Springe direkt zu Inhalt

Political agenda-building under the conditions of a hybrid media system – a comparison across countries and issues

Principal Investigator:
Research Team:
Funding:

DFG research group "political communication in the online-world"

Term:
Nov 01, 2011 — Dec 31, 2014

Sub-Project 7 of  the DFG research group "political communication in the online-world" in Berlin

First project phase (2011-2014): The impact of challengers’ online communication on media agenda-building – a comparison across countries and issues.

The project team in Berlin: Julia Krokowski, Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch, Alexa Keinert, Peter Miltner, Hannah Sütfeld, Katharina Nebauer, Dr. Annie Waldherr and Daniel Maier (left to right). (last updated in march 2015)

The project addresses the question of whether and how online communication changes political communication in contemporary democracy with respect to the hopes that the Internet can grant those without direct access to political decision making a platform to mobilize issues and opinions and set the agenda for journalists, politicians and a broad public. Within this framework, our study focuses on media agenda-building and assumes that the democratic potential of online communication lies in spill-over of challengers’ issue networks into traditional mass media and political debate. In particular, we expect that the characteristics of challengers’ online issue networks, i.e. dominant coalitions, frame strength and type of frame-sponsors, affect the likelihood of a breakthrough to both traditional media and politics.

The empirical program is to assess issue-specific online networks regarding climate change and food safety in four countries (Germany, Switzerland, UK and USA) and analyze under what conditions their issues and frames appear in traditional print media and on the official political agenda. In the second period of research, we supplement the manual content analysis of the first project period with computer-assisted content analysis techniques. In this regard, we collaborate with project partners at the Department of Computer Science at University of Leipzig.

⇒ Project-poster (pdf)


The project is carried out in cooperation with a second project group at the Institute of communication and media science of the University of Bern and is a sub-project of the DFG research group "political communication in the online-world".

Publications (under participation of the project team in Berlin):

Articles in peer-reviewed journals:   

Book chapters:

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Miltner, Peter & Maier, Daniel (2016): Old and New Dynamics of Agenda Building in a Hybrid Media System. In: G. Vowe & P. Henn (eds.), Political Communication in the Online World: Theoretical Approaches and Research Designs. New York, NY / Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 45–58.

  • Waldherr, Annie / Heyer, Gerhard / Jähnichen, Patrick / Niekler, Andreas & Wiedemann, Gregor (2016): Mining Big Data With Computational Methods. In: G. Vowe & P. Henn (eds.), Political Communication in the Online World: Theoretical Approaches and Research Designs. New York, NY / Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 201–217.

  • Maier, Daniel / Waldherr, Annie / Miltner, Peter / Schmid-Petri, Hannah / Häussler, Thomas & Adam, Silke (2014): Stichprobenziehung aus dem Netz – Wie man themenspezifische Online-Inhalte erfassen kann. In: K. Sommer / M. Wettstein / W. Wirth, & J. Matthes (eds.), Automatisierung in der Inhaltsanalyse. Köln: Herbert von Halem, 90–110.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara & Adam, Silke (2013): Democratic Potentials of Online Communication for Political Debate. In: Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska / Jan Garlicki (eds.), Political Communication in the Era of New Technologies, Frankfurt am Main / Warsaw: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 31–42.

Codebooks:

Posters:

Presentations:

  • Maier, Daniel / Waldherr, Annie / Pfetsch, Barbara & Miltner, Peter (2017): Discourse Coalitions and their Mobilizing Potential in Online Food Movements. Paper to be presented at the ECPR General Conference, September 6-9, Oslo, Norway.

  • Maier, Daniel / Waldherr, Annie / Miltner, Peter / Wiedemann, Gregor / Niekler, Andreas / Heyer, Gerhard / Keinert, Alexa / Pfetsch, Barbara /Häussler, Thomas / Reber, Ueli / Schmid-Petri, Hannah & Silke, Adam (2017): Applying LDA Topic Modeling in Communication Research: Towards a Valid and Reliable Methodology. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 25-29, San Diego, USA.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2017): Diffusion Models in Online Agenda-Setting Theoretical Models and Empirical Assessment. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 25-29, San Diego, USA.

  • Schmid-Petri / Häussler, Thomas / Adam, Silke / Reber, Ueli / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter / Pfetsch, Barbara & Waldherr, Annie (2017): Homophily versus Prestige - Adding Topics to the Explanation of Link Formation on the Web. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 25-29, San Diego, USA.

  • Waldherr, Annie & Schmid-Petri, Hannah (2017): Authorities, Hubs and Brokers: Structural Roles of Gatekeeping in Online Issue Networks. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 25-29, San Diego, USA.

  • Maier, Daniel (2017): Wie man Kommunikationsnetzwerke statistisch erklären kann. Am Beispiel eines Exponential Random Graph Modells for Online Issue Netzwerke. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), 30 March - 1 April, Düsseldorf, Germany.

  • Waldherr, Annie (2017): Vernetzung und Themendynamik in digitalen Öffentlichkeiten: Ein agentenbasiertes Simulationsexperiment. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), 30 March - 1 April, Düsseldorf, Germany.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2016): About Frankenfood and Salmonella: Framing Food Safety in US News Media and Online Issue Networks. Paper presented at the 66th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), June 9-13, Fukuoka, Japan.

