Inspired by Coleman’s call for a more ‘direct representation’, we address two neglected issues wi... more Inspired by Coleman’s call for a more ‘direct representation’, we address two neglected issues within the field of social media and political communication. We study a non-election period in Sweden (two randomly selected weeks in early 2016) and conduct a cross-platform comparison. The article is based on content analyses of the four prominent social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. We seek to answer the following questions: do parties use social media platforms in-between elections? If so, for what purposes? Do parties use social media to interact in a direct manner with citizens? We focus on three different Swedish parties: the Social Democrats (incumbent), the Feminist Initiative (underdog) and the Sweden Democrats (populist right-wing). Our findings suggest a bleak direct representation in-between elections. Parties are more active on social media platforms during election campaigns. Twitter is the preferred platform, especially by the incumbent party f...
Politics in Austria is still a male business. Even though in 2017, women occupied 34 percent of t... more Politics in Austria is still a male business. Even though in 2017, women occupied 34 percent of the seats in Austria’s Nationalrat, female MPs are still underrepresented. Moreover, previous studies have shown that women receive substantially less media coverage than men do and this, for instance, disadvantages female politicians to male politicians in election campaigns. Our study seeks to contribute to this debate by adding a longitudinal perspective and substantially underpinning it with empirical data. We use quantitative content analysis to examine whether the election coverage of female politicians in Austrian news media has changed between 2008 and 2017. Our findings show low visibility of female politicians in Austrian campaign coverage that is even decreasing over time; furthermore, the political role a female politician occupies plays a crucial role for her media visibility.
This paper addresses the subject of letters to the editor as one of the longest standing forums f... more This paper addresses the subject of letters to the editor as one of the longest standing forums for public discussion and debate by ordinary citizens. To show how the voice of ordinary citizens is presented in letters to the editor during national election campaigns over a period of ten years (2008, 2013 & 2017), we are focusing on the Austrian Kronen Zeitung: A newspaper with an exceptionally high market share of up to 40% during the examination period, a heavy focus on the letters section with three pages per day, and a self-declared willingness to take a stance, especially during election periods. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 530 letters to the editor and 525 articles in the politics section as well as survey data from the Austrian national election study on the political positions of the Kronen Zeitung's readers, we find that letters to the editor in the Kronen Zeitung do not reflect, but complement the articles in the politics section. The tone of the letters is more negative than that of news articles, but the letters closely reflect the readers' political positions, therefore offering identification with the paper.
For a few years now, members of the government in Austria have been using Facebook to reach out t... more For a few years now, members of the government in Austria have been using Facebook to reach out to the public as well as to the mass media. Following normative guidelines and regulations, tax-funded government communication should be neutral, informative and autonomous of party politics. Using a multi-method approach, combining a structural analysis of formal criteria of Facebook accounts and an automated quantitative content analysis of Facebook postings, we investigated to what extent the official Facebook accounts of members of the last two Austrian governments were an exclusive tool for digital government communication. We found that not all representatives made use of Facebook. Moreover, tax-funded digital government communication on Facebook was not all neutral and autonomous of party politics. Based on our findings, we conclude that there is a lack of regulatory framework in Austria to govern tax-funded use of social media.
This paper replicates an Australian study (Lane, 2018) into how public relations practitioners un... more This paper replicates an Australian study (Lane, 2018) into how public relations practitioners understand dialogue in practice. The original study found practitioners believed they were carrying out dialogue legally required by government, but what they were doing was no more than two-way communication. It also found practitioners' operating environments meant they could never actually undertake dialogue, even if mandated to do so. These empirically-based insights revealed the existence of gaps between theory and practice in dialogue in public relations. The study was repeated in Austria to determine if these findings were consistent internationally, and to consider what this might mean for the place of dialogue in public relations. Examples of so-called mandated 'dialogue' provided by Austrian public relations practitioners in semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Kent and Taylor's (2002) five principles of dialogue. This analysis showed that despite the Austrian practitioners' familiarity with the work of Habermas on dialogue , the mandated communication they carried out was not dialogue. The Austrian experience also showed that the nature of the underlying context of mandated communication-the need to achieve agreement between parties in varying levels of conflict; and conducting communication within boundaries of time and non-negotiable pre-existing decisions-meant dialogue could never occur. Comparing the two studies demonstrated high levels of similarity between the countries' results, which we hope can provide the starting point for the development of a longitudinal and international perspective. This paper concludes that the place of dialogue in the theory and practice of public relations is dependent on the education of practitioners in its implementation ; and a rethinking of the role of the aspirational in situations where it can never be attained.
