Tweetie pie

I have a Twitter account, although I'm not a very good user of it. I only really have it set up to power an RSS feed on my blog, and I don't update it regularly (about once a week if you are lucky) and my tweets are always pretty bland and uninteresting. So I have to confess, I've never really grasped the internal architecture of twitter and how people interact with each other through the service. Very few people have asked to follow my tweets (and if you read them, you'd know why... Nick is "Writing.... very slowly" and "about to start teaching" being two of the more interesting posts).

But today something really strange happened. Suddenly I became very popular indeed - and with a very unlikely group of people. At nine o'clock this morning, RonPaul33 asked to follow me. Intrigued, I looked at his page - it just seemed to lead to lots and lots and lots of articles on Ron Paul. I had no idea what this was - something from the Ron Paul campaign? Enterprising amateur supporters? An elaborate form of spam? And I certainly had no idea why they had decided to pick on me.

But it didn't stop there. BillRichardson4 (12:02), JohnEdwards54 (14:02), RudyGiuliani32 (14:02), JohnMcCain43 (14:03), MikeHuckabee47 (15:04), TommyThompson43 (15:04), and HillaryClinton5 (19:01) all said they wanted to follow my twitter feed. So what on earth is going on? I suspect it is not that I have become hot property in the battle for the White House. Besides, the feeds certainly aren't official, as this is the real John Edwards twitter RSS.

I would suspect some kind of scam, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it could be or how anyone might be benefiting. And the pages with links to news stories on them look fairly genuine. I suppose it is possible that it is a group of highly competitive amateurs who monitor each other, and when they saw RonPaul33 had contacted me they all followed suit. But that explanation seems pretty far-fetched.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is going on?

Digital natives and digital literacy

I don't want to get into the habit of having a go at Internet megabrands on this blog, but I do have to confess to both loving and hating iTunes. Part of the problem is probably that my computer isn't the quickest and nor is it very well organised either, but sometimes iTunes just seems to take an age to crank itself into gear, especially if you open it up to see perhaps the thirteen most dreaded words in the English language... "There is an iTunes update available. Would you like to download it now?" - when you see that, you know you aren't going to be hearing any music for half an hour (all that said, I still vastly prefer iTunes to any other player that I have tried... if anyone has any other suggestions for players they love, they would be gratefully received).

This general slowness is particularly annoying when you just have a sudden urge to listen to one track - it is hardly worth booting the software up. Instead, I have found myself using YouTube when I want to hear a song, even a song I have on my computer, as it just seems much quicker.

This evening, for reasons largely unknown, I suddenly found myself with a deep hankering to listen to Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. Whilst the track was playing, and as you do on YouTube, I started to have a look at the comments that people had left behind about the video, and one really got me thinking. It simply said: "what year was the song made in?" (sorry, there isn't a way to link to individual comments on YouTube, so you'll have to take word for it). And sure, enough a little conversation had ensued between the people trying to answer the question.

On the one hand, this is exactly the kind of conversation that YouTube seems to be suited too - short, snappy, rapid and to the point. But it also establishes a huge contradiction. The guy who posted the comment is Canadian, 22 years old and obviously, by virtue of using and commenting on YouTube, completely comfortable with producing web content, even if it is in a limited way. He sounds the definition of web 2.0 digital literate (or a digital native, to use a term that was created - and has been used by many researchers in the area) to highlight generational differences in how people behave online.

But the behavior of this individual (and he isn't alone - look at any YouTube stream to see similar examples) also raises a pretty big question in my mind: why ask the for information on YouTube when he could have found the answer he wanted nearly instantly with Google or Wikipedia? I can only think of two possible explanations.

Firstly, we might need to think about our definition of digital literacy. People may learn to use certain sites, for example YouTube, but then not have the confidence to use other sites, even if academics and commentators tend push them altogether in this thing we call "web 2.0". If this were the case, it might seriously undermine the notion of a digital native, which certainly contains an implicit assumption of comfort with technology and transferable skills. 

Secondly, it does seem possible that, on occasions, people behaving in this way only see the information they are obtaining as having secondary importance. It might be that their primary goal is to enter into a community with like minded individuals. So - like they would at any good party - they make small talk.

P.S. And of course I had to put the video up. Enjoy (and I dare you not to be humming the intro riff all day).

