. He is an expert on the effects of parties’ platforms on participation and intra-party democracy. Recently, Barbera co-edited the volume Digital Parties. The Challenges of Online Organisation and Participation in which the authors challenge the idea that digital platforms shape party competition in a single direction. Instead, by focusing on how digital tools reshape parties’ organisation and activists’ participation, Barbera and colleagues provide a theoretical compass to make sense of how political organisations migrate into the digital. Beside his interest in digital parties, Prof Barbera chairs the ‘Digitalisation and Policy Research Group’ at University of Valencia, whose core goal is to investigate the impact of digitalisation on democratic participation and how citizens have been increasingly participating to policies’ designs in different contexts through digital platforms.

Professor Ben O’Loughlin (Director of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway) will introduce the workshop series.

The workshop is open to anyone. Indeed, our aim is to stimulate the participation of students, academics and citizens from every background and expertise. Digital platforms are part of our daily lives, shaping how we communicate, consume and crucially seek information on political events. These are the conditions in which we can be political. Our goal is to provide all the attendants with a compass to become more aware of the political implications of digitalisation.

Thank you to our new lecturer Dr Marco Guglielmo for organising this, the first in a series of events.

ICA preconference on re-imaging media, war and conflict - apply now!

Ben O’Loughlin and the other editors of the journal Media, War and Conflict will hold a preconference at the International Communication Association annual convention in Toronto in May 2023. The theme is: Reimagining the Field of Media, War and Conflict in the Age of Information Disorder.

For a description of the theme, and details on how to apply, please check here. We strongly encourage applicants from what Canada deems Tier B and C countries — if you are in this category, see the link on how to apply for a bursary.

If you have any questions about how to apply or about the event, please email Katy Parry at k.j.parry@leeds.ac.uk.

It is our pleasure to announce that on Wednesday 15 June at 4pm in McCrea 1-14, Professor Jorg Matthes will give a talk titled, "Disentangling the effects of incidental exposure to political information on social media”.

Jorg is Professor of Communication Science, University of Vienna. Recently he has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for a project entitled: “Digital Hate: Perpetrators, Audiences, and (Dis)Empowered Targets”. Jorg is at Royal Holloway that day to meet our ERC Consolidator Grant “NewNews” team, and his talk is in the framework of our New Political Communication Unit.

Thank you to newpolcom’s Professor Joost van Spange for organising this event. If you can join us, do come along.

New research: Young Londoners feel trapped in cycles of insecurity

How have young people in global cities coped with the economic, social and environmental pressures caused by successive waves of crisis? Why are young people often disengaged from political activity when they have strong political views?

New research in London shows that young people from less privileged backgrounds worry they will fall into cycles of insecurity that make it hard to even think of getting into any political activity. For example, a 17-year old might worry that a problem at school is going to lead to a problem with police, which makes it harder to get a job after school, and then impossible to afford rent. They see older youths falling into such cycles - it is real, for them. Young Londoners would like to care about climate or the wider economy, but their focus is immediate. For them to engage in politics two things are needed: both an opening up of policy processes to young people and for those young people to gain sufficient stability and confidence to feel that they can act effectively. 

Ben O’Loughlin and James Sloam use narrative analysis to unpack the stories young people tell about how they will experience the transition to adulthood - to jobs, university, rents, and all the possibilities and risks ahead. This is a crucial time - research shows adults’ political opinions form when they are 15-24 years old and rarely change afterwards (despite anecdotes that people move to the right when they are older). Narrative analysis gets at the sequence of events young people will talk about when they describe how they are situated in the world. But it also allows them to talk about the emotions they attach to these events -- and to things still to happen. This gives a richer understanding of how those feelings feed into their decision-making and behaviour. 

The research shows young Londoners’ stories are local, that mental health is a difficult issue for many, and that the narrative plot they offer often corresponds to a cycle of insecurity they worry lies ahead. If they do imagine acting in politics it is locally, on community projects or through social work. They speak little about the structural power that shapes the entire environment – the struggling economy, how democracy works, and how climate change is having consequences already. 

Ben and James carried out this research with cooperation from the Greater London Authority (GLA), whose peer outreach workers ran focus groups and interviews with young people from across London in 2018. A survey was also conducted to put the focus group and interview findings in a wider context of what issues young people feel are political priorities. 

Research with the GLA and other organisations is continuing in 2022. Through the Covid period Ben and James have kept exploring how the voices and actions of young people can be brought into policymaking and politics more widely - a challenge that is far from over. 