This thematic issue of <em>Media and Communication</em> focuses attention on the shif... more This thematic issue of <em>Media and Communication</em> focuses attention on the shift towards visual images on social media as well as the transformation of visual communication which has occurred within the online ecology of social media platforms. The sharing of images is becoming an integral part of the social media experience today, and given that social media platforms are the prime locus for sociability—at least among young people in the West—this shift towards visuals arguably transforms how we relate to each other and the world around us, as well as how we perceive and construct our sense of self. For researchers, this…
Social media such as Facebook have the capacity to revolutionize public discourse as they encoura... more Social media such as Facebook have the capacity to revolutionize public discourse as they encourage citizens to participate in politics and to engage with politicians. However, simply the fact that there is public discussion on political issues says yet nothing about its specific quality. From the viewpoint of Habermas' concept of deliberative democracy (1987) we define that only political discussion, which is oriented towards communicative principles of understanding, can promote the development of a deliberative public sphere. Along an index of quality of understanding (Verständigungsorientierungsindex, VOI) we examine political parties and candidates' Facebook communication (N=9428 posts and comments) during the most recent Austrian elections in Vienna in October 2010. The political discourse is following the principles of a quality of understanding if political actors do not only state their positions, but also give statements of reasons. If, in the case of debatable questions, they present specific proposals for solutions, they deal with others in a more or less respectful way and they express relevant doubts concerning positions and other participants.
This article explores Swedish parties’ activities on Instagram during the 2014 elections. Underst... more This article explores Swedish parties’ activities on Instagram during the 2014 elections. Understanding party campaign communication as highly strategic, that is, communication to persuade and mobilize voters in order to win the elections, we ask whether Instagram was used to (1) broadcast campaign messages, (2) mobilize supporters, (3) manage the party’s image, and (4) amplify and complement other campaign material (i.e., hybrid campaign use). With this study, we follow previous studies on the use of digital communication platforms in the hands of campaigning political actors, but we direct our attention to a new platform. We conducted a content analysis of 220 party postings on Instagram, collected during the hot phase of the campaign. The result shows that the platform was mainly used for broadcasting rather than for mobilization. The image the parties were presenting leaned toward personalization with a strong presence of top candidates in their postings. Top candidates were primarily displayed in a political/professional context. Finally, half of the analyzed postings showed signs of hybridized campaign practices. The presented findings give a first glimpse on how political parties use and perform on Instagram.