Allowing tragedy to take hold

In Tel Aviv last night I happened to be one of 150,000 people at a rally to mark the 12^th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin was killed by Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist who was opposed to Rabin signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, at which Palestinian leaders recognised Israel’s right to exist and a two-state solution reached the agenda (the Accords also brought Nobel Peace Prizes to Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat). The rally was a very flat affair. Attended seemingly only by secular, liberal Israelis, even the secular, liberal newspaper Haaretz described the memorial as ‘hollow’: politicians said nice things about peace, political will, and defeating extremists on either side (note the irony-free militarised rhetoric by peace advocates), although one of these very ministers has authorised further ‘blackouts and starvation’ in Gaza, Haaretz’ commentator noted.

Today, from prison, Yigal Amir will be permitted to attend his week-old son’s circumcision ceremony. Peace protestors threaten to block the road to the prison, but others on the left and Israeli media academics fret that this will simply generate more publicity for Amir and his cause (the “oxygen of publicity” debate). At the memorial rally last night, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said of Amir, ‘the prison gates will shut him in until his dying day’, Barak unashamedly further politicising a legal decision in a moment of populism. Amir’s family already attract considerable media attention and it seems likely the son will never escape the spotlight, ensuring the event lives on for generations.

There is nothing I can write in a quick blog post that would adequately treat this situation, but from a political communications angle one aspect worth pointing out is the relationship between events, rituals and myths. There are lots of events in a nation’s life, but not all are so entwined with rituals. A death and a birth: Each year the event will be there, as a memorial and a birthday, and media will give it life, drawn to the metaphorical suggestiveness and easy narrative resonance. Perhaps ‘event’ when ritualised in this way is as much verb as noun, inasmuch as an event is done, repeatedly, sometimes tiresomely. Like any early death, an assassination creates an absence: those here on the left ask, if Rabin has lived, would he have won more elections and would there have been a better chance of peace? The absence creates and feeds the myth of Rabin. In these ways, the story of the nation as well as political divisions are reinforced around the event. So might anything break this link of event, ritual and myth? Allowing the link to embed itself seems the path of least resistance for a dispirited society, for it offers its own certainties and reassurances, if only of the bleakest kind.

MSc New Political Communication

Could I take this opportunity to alert you to our new MSc stream in New Political Communication?

The MSc examines the interplay between digital new media and communication technologies, political institutions, behaviour and public policy, with emphases on citizen engagement, mobilization, campaigning, and the role of new media in the global system. Covers e-democracy, e-government, e-campaigning, citizen journalism, new media, war, and conflict.

You can read more about it, including details of how to apply online, here. 

Please direct inquiries to the Masters Coordinator, Dr James Sloam.

Islamophobia and the media, a decade on

It is a decade this week since the Runnymede Trust report on Islamophobia was published in the UK. It identified instances of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim representations in British media, and tried to define Islamophobia in a rigorous way. The hope was that media would acknowledge when they were being Islamophobic and change their habits. A decade on, Chris Allen argues the report failed: it had little impact on Islamophobia in British public life. We might suggest that it is a little naïve to think journalists and news editors would take notice of such a report, or that the presence of anti-Islamic attitudes are not simply an effect of media, but Allen’s observations about how Islamophobia has changed are interesting. It is not simply that Islamphobia has increased, but that it has become naturalised and more nuanced, he argues. There have been some decent studies of these processes, for instance in the work of Elizabeth Poole and John E. Richardson (and both).

There is much talk that participatory new media will allow those disillusioned with mainstream media to create their own representations of what’s going on in the world, and in this way change the contours and character of the national public sphere. Those feeling that their voices and opinions are systematically excluded from the mainstream have their chance to tell their own stories, and not allow their identities to be defined solely by others. Can we say whether the apparent failure of the Runnymede report and residual Islamophobia in Britain are an indictment or product of that vision, or are things more complex? Does Islamophobia even exist?

Web 3.0: Good riddance to the wisdom of crowds?