Nikki Soo talk - Wednesday 16th March, 3pm, Windsor 1-05

We are very lucky that our former graduate students Dr. Nikki Soo will come and talk to us here this week. Nikki was on our MSc programme and then came back to do a PhD. She worked for Ipsos-MORI in polling for a year or two and has now joined TikTok where she works on their Harmful Content Public Policy. She will answer questions about TikTok and how it moderates political content, and perhaps also about how to get a job working in the politics of social media.

Here are details:

Time: Wednesday 16 March, 3pm-4pm

Place: Windsor 1-05

Title: Safety by Design: Harmful Content Public Policy at TikTok

We look forward to this!

Dr Nikki Soo is a harmful content subject matter expert within TikTok’s EU Public Policy Team, where she engages in a wide range of work including mis/disinformation, hateful behaviour and harassment.

Nikki specialises in the effects of digital technology as it is integrated into society, media and culture, and has previously worked at Ipsos MORI, Cardiff University and The University of Sheffield. Her work has previously been published in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Journalism Studies, as well as The Conversation and The Independent.

Nikki is also interested in tackling social inequalities, such as access to information and education, and sits as a board trustee with educational audiovisual and moving image charity Learning on Screen.

You can find her @sniksw.

Kate Dommett - talk tomorrow: The Business of Elections - join us

On 19 February 2022 at 1pm Dr. Kate Dommett, University of Sheffield (and her research website here), will join us to discuss her new research: The Business of Elections: A deep dive into election spending returns.

It's a project where Kate and her team looked at election spending returns to gain insight into the role played by different suppliers in election campaigns. It shows some really interesting things about the dynamics of election activity. The research is conducted with Sam Power, Andrew Barclay and Amber MacIntyre. It should give ideas for researchers to think of how to study this in different countries and elections.

Graduation for Dr. Amber Macintyre

On Monday 13 December 2021 Dr. Amber Macintyre enjoyed our graduation ceremony. It was in the slightly more quiet atmosphere that Covid has brought to ceremonies, but still a chance to celebrate. In her PhD Amber used ethnographic research to explore how campaign organisations Amnesty International and Tactical Tech follow what Amber calls 'data logic' despite their openly critical stance on the use of big data. Amber's thesis was examined by Dr. Alison Powell (LSE) and Prof. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (Cardiff). Her supervisors were Ursula Hackett, Ben O’Loughlin, and Cristian Vaccari. Please find her abstract below.

This research examines common claims about how personal data is used in political communication, focusing on civil society organisations (CSOs). Two ethnographic case studies are carried out to investigate the differences between an older membership-run CSO, Amnesty International, and a younger grant-funded CSO, Tactical Technology. The findings are threefold. Firstly, the claims of new civil society organisations, such as Avaaz, 38 Degrees and Change.org, assert that data-driven technologies support their efforts to decentralise strategy-setting power from their staff to their audience. However, both organisations engage in data practices to persuade the audience to support the strategy set by organisational staff, corroborating the critical claims that data practices centralise power.Secondly, rhetoric around the uptake of new data practices has been based on the assumption that distinct data-driven ways of working have become normalised. The findings show, however, that these two CSOs still rely on face to face discussions, intuition, and relationships to make strategic decisions. Finally, decision making surrounding data practices can be influenced by the opaque role of agents such as data scientists or algorithms. The technology-era organisation was more likely to understand how to involve these agents in decision making processes than the older organisation, which affected their ability to manage personal data. The research is significant in understanding the complexity and nuance in the adoption of new data practices. Further, the research makes a case for practitioners and researchers alike to be cautious about claims that data practices can support the decentralisation of strategy-setting power.

We Love the Planet - climate event, 14 February

NewPolCom’s James Sloam is organising an event on 14 February 2022, We Love the Planet. It is designed for and by young Londoners, the Greater London Authority’s environment team, and youth activists. It will provide some good research about young people’s understandings of climate change and the political communication involved. It will allow James to develop recommendations for GLA.

For a leaflet with full information about the event, click here.

The event is scheduled to take place at the Museum of London, but Covid levels may mean it is online.

From Glasgow, to headlines across the world: UK media narratives of COP26

This piece is by Charlotte Cameron, a student on our MSc Media, Power and Public Affairs.

Around 120 world leaders were gathering for what many believed was the last chance to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The world was watching, the cameras were focused and the journalists were ready. COP26, the biggest climate conference to date, was about to begin.

Each media article would have the world gripped, with the media playing a vital role in telling us about the deals being done. The media spectrum is vast and each platform would want to create their own narrative, telling their own story. I collated headlines from five UK media outlets: The Daily Mail, Sky News, The Independent, BBC News and The Guardian to track how different media outlets framed COP26.

News outlets will publish articles that engage their readers the most and, as climate change is the greatest risk facing us all, the implications of this are far-reaching. One narrative, one headline and one story could change the way everyone thinks about climate change.