  • Waldherr, Annie (2016): Discussing food safety in online issue networks. Empirical results and methodological prospects. Presentation at the Quello Center of the Michigan State University, 5 May, East Lansing / MI, USA.

  • Waldherr, Annie (2016): Discussing food safety in online issue networks. Empirical results and methodological prospects. Presentation at the “Genes, Germs & GMOs: Has the power of social media disrupted scientific understanding?” workshop at the Center for Mobile Communication Studies of the Boston University, 20 April, Boston / MA, USA.

  • Maier, Daniel / Waldherr, Annie / Miltner, Peter / Jaehnichen, Patrick & Pfetsch, Barbara (2015): Exploring issues in a networked public sphere. Combining hyperlink network analysis and topic modeling. Paper accepted for presentation at the 65th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 21-25, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2015): Online Issue Netzwerke als Opportunitätsstrukturen von NGO Mobilisierung im Bereich Food Safety. Presentation at the colloquium „Politik von unten“ of the Institut für Protest- und Bewegungsforschung, 14 December, Berlin, Germany.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara (2015): Die Netzwerköffentlichkeit der Lebensmittelaktivisten. Paper presented at the joint conference „Formate des Politischen. Medien und Politik im Wandel“ of the Deutschlandfunk, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and Bundespressekonferenz, November 26-27, Berlin, Germany.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2015): Connection for Salience – Old and New Media in Agenda Building on the Internet. A Comparison between German and US American Issue Networks. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Kommunikations‐ und Medienwissenschaft (SGKM), March 13-14, Bern, Switzerland.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2014): Connection for salience – Old and new media in agenda-building on the Internet. Paper presented at the ECREA 5th European Communication Conference, November 12-15, Lisbon, Portugal.

  • Miltner, Peter (2014): What’s in a link? An analysis of hyperlinks’ strategic functions in an online issue network. Paper presented at the ECREA 5th European Communication Conference, November 12-15, Lisbon, Portugal.

  • Miltner, Peter / Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel & Waldherr, Annie (2014): Grasping issues in a networked public sphere: Strategies to draw and prepare random samples of heterogeneous web sources. Paper presented at the conference ‘Political Context Matters: Content Analysis in the Social Sciences’ of the Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung, October 10-11, Mannheim, Germany.

  • Waldherr, Annie & Schmid-Petri, Hannah (2014): Integrieren journalistische Onlinemedien die Netzöffentlichkeit? Deutschland und die USA im Vergleich. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), May 28-30, Passau, Germany.

  • Miltner, Peter / Maier, Daniel / Waldherr, Annie & Pfetsch, Barbara (2014): Wie flüchtig ist digitale Öffentlichkeit? Empirische Befunde zur Stabilität und Dynamik themenspezifischer Öffentlichkeiten im Internet. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), May 28-30, Passau, Germany.

  • Waldherr, Annie / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Günther, Enrico (2014): Big data, big noise: The challenge of extracting issue networks from the Web. Paper presented at the 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 22-26, Seattle / WA, USA.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara / Maier, Daniel / Miltner, Peter & Waldherr, Annie (2013): Online networks of challengers in food policy: A comparative study of structures and coalitions in Germany, UK, US and Switzerland. Paper presented at the 7th ECPR General Conference, September 4-7, Bordeaux, France.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara (2013): Online Issue Networks in Food and Climate Change Policy – Preliminary Findings from an Ongoing Study. Presentation at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University, 30 January, Stanford / CA, USA.

  • Schmid-Petri, Hannah / Häussler, Thomas / Adam, Silke / Waldherr, Annie / Miltner, Peter / Pfetsch, Barbara & Bennett, W. Lance (2012): Selecting and framing in a digital age: Is online communication of challengers abandoning mass media´s logic? Paper presented at the ECREA 4th European Communication Conference, October 24-27, Istanbul, Turkey.

  • Häussler, Thomas / Schmid-Petri, Hannah & Waldherr, Annie (2012): Gut gecrawlt ist noch nicht gescrapt: Die Erfassung von Online-Akteursnetzwerken. Paper presented at the „Methodeninnovationen in der Internetforschung – interdisziplinäre Zugänge“ workshop, July 12-13, Munich, Germany.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara & Waldherr, Annie (2012): Online-Netzwerke von Außenseiterakteuren und ihr Einfluss auf die klassische Medienagenda. Paper presented at joint workshops of the DFG-SPP 1505 „Mediatisierte Welten“ and the DFG-FG 1381 „Politische Kommunikation in der Online-Welt“, 5 July, Düsseldorf, Germany.

  • Waldherr, Annie / Häussler, Thomas / Miltner, Peter / Pfetsch, Barbara / Schmid-Petri, Hannah / Adam, Silke / Streibl, Wolfgang & Bennett, W. Lance (2012): Comparing apples and oranges: The challenge of measuring online-offline discourse dynamics. Paper presented at the 62nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 24 – 28, Phoenix, AZ, USA.

  • Waldherr, Annie (2012): Modeling public spheres on the internet. Paper presented at the 8th simsoc@work workshop, March 20-22, Koblenz, Germany.

  • Pfetsch, Barbara & Adam, Silke (2011). Media Agenda Building in Online and Offline Media - Comparing Issues and Countries. Paper presented at the 6th ECPR General Conference, August 25 –27, Reykjavik, Iceland.



Logo der DFG Forschergruppe

Lecture and Course Catalog
Login Blackboard
Login Campus Management
Logo_IMS