Just because we can now access any news source from anywhere in the world doesn't mean we will. Just because we can set up RSS feeds to deliver the latest information specific to our interests doesn't mean we trust any of it. And just because anyone can post on the web, this doesn't necessarily mean media and communication have become more democratic. After a decade under seige, are we beginning to see the expert to fight back? Is the conventional wisdom that a broader marketplace of ideas will generate 'better' information under threat? Writing in the Guardian Media section this week, Anthony Lilley ponders whether it is sometimes useful, when you want to learn about something, to go to someone with expertise. Is this what Web 3.0 will be all about? He refers to a comment by Jason Calacanis: "Web 3.0 is the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. Web 3.0 throttles the 'wisdom of the crowds' from turning into the 'madness of the mobs' we've seen all too often, by balancing it with a respect of experts."

Is it not the case that audiences want some enduring news source they can trust, rather than a squillion partial voices? In the UK, the majority of audiences rely on a single primary source, the BBC, even today. In a decade's time, surely key individuals (trusted anchors and columnists) will remain ‘optimal passage points’ for news, but these may not be the same key individuals as was the case in the twentieth broadcasting era. How will the balance between participatory media and credible expertise unfold? Can the wisdom of crowds and the judgement of the few be reconciled in new ways?

What might define Murdoch's politics?

In the UK Channel 4 is currently running a season of old programmes to mark its 25 anniversary. Channel 4 is both a groundbreaking and controversial broadcaster, which has produced some really quality TV in the past quarter of a century, so the season has made for good viewing. On Saturday night I watched A Very British Coup, which I had never seen before. This film was made in 1989, and is based on the 1982 book of the same name by Chris Mullen, who subsequently went onto become a leftwing Labour MP. The plot deals with the election of a Bennite Labour government in Britain, led by Harry Perkins, a genuinely socialist leader, who promises radical reform, including the removal of all American nuclear weapons and military bases, and declaring Britain a neutral country. The film focuses on the reaction of the British establishment - in the civil and security services, the media and business - and the Americans to the new regime (although it should be noted that the book and the film have dramatically different outcomes).

One aspect of the plot cuts across something I have been thinking about a bit recently - the way the media reacts to politicians. The film contains a Rupert Murdoch-type figure who, angered by Perkins plans to limit newspaper ownership so an individual may only own one title, attacks the Labour leader with vicious headlines, such as "Commie Scum". Actually, this must not have seen so far removed from reality at the time, as the Sun was regularly attacking Labour politicians (and anyone who has read the Alistair Campbell diaries will be aware what a genuine source of pain and hurt these attacks were to Neil Kinnock). Both the fiction and the reality of the 1980s seem then to point towards what has become something of a Shibboleth for the left; namely, that the corporate media is against them and has its own pro-corporate, pro-establishment agenda.

The bogeyman for this idea is undoubtedly Rupert Murdoch, as a funny little film on Slate recently made very clear. But does this idea stand up to scrutiny? On some issues (for example Iraq or European integration) there is certainly a consistent line within the Murdoch stable across both different publications and over time. However, a member of the Conservative party might argue they haven't exactly been treated kindly by the Murdoch-owned media in recent years. And, of course, all the Murdoch papers (with, if memory serves, the exception of the Sunday Times in 2005) have endorsed Labour in every election since 1997. This represents a pretty substantial change from the eighties.

Whilst we can never regard the media as a value free environment, it does seem to be the case that the political zeitgeist and public preferences do have an influence on even the most powerful media barons - in that sense, the media is not just driving public opinion, but also reflecting it. We shouldn't be too surprised by this. As corporations, they are still interested in profit, and making profit requires customers who are willing to consume their product. As a result, they have to, in part at least, reflect the beliefs (and probably, to some extent, the prejudices) of their prospective audiences. If the view that media is in part responsive is accepted, it raises all kinds of interesting issues, especially for a global media firm like Murdoch's News International that straddles a number of markets. The editorial lines employed by the organisation might look very different from country to country, as the two films below indicate. Same company, two countries... and crucially, two very different messages. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised by this, given the different audiences they are seeking to appeal to.

[First published on nickanstead.com]

New Working Paper: Parties, Election Campaigning and the Internet

Nick Anstead and I have just published a new Working Paper, entitled 'Parties, Election Campaigning and the Internet: Toward A Comparative Institutional Approach'. Download pdf.