Die Kritik der Massenmedien hat traditionell deren Distributionsfunktion angeprangert, gemäß der ... more Die Kritik der Massenmedien hat traditionell deren Distributionsfunktion angeprangert, gemäß der ein Sender zu vielen Empfängern sprechen kann, ohne dass diese die Möglichkeit hätten, zu antworten. Bertold Brechts Text "Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat" kann in diesem Zusammenhang insofern als paradigmatisch betrachtet werden, als er die Vision entwickelt, das Radio von einem Distributionsapparat in einen Kommunikationsapparat zu verwandeln. "Der Rundfunk wäre der denkbar großartigste Kommunikationsapparat des öffentlichen Lebens, […] wenn er es verstünde, nicht nur auszusenden, sondern auch zu empfangen, also den Zuhörer nicht nur hören, sondern auch sprechen zu machen und ihn nicht zu isolieren, sondern ihn in Beziehung zu setzen." (Brecht 1999, S. 260) Wir wissen heute, dass sich diese Vision nicht verwirklichen ließ: Radio wie Zeitung und Fernsehen sind reine massenmediale Distributionsinfrastrukturen geblieben. Benjamin, Walter (1996): Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Brecht, Bertold (1999): Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat. In: Pias, Claus; Vogl, Joseph; Engell, Lorenz; Fahle, Oliver & Neitzel, Britta (Hrsg.) (1999): Kursbuch Medienkultur. Stuttgart: DVA, S. 259-263. Europe vs. Facebook (2012): Abgerufen unter: http://europe-v-facebook.org/DE/de.html [Stand vom 30.06.2012]. Foucault, Michel (1983): Der Wille zum Wissen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Foucault, Michel (1994): Überwachen und Strafen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
This paper directs attention to the use of Instagram by political parties in the Swedish national... more This paper directs attention to the use of Instagram by political parties in the Swedish national elections in 2014. It investigates how political parties made use of Instagram – a platform centered around images – when engaging in interaction with their followers on the platform. Therefore, the paper analysis Instagram images including their captions and comments (posts) that Swedish parties have published four weeks prior to Election Day. A particular focus is on the deliberative potential of Instagram. The results suggest that not much changes on Instagram compared to other social media platforms: Political parties hardly used Instagram to interact with their followers and the few interactions taking place on parties Instagram accounts did not contribute to the exchange of relevant and substantive information about politics (i.e., deliberation). Interaction and deliberation is also not enhanced by the images.
With the rise of social media platforms based on the sharing of pictures and videos, the question... more With the rise of social media platforms based on the sharing of pictures and videos, the question of how such platforms should be studied arises. Previous research on social media (content) has mainly focused on text (written words) and the rather text-based social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Drawing on research in the fields of visual, political, and business communication, we introduce a methodological framework to study the fast-growing image-sharing service Instagram. This methodological framework was developed to study political parties' Instagram accounts and tested by means of a study of Swedish political parties during the 2014 election campaign. In this article, we adapt the framework to also study other types of organizations active on Instagram by focusing on the following main questions: Do organizations only use Instagram to share one-way information, focusing on disseminating information and self-presentation? Or is Instagram used for two-way communication to establish and cultivate organization-public relationships? We introduce and discuss the coding of variables with respect to four clusters: the perception of the posting, image management, integration, and interactivity. Information 2016, 7, 58 2 of 12
ABSTRACT Politicians and people professionally involved in politics agree that negative campaigni... more ABSTRACT Politicians and people professionally involved in politics agree that negative campaigning is a frequently used campaign communication strategy by Austrian political parties. Yet, there is no empirical investigation of such claims. The present study examines party-controlled communication channels to identify the use of negative messaging strategies from a political actor&#39;s perspective. The data for this study come from a 6-week content analysis of campaign posters, newspaper advertisement and press releases of the 2008 Austrian National Elections. I examine the degree, source, target, and type of negativity. Results show that there are great differences in the degree and type of negativity between the three communication channels. Whereas in press releases all Austrian parties constantly engaged in going negative, campaign posters hardly contained any negative message. To a great extent negative campaign tactics are adjusted depending to whom the message is addressed to in the first place, the voter or the media. Concerning the source and target of negative appeals, results show that in particular, parties sitting in opposition employ negative campaigning. Yet, they are hardly ever the target of negative messages.
Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ particip... more Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ participation in deliberation processes. However, research studies have pointed out that deliberation outcomes vary due to the participants’ sociodemographic differences. In this paper, we address this debate by quantitatively measuring different sociodemographic participant groups’ deliberation quality. By building an index of the quality of understanding (IQU), we analyze the quality of 1,991 postings on local political issues that participants contributed during the 2011 Zurich City debate. We defined five indicators for deliberation quality: statement of reasons, proposals for solutions, respect, doubts, and reciprocity. The analysis confirms that the sociodemographic composition of the participants is of great importance for self-selected participation and deliberation quantity, but not for the deliberation quality.