The beginning of COP26

There was a lot of expectation for COP26 and while most media outlets focused their attention on PM Boris Johnson’s opening speech, some turned to the events unfolding outside. The Guardian focused on the “queueing chaos” whereas The Daily Mail drew attention to Glasgow’s image as “the city's refuse collectors went on strike hours before the start.”

Inside, the PM opened his speech by declaring that “it’s one minute to midnight.” This was a simple notion that the media portrayed in multiple ways. Sky News and BBC News quoted the PM, emphasising his warning. However, The Independent attacked the PM stating that “the children of tomorrow will watch Boris Johnson’s COP26 speech and ask – WTF, could you not have even tried?” The conference had not yet begun and media narratives were already being spun.

The deal for deforestation

Many activists were hoping that COP26 would see world leaders make a commitment to stop deforestation. In what was the first big deal of COP26, leaders representing 85% of the world’s forests committed to halting and reversing deforestation by 2030 – a significant step forward.

Considering how the various media outlets approached the beginning of COP, it is surprising that the first major deal was received almost unanimously. The Daily Mail, Sky News and BBC News focused on the fact that more than 100 countries had agreed to the deal, with The Guardian also emphasising the role of Biden, Bolsonaro and Xi Jinping. Irrespective of this, The Independent stood out again by highlighting that action is needed now and the deal was simply words on a page.

Is the end in sight for fossil fuels?

Burning fossil fuels emits harmful gases, including methane, which is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. The next big deal from COP26 was the US-EU deal that promised to reduce methane emissions 30% by 2030.

Some media outlets focused on the number of countries who signed the deal, like before. The Independent focused on that fact that nearly 100 countries signed the pledge whereas The Guardian referred to the 90 countries except China, India and Russia. In comparison, The Daily Mail, Sky News and BBC News simply referred to the deal while emphasising its aim to reduce global methane emissions.

All good news? Well, so we thought. As news about the deal circulated, media outlets began revealing that COP26’s largest delegation was those who had something to gain from fossil fuels. In particular, The Daily Mail and The Independent both published stories questioning why the biggest delegation was from an industry causing the most significant amounts of climate change.

A cause for thought, when only a week later the ‘phase-out’ of fossil fuels became ‘phase-down’. Did the influence of this delegation put pressure on this change or was it decided independently? Only with further investigation would an answer be found.

Why was President Obama there?

One of the most surprising media events of COP26 did not come from climate deals but from President Obama’s appearance. On the day he spoke, many said there was chaos inside. When asked about the commotion, someone simply replied ‘Obama’.

Opinions were divided about the relevance of his appearance. The Daily Mail undermined his speech by finding comedy in the fact he referred to Scotland as the ‘Emerald Isles’. Sky News focused on what he said, highlighting that he believes the world’s effort against climate change is falling short. Similarly, BBC News focused on his motion for young people to stay angry whereas The Independent focused on how he brought political clout to the conference. While there is little doubt President Obama would have drawn attention to COP, The Guardian published a scarring review stating that he had a nerve preaching about the climate crisis.  

COP26 ends, or does it?

COP was due to end on Friday the 12th November with a deal that would help us fight climate change. However, as the day drew to a close, there was no deal.

In a time where the world needed collective action, it looked like we were far from getting it. The Daily Mail told of a “Climate deal in crisis,” Sky News emphasised the watered down vows, The Independent spoke of a deal hanging in the balance, BBC News emphasised that we were entering overtime and The Guardian stated that pressure was mounting. After two weeks of promised negotiation, were world leaders going to fail at the final hurdle?

At long last the deal was signed. The Glasgow Climate Pact aims to speed up action against climate change, with 197 countries signing. Will it be enough? Only time will tell.

The role of the media throughout COP26 was clear. They gave us ways of accessing news from COP as and when it happened. All the media platforms I analysed played a role in reporting the facts to the UK public. However, only one acted as a judge. The Independent held COP26 and world leaders to account by reporting all the facts, including the uncomfortable ones. As many followed the stories as they happened, The Independent was determined to tell the whole picture. Perhaps this is because they realised that this summit, and the fate of the world, was more important than selling a story.

