Suchergebnisse

"Inspired by recent critical social and economic developments - and their most visible eruptions in the Arab world, Spain and Greece - which demonstrate that there is a relatively low barrier of entrance for individuals and groups to adopt social media for virtually any shared purpose, objective or cause, a 'manifesto' has been written by a group of transdisciplinary researchers, activists and practitioners from the fields of ICT and social movements. It promotes the possibility of using social media as a platform to effectively support the processes of social innovation, overcoming its limitations of speed and scale to become an alternative to currently established institutional mechanisms. Such social innovations comprise all new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet current social needs and strengthen civil society. Further, the present paper proposes a framework for research into the elements of socio-technical architectures capable of sustaining large scale social innovations enabled by the availability of social media, considering the 'paradigm shift of communication' in a knowledge society and describing key challenges of social innovation initiatives. In this context, the objective of the Manifesto on Social Media for Social Innovation is to propose actions oriented to extract the best of the potential synergies among those two concepts of social innovation and social media." (author's abstract)

"In recent years politicians and social scientists have become ever more concerned with citizens' participation in informal networks ('social participation'). From both fields, the state has theoretically been proposed as an important determinant of social participation. Differing state institutions would explain the large country level differences in the average level of social participation. This article studies the impact of a range of state institutions on participation in broad, informal networks. The editors distinguish two aspects of social participation: the quantity (the number of social meetings) and the quality (the character of the informal relationships in the form of help provision). Taking up a new institutionalist approach, they test three explanations that have been raised theoretically but have not - or not sufficiently - been tested empirically before. The crowding out thesis claims that a large welfare state undermines the role of informal networks as an economic safety net, and therefore has a detrimental effect on social participation. According to the economic safety thesis a large welfare state and economic prosperity at the national level will offer citizens the resources and financial security to look for self actualization through social participation. Finally, the safe refuge thesis claims that people who life in a hostile socio-political environment that gives them little civic autonomy in the public sphere will opt for participation outside of the public sphere - that is around secure ties in informal networks. They test these lines of reasoning in a multilevel research design on data of the European Social Survey 2002. They simultaneously test the impact of the social security, economic development, democracy, civil rights and state corruption on social participation. The crowding out thesis is refuted by the data: social security expenditure has no impact on social participation. Economic prosperity, on the other hand, stimulates social participation, which is in line with the economic safety thesis. The most important determinant of social participation, however, is the level of corruption in a society. In corrupt societies people have less social meetings and provide less help to others than in incorrupt societies." (author's abstract)

"In this paper we examine a narrower, though related, set of questions. At the conceptual level we ask: What is the link between transparency and accountability? Does an increase in the former necessarily correlate with an increase in the latter? Empirically we ask whether WikiLeaks contributes to the public's ability to hold governments and organizations accountable by increasing transparency and providing necessary information? That is, do leaks shift the balance of power between publics and governments? If not, can we nevertheless regard internet-based digital leaking as a symbolic act of political protest in support of a democratic ideal?" (Textauszug)

Die Verfasserin gibt einen Überblick über die Allgegenwärtigkeit elektronischer Massenmedien in den USA und über Inhalte und Effekte dieser Medien. Sie zeigt, wie die elektronischen Massenmedien in ihrer Interaktion mit Familie und Gesellschaft politisches Lernen und politische Sozialisation verändert haben. Die Verfasserin fordert ein neues Sozialisationsmodell für das Elektronikzeitalter, das die politischen Einflüsse der elektronisch aufgeladenen Gesellschaft im Kontext der vielen verschiedenen Faktoren abbildet, die die Sozialisation junger Menschen beeinflussen. Das rückläufige Interesse von Studienanfängern an Politik unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit medienpädagogischer und medienkritischer Arbeit im Rahmen der politischen Bildung. (ICE). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten.

Obwohl es sich um eine relativ unerforschte Gruppe handelt, erfreut sich die neue Mittelschicht großer Aufmerksamkeit in der Öffentlichkeit. Im ersten Abschnitt wird der Frage nachgegangen, warum sie ein Lieblingsthema in den Medien und in der breiteren politischen Öffentlichkeit geworden ist. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird diskutiert, was die die neue Mittelschicht überhaupt ist und wie sie empirisch untersucht werden kann. Im dritten Abschnitt wird das Thema in die übergreifende Debatte um McDonaldisierung, Moderne und kulturelle Hybridisierung eingeordnet. Der Schwerpunkt des vierten Abschnitts liegt auf der Entstehung von zivilgesellschaftlichem Umweltbewusstsein, welches zwischen individueller Betroffenheit, sozialer Protestbewegung und politischer Entscheidungsfindung angesiedelt ist. Forschungsmethode: deskriptive Studie. (IAB).;;;"Although still a relatively unexplored group, the new middle classes are enjoying a great deal of public attention. The first section discusses the question of why, then, the new middle classes have become a favored topic in the media and the broader political public. Section 1.2 Iooks at who the new middle classes are and how they can be examined empirically. Section 1.3 links the issue to the overarching debate on cultural globalization between McDonaldization, modernities and cultural hybrids. The focus of Section 1.4 is on the emergence of 'civic environmentalism' between individual concern, social protest and political decision making." Forschungsmethode: deskriptive Studie. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).