Inspired by Coleman’s call for a more ‘direct representation’, we address two neglected issues wi... more Inspired by Coleman’s call for a more ‘direct representation’, we address two neglected issues within the field of social media and political communication. We study a non-election period in Sweden (two randomly selected weeks in early 2016) and conduct a cross-platform comparison. The article is based on content analyses of the four prominent social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. We seek to answer the following questions: do parties use social media platforms in-between elections? If so, for what purposes? Do parties use social media to interact in a direct manner with citizens? We focus on three different Swedish parties: the Social Democrats (incumbent), the Feminist Initiative (underdog) and the Sweden Democrats (populist right-wing). Our findings suggest a bleak direct representation in-between elections. Parties are more active on social media platforms during election campaigns. Twitter is the preferred platform, especially by the incumbent party f...
Politics in Austria is still a male business. Even though in 2017, women occupied 34 percent of t... more Politics in Austria is still a male business. Even though in 2017, women occupied 34 percent of the seats in Austria’s Nationalrat, female MPs are still underrepresented. Moreover, previous studies have shown that women receive substantially less media coverage than men do and this, for instance, disadvantages female politicians to male politicians in election campaigns. Our study seeks to contribute to this debate by adding a longitudinal perspective and substantially underpinning it with empirical data. We use quantitative content analysis to examine whether the election coverage of female politicians in Austrian news media has changed between 2008 and 2017. Our findings show low visibility of female politicians in Austrian campaign coverage that is even decreasing over time; furthermore, the political role a female politician occupies plays a crucial role for her media visibility.
This paper addresses the subject of letters to the editor as one of the longest standing forums f... more This paper addresses the subject of letters to the editor as one of the longest standing forums for public discussion and debate by ordinary citizens. To show how the voice of ordinary citizens is presented in letters to the editor during national election campaigns over a period of ten years (2008, 2013 & 2017), we are focusing on the Austrian Kronen Zeitung: A newspaper with an exceptionally high market share of up to 40% during the examination period, a heavy focus on the letters section with three pages per day, and a self-declared willingness to take a stance, especially during election periods. Based on a quantitative content analysis of 530 letters to the editor and 525 articles in the politics section as well as survey data from the Austrian national election study on the political positions of the Kronen Zeitung's readers, we find that letters to the editor in the Kronen Zeitung do not reflect, but complement the articles in the politics section. The tone of the letters is more negative than that of news articles, but the letters closely reflect the readers' political positions, therefore offering identification with the paper.
For a few years now, members of the government in Austria have been using Facebook to reach out t... more For a few years now, members of the government in Austria have been using Facebook to reach out to the public as well as to the mass media. Following normative guidelines and regulations, tax-funded government communication should be neutral, informative and autonomous of party politics. Using a multi-method approach, combining a structural analysis of formal criteria of Facebook accounts and an automated quantitative content analysis of Facebook postings, we investigated to what extent the official Facebook accounts of members of the last two Austrian governments were an exclusive tool for digital government communication. We found that not all representatives made use of Facebook. Moreover, tax-funded digital government communication on Facebook was not all neutral and autonomous of party politics. Based on our findings, we conclude that there is a lack of regulatory framework in Austria to govern tax-funded use of social media.
This paper replicates an Australian study (Lane, 2018) into how public relations practitioners un... more This paper replicates an Australian study (Lane, 2018) into how public relations practitioners understand dialogue in practice. The original study found practitioners believed they were carrying out dialogue legally required by government, but what they were doing was no more than two-way communication. It also found practitioners&#39; operating environments meant they could never actually undertake dialogue, even if mandated to do so. These empirically-based insights revealed the existence of gaps between theory and practice in dialogue in public relations. The study was repeated in Austria to determine if these findings were consistent internationally, and to consider what this might mean for the place of dialogue in public relations. Examples of so-called mandated &#39;dialogue&#39; provided by Austrian public relations practitioners in semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Kent and Taylor&#39;s (2002) five principles of dialogue. This analysis showed that despite the Austrian practitioners&#39; familiarity with the work of Habermas on dialogue , the mandated communication they carried out was not dialogue. The Austrian experience also showed that the nature of the underlying context of mandated communication-the need to achieve agreement between parties in varying levels of conflict; and conducting communication within boundaries of time and non-negotiable pre-existing decisions-meant dialogue could never occur. Comparing the two studies demonstrated high levels of similarity between the countries&#39; results, which we hope can provide the starting point for the development of a longitudinal and international perspective. This paper concludes that the place of dialogue in the theory and practice of public relations is dependent on the education of practitioners in its implementation ; and a rethinking of the role of the aspirational in situations where it can never be attained.