Here's a summary: This paper argues that a comparative approach to analysing the relationship between technology and political institutions has the potential to offer renewed understanding of the development of the Internet in election campaigning. Taking the different characteristics of political parties and the norms and rules of the electoral environment in the United States and the United Kingdom as an illustration, it suggests that the relationship between technology and political institutions is dialectical. Technologies can reshape institutions, but institutions will mediate eventual outcomes. This approach has the potential to generate a theoretical framework for explaining differences in the impact of the Internet on election campaigning across liberal democracies.

A longer and more developed version of this will appear in the forthcoming Handbook of Internet Politics (Routledge, 2008), co-edited by Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard.

Please see the Publications page for a list of recent and forthcoming works by Unit staff. 

The power of social network monopoly...

... and how it can be used to persuade people to use an inferior product (or "why I hate Facebook messages") 

A while back I blogged on the idea that social networking sites might have a greater tendency towards monopoly than previous computer software and applications (including the archetypal examples of Microsoft and Google). Basically the argument was thus: Social networks sites, by their very nature, rely on... well... social networks. Therefore you don't just choose the site that is "best" - measured by its capabilities - but also for the network that resides on there. Furthermore, once a critical mass of people have joined a site, it becomes incredibly hard for new start ups to get a foothold, regardless of how good their product is. The problem with this, of course, is the network becomes more significant than the service, and people end up settling for second-rate software solutions.

OK, I admit this is a personal rant based on my prejudices (and some people might want to leap in and defend it), but, ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit one: Facebook messages, Facebook's internal mailing system. Actually, this is an especially interesting example, because there has been quite a lot of comment on the fact that younger Internet users are abandoning older applications - most notably email - and instead relying on social networking sites for communications. Facebook messages would therefore seem to be a direct replacement and be a very important application. Based purely on personal experience, some of my friends (I would have to add they tend to be friends who are a bit younger than I am) have started to use it as their default mode of communication. But when I sit and think about it objectively, that's actually quite a strange thing to be doing, because, compared to email, Facebook messages is a massively inferior product.

Actually, that's not enitrely fair, as I can see why people do it. Due to the fact it relies on your personal social network, it is astonishingly easy to use. You simply type the first few letters of the name of your friend and you get a list of possibles which you can select from. Of course, you can do this with a well run email address book, but Facebook does it all for you, so there is no need to do any work organising it. Additionally, you'll never get any spam. And, of course, the very fact the mail interface is embedded in Facebook, the place where you organise your social life, store photos and videos of friends, and join groups with those who share your interests, makes it very convenient.

But that is where the advantages end. The message exchanges are strictly linear in construction - there is no forwarding option, for example. Once you have started an exchange, you cannot add people to it at a later point. There is no mechanism for filing messages. Instead you just have one big intray, with the most recent message at the top. You cannot download your messages onto a client, as there is no support for IMAP or POP mail services. This also makes messages much harder to view on a phone or a blackberry-type device. Nor can you set up autoforwarding to take messages into another account. Likewise, there is no autoreply. These are all features that email users have come to take for granted, but don't exist on Facebook messages. It seems in some cases then, that social network does indeed trump functionality.

[Originally published on nickanstead.com/blog] 

A super reality show

If you took Ben's post from a while back and mixed it with Andy's more recent post... you'd probably come up with something like Heroes: Origins.   Essentially, it's interactive drama.  Each week, a new character (with new superpowers, obviously...) will be introduced.  At the end of the run, the public will get to vote for the character they like the most and that character will be cast in the mainshow for the next series.  

This raises a couple of questions.  One of the big things that has come out of the various television scandals over the course of the past few months is the complex and convoluted relationship between fact and fiction, and how both should and shouldn't be fitted into the idea of narrative.  Even documentaries, after all, need narrative.  Heroes: Origins will blur this line even further.

Also, there might also be problems for Heroes the global brand - it doesn't seem likely that the interactive element of the show will be replicated on a worldwide basis.  That said there is a slightly intriguing comment from the controller of BBC2 on Wikipedia, where he states: "In America there's an interactive element and we'd like to do that here, but I don't know if time will be on our side".  Does this imply that the BBC is seeking to get involved in the phone voting action?  Would this mean a genuinely multinational voting system?  That might be quite an interesting development in the world of interactive television.  Who knows?  Maybe if the characters all came from different countries, they could develop Eurovision like voting patterns...