Joe Manchin’s shadow looms large over COP26

By Harvey Michael Carlin, current MSc Media, Power & Public Affairs student, 1 November 2021

Much is being made of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s COP26 no-shows, but the most consequential absentee will be in West Virginia, with an assist from the New York Times editorial board

It is a truism that there are three sides to every story, “my side, your side, and the truth”. However, when it comes to climate policy in the United States right now, there are two. Joe Manchin’s, and the planet’s. Manchin is single-handedly standing in the way of Democrats passing President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill. The bill, while far from perfect, would begin the process of retiring the coal industry. It would also expand in tax support for clean energy, along with electric cars, coupled neatly with curbing methane — a particularly gnarly greenhouse gas. Most satisfyingly for climate hawks, the bill contains a rather complicated Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP). Remember when Cap and Trade policies were all we had to get our heads around? CEPP is essence, will use a mixture of payments and penalties, truly the carrot and the stick, to put pressure on companies to phase out fossil fuels. Thanks to a neat Senate trick called reconciliation, and with the help of the Senate Parliamentarian, Democrats could pass this bill as part of a package with only 51 votes, the tiebreaker coming from Vice President Kamala Harris, bypassing the need for a filibuster-proof 60 votes.

However, Manchin, a Senator who receives thousands in campaign contributions from the energy sector, along with having the majority of his personal assets tied up in a coal brokerage firm, (Thank You, Joe, Very Cool!), does not much like CEPP’s carrot. He hates it so much that he is the holdout Democrat, wanting the climate policies to be watered down or eliminated. Even fellow professional objector and walking primary defeat, Kyrsten Sinema understands that we are staring down the barrel, with ten years to prevent complete climate catastrophe. She seems to get that we are wrestling with the prospect of over 1.5-degree warming in the next decade impacting millions of people. She gets that we are losing.

While the climate consequence of this is a catastrophe in the long term, in the immediate term, it is going to likely force President Biden to arrive at COP26 in Glasgow empty-handed. For the biggest carbon polluter in history, that is, to quote Joe Biden, a big deal. Ok, maybe I’m paraphrasing. The U.S. President has a vital role at these summits. He twists arms, makes deals, and puts pressure on other nations to make significant commitments. Most importantly, he pressures developing nations such as India and China to make sacrifices in their development that America did not make in its own development, in the interest of the planet. Barack Obama had some success with this in 2015 in Paris — Biden needs to repeat that success this time, and more. For him to be arriving empty-handed makes him look hypocritical and weak, it makes it less likely he will be able to achieve his goals. If the U.S. cannot convince China and India, along with Brazil and other developing nations, to make significant commitments for the sake of the planet, our fight for the future may be futile. Leaving us chasing 310 with our middle order and a bowler’s wicket. For Manchin to put parochial political interests ahead of any of this and block the climate bill that Biden could use to pressure these nations is an act of eco-sabotage that will look particularly cruel in the history books.

Why does Manchin do this? It does not seem likely he will be re-elected in 2024, in a state Donald Trump just won by 40 points. He will also be 76 by then, facing another six-year term. The reality is that Machin is incentivised to do this by a broken media system in the United States that often rewards moderation as a form of independence and loves nothing more than to ‘both sides’ every issue —

‘Democrats Say Humans Need Oxygen, Republicans Disagree’.

Many within the mainstream media also constantly fear being accused of having a liberal bias. While some in the press own this more partisan identity, there is a sizeable portion of wannabe “Just the Facts, Ma’am” reporters who fear that appearing overtly partisan will de-legitimise their entire industry. Sidebar, but Facebook also has this fear, and it goes to show just how successful the right has been in scaring societal institutions into toeing the line, lest they be accused of bias(!), and lose viewers to OAN (spoiler alert: they are going to lose viewers to them anyway). As a result of this, editorial desks all across the land have taken to labelling many climate policies as some type of “Liberal Wish List”, “Democrat mega Spending”, or “Activist Demands”. This creates a permission structure wherein Manchin can oppose a critical bill aimed at prolonging human existence on a habitable planet, while the legacy media gives him all the cover he needs to present this as a brave, moderate stance, crowning him as the heir to John McCain, the maverick man. Considering this, it is not surprising that Manchin has never had a hard time finding reporters to speak with, on the record, off the record — Joe Manchin, otherwise known as a Senior Senate Source —, and on deep background. He does not have a hard time securing lengthy Op-Ed where he cries out for civility and begs his colleagues to moderate their demands,

 “Oh won’t somebody think of the poor coal miners!"

A love of moderates who provide constant access to the D.C. press corps permeates through entire swathes of the media, as much of a scathing hatred of 5 pm lids. Play the Washington game, and they will build you a reality where you can tank climate legislation that sends Biden to Glasgow empty-handed without feeling a single consequence. It is less the Society of the Spectacle, and more Our Political Society is a Spectacle.

So Biden heads off to Glasgow, with nothing to push other nations with. The Senior Senator from Virginia can watch Murder Xi Wrote in his Manchin, with nothing of value to Putin to COP. Oops. This week’s Politico Playbook can list media access and perforative centrism as its winners of the week, and the losers column can contain the planet. It is a joke. A cruel one, a practical one, played on all of us.