This thematic issue of <em>Media and Communication</em> focuses attention on the shif... more This thematic issue of <em>Media and Communication</em> focuses attention on the shift towards visual images on social media as well as the transformation of visual communication which has occurred within the online ecology of social media platforms. The sharing of images is becoming an integral part of the social media experience today, and given that social media platforms are the prime locus for sociability—at least among young people in the West—this shift towards visuals arguably transforms how we relate to each other and the world around us, as well as how we perceive and construct our sense of self. For researchers, this…
Social media such as Facebook have the capacity to revolutionize public discourse as they encoura... more Social media such as Facebook have the capacity to revolutionize public discourse as they encourage citizens to participate in politics and to engage with politicians. However, simply the fact that there is public discussion on political issues says yet nothing about its specific quality. From the viewpoint of Habermas' concept of deliberative democracy (1987) we define that only political discussion, which is oriented towards communicative principles of understanding, can promote the development of a deliberative public sphere. Along an index of quality of understanding (Verständigungsorientierungsindex, VOI) we examine political parties and candidates' Facebook communication (N=9428 posts and comments) during the most recent Austrian elections in Vienna in October 2010. The political discourse is following the principles of a quality of understanding if political actors do not only state their positions, but also give statements of reasons. If, in the case of debatable questions, they present specific proposals for solutions, they deal with others in a more or less respectful way and they express relevant doubts concerning positions and other participants.
This article explores Swedish parties’ activities on Instagram during the 2014 elections. Underst... more This article explores Swedish parties’ activities on Instagram during the 2014 elections. Understanding party campaign communication as highly strategic, that is, communication to persuade and mobilize voters in order to win the elections, we ask whether Instagram was used to (1) broadcast campaign messages, (2) mobilize supporters, (3) manage the party’s image, and (4) amplify and complement other campaign material (i.e., hybrid campaign use). With this study, we follow previous studies on the use of digital communication platforms in the hands of campaigning political actors, but we direct our attention to a new platform. We conducted a content analysis of 220 party postings on Instagram, collected during the hot phase of the campaign. The result shows that the platform was mainly used for broadcasting rather than for mobilization. The image the parties were presenting leaned toward personalization with a strong presence of top candidates in their postings. Top candidates were primarily displayed in a political/professional context. Finally, half of the analyzed postings showed signs of hybridized campaign practices. The presented findings give a first glimpse on how political parties use and perform on Instagram.
