Suchergebnisse

Crowdsourcing platforms are commonly used for research in the humanities, social sciences and informatics, including the use of crowdworkers to annotate textual material or visuals. Utilizing two empirical studies, this article systematically assesses the potential of crowdcoding for less manifest contents of news texts, here focusing on political actor evaluations. Specifically, Study 1 compares the reliability and validity of crowdcoded data to that of manual content analyses; Study 2 proceeds to investigate the effects of material presentation, different types of coding instructions and answer option formats on data quality. We find that the performance of the crowd recommends crowdcoded data as a reliable and valid alternative to manually coded data, also for less manifest contents. While scale manipulations affected the results, minor modifications of the coding instructions or material presentation did not significantly influence data quality. In sum, crowdcoding appears a robust instrument to collect quantitative content data.

We present Meteor, a new inventory for European news sources (i.e. EU  +  UK, CH, NO, IL): https://wp3.opted.eu/ . This inventory will facilitate researchers' efforts to select sources across platforms and gather related textual data. It contains the names of print and online news sources, social media accounts, news blogs, and alternative news media sources, as well as rich meta-information for each entry (e.g. language, audience size, topical focus, ownership structures, access to full-text archives, secondary data, related research). Meteor accounts for the fuzziness of hybrid media systems through an interlinked knowledge graph. Entries are submitted by researchers, validated, continuously updated, and openly accessible to the public. Our inventory allows users to find various European news sources based on a wide range of criteria, putting scholars in a better position to navigate the European media landscape.

We investigate user engagement with politicians' migration discourses on social media. In particular, we study the effects of message framing and support base attitudes on interactions on Facebook and Twitter in five European countries. Enriching automated analysis of social media content with survey data in a multilevel negative binomial regression approach, findings show that migration-related messages tend to elicit more interactions than other kinds of messages. Furthermore, the presence of a security frame in a migration-related message positively relates to user engagement. However, additional analyses suggest that the relevance of these frames differ between different political parties. In fact, a message gets an even higher number of interactions, when the dimension of the migration issue included in those framed messages is perceived more negatively by a party's support base. The findings have important implications for communication strategies of political actors and the state of migration discourses on social media.

We investigate user engagement with politicians' migration discourses on social media. In particular, we study the effects of message framing and support base attitudes on interactions on Facebook and Twitter in five European countries. Enriching automated analysis of social media content with survey data in a multilevel negative binomial regression approach, findings show that migration-related messages tend to elicit more interactions than other kinds of messages. Furthermore, the presence of a security frame in a migration-related message positively relates to user engagement. However, additional analyses suggest that the relevance of these frames differ between different political parties. In fact, a message gets an even higher number of interactions, when the dimension of the migration issue included in those framed messages is perceived more negatively by a party's support base. The findings have important implications for communication strategies of political actors and the state of migration discourses on social media.

Research designs require flexibility, and adjustments made to the designs do not always have to lead exclusively to disadvantages. In this research note, we would like to share our reflections on the impact of COVID-19 on the conduct of qualitative interviews with irregular migrants. Since these considerations were developed in close connection with one of our own projects, in which fieldwork is currently in the planning phase, we believe they may be relevant to similar projects. We include a brief remark on the current situation of irregular migrants in different (European) countries, as well as an assessment of the methodological feasibility of qualitative face-to-face interviews with irregular migrants and possible alternatives to this method such as remote and online interview formats. We conclude with insights on our recommendation to rely on a mixed-mode approach, which allows us to use various remote interview modes, thus providing the necessary flexibility to adapt to profound health and social crises such as COVID-19.

Abstract
The complexity and duration of the so-called 'European refugee crisis' created a climate of uncertainty, which left ample room for mass media to shape citizens' understanding of what the arrival of these refugees meant for their respective country. This study analyses the national media discourses in Hungary, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Spain for this time period. Applying Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modelling in five languages and based on N = 130,042 articles from 24 news outlets, we reveal country-specific media frames to track the overall course of the refugee debate and to uncover dynamics and shifts in discourses. While results show similarities across countries, due to media coverage responding to real-world developments, there are differences in media framing as well. Possible sources of these differences such as countries' geographic location or status as receiving country are discussed.

Political actors play an increasingly important role in the dissemination of political information on social media. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms why specific news items are shared with the support base instead of others. For a timespan between December 2017 and the end of 2018, we combine the analysis of Facebook content from 1,022 politicians associated with 20 political parties from Germany, Spain, and the UK, with an automated content analysis of media coverage from 22 major online news outlets, and survey data in a multilevel binomial regression approach. By comparing news items that have been shared by one or several political parties with news items that have not been shared by any of them, we overcome the selection biases of previous studies in the field of news dissemination. Findings show that a news item's likelihood to be shared by a politician increases (1) if that politician's party is mentioned in the news item, (2) the more salient their party's owned issues are in the news item, and (3) the more party supporters tend to read the news outlet in which the news item is published. We contextualize these findings in light of political actors' multi-faceted motivations for news sharing on social media and discuss how this process potentially reinforces an information bias that may contribute to the polarization and fragmentation of audiences.

Political actors play an increasingly important role in the dissemination of political information on social media. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms why specific news items are shared with the support base instead of others. For a timespan between December 2017 and the end of 2018, we combine the analysis of Facebook content from 1,022 politicians associated with 20 political parties from Germany, Spain, and the UK, with an automated content analysis of media coverage from 22 major online news outlets, and survey data in a multilevel binomial regression approach. By comparing news items that have been shared by one or several political parties with news items that have not been shared by any of them, we overcome the selection biases of previous studies in the field of news dissemination. Findings show that a news item's likelihood to be shared by a politician increases (1) if that politician's party is mentioned in the news item, (2) the more salient their party's owned issues are in the news item, and (3) the more party supporters tend to read the news outlet in which the news item is published. We contextualize these findings in light of political actors' multi-faceted motivations for news sharing on social media and discuss how this process potentially reinforces an information bias that may contribute to the polarization and fragmentation of audiences.

The policy of free movement—one of the core principles of the European Union—has become increasingly politicized. This makes it more important to understand how attitudes toward free movement are shaped, and the role of the media. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how news frames affect attitudes toward free movement, and whether education moderates framing effects. The findings from a survey experiment conducted in seven European countries show that the effects are few and inconsistent across countries. This suggest that these attitudes are not easily shifted by exposure to a single news frame.