Die Kritik der Massenmedien hat traditionell deren Distributionsfunktion angeprangert, gemäß der ... more Die Kritik der Massenmedien hat traditionell deren Distributionsfunktion angeprangert, gemäß der ein Sender zu vielen Empfängern sprechen kann, ohne dass diese die Möglichkeit hätten, zu antworten. Bertold Brechts Text "Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat" kann in diesem Zusammenhang insofern als paradigmatisch betrachtet werden, als er die Vision entwickelt, das Radio von einem Distributionsapparat in einen Kommunikationsapparat zu verwandeln. "Der Rundfunk wäre der denkbar großartigste Kommunikationsapparat des öffentlichen Lebens, […] wenn er es verstünde, nicht nur auszusenden, sondern auch zu empfangen, also den Zuhörer nicht nur hören, sondern auch sprechen zu machen und ihn nicht zu isolieren, sondern ihn in Beziehung zu setzen." (Brecht 1999, S. 260) Wir wissen heute, dass sich diese Vision nicht verwirklichen ließ: Radio wie Zeitung und Fernsehen sind reine massenmediale Distributionsinfrastrukturen geblieben. Benjamin, Walter (1996): Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Brecht, Bertold (1999): Der Rundfunk als Kommunikationsapparat. In: Pias, Claus; Vogl, Joseph; Engell, Lorenz; Fahle, Oliver & Neitzel, Britta (Hrsg.) (1999): Kursbuch Medienkultur. Stuttgart: DVA, S. 259-263. Europe vs. Facebook (2012): Abgerufen unter: http://europe-v-facebook.org/DE/de.html [Stand vom 30.06.2012]. Foucault, Michel (1983): Der Wille zum Wissen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Foucault, Michel (1994): Überwachen und Strafen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
This paper directs attention to the use of Instagram by political parties in the Swedish national... more This paper directs attention to the use of Instagram by political parties in the Swedish national elections in 2014. It investigates how political parties made use of Instagram – a platform centered around images – when engaging in interaction with their followers on the platform. Therefore, the paper analysis Instagram images including their captions and comments (posts) that Swedish parties have published four weeks prior to Election Day. A particular focus is on the deliberative potential of Instagram. The results suggest that not much changes on Instagram compared to other social media platforms: Political parties hardly used Instagram to interact with their followers and the few interactions taking place on parties Instagram accounts did not contribute to the exchange of relevant and substantive information about politics (i.e., deliberation). Interaction and deliberation is also not enhanced by the images.
With the rise of social media platforms based on the sharing of pictures and videos, the question... more With the rise of social media platforms based on the sharing of pictures and videos, the question of how such platforms should be studied arises. Previous research on social media (content) has mainly focused on text (written words) and the rather text-based social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. Drawing on research in the fields of visual, political, and business communication, we introduce a methodological framework to study the fast-growing image-sharing service Instagram. This methodological framework was developed to study political parties' Instagram accounts and tested by means of a study of Swedish political parties during the 2014 election campaign. In this article, we adapt the framework to also study other types of organizations active on Instagram by focusing on the following main questions: Do organizations only use Instagram to share one-way information, focusing on disseminating information and self-presentation? Or is Instagram used for two-way communication to establish and cultivate organization-public relationships? We introduce and discuss the coding of variables with respect to four clusters: the perception of the posting, image management, integration, and interactivity. Information 2016, 7, 58 2 of 12
ABSTRACT Politicians and people professionally involved in politics agree that negative campaigni... more ABSTRACT Politicians and people professionally involved in politics agree that negative campaigning is a frequently used campaign communication strategy by Austrian political parties. Yet, there is no empirical investigation of such claims. The present study examines party-controlled communication channels to identify the use of negative messaging strategies from a political actor&#39;s perspective. The data for this study come from a 6-week content analysis of campaign posters, newspaper advertisement and press releases of the 2008 Austrian National Elections. I examine the degree, source, target, and type of negativity. Results show that there are great differences in the degree and type of negativity between the three communication channels. Whereas in press releases all Austrian parties constantly engaged in going negative, campaign posters hardly contained any negative message. To a great extent negative campaign tactics are adjusted depending to whom the message is addressed to in the first place, the voter or the media. Concerning the source and target of negative appeals, results show that in particular, parties sitting in opposition employ negative campaigning. Yet, they are hardly ever the target of negative messages.
Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ particip... more Governments and local administrations increasingly use the internet to improve citizens’ participation in deliberation processes. However, research studies have pointed out that deliberation outcomes vary due to the participants’ sociodemographic differences. In this paper, we address this debate by quantitatively measuring different sociodemographic participant groups’ deliberation quality. By building an index of the quality of understanding (IQU), we analyze the quality of 1,991 postings on local political issues that participants contributed during the 2011 Zurich City debate. We defined five indicators for deliberation quality: statement of reasons, proposals for solutions, respect, doubts, and reciprocity. The analysis confirms that the sociodemographic composition of the participants is of great importance for self-selected participation and deliberation quantity, but not for the deliberation quality.
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Papers by Uta Russmann