Suchergebnisse

Twitter has become one of the primary platforms for politicians to interact with the public. Consequently, research into politicians' Twitter usage has proliferated with attempts at measuring increasingly complex concepts such as ideology or policy attitudes. So far, many of these studies either implicitly or explicitly assume that politicians' Twitter accounts are operated by politicians themselves and that politicians are free to present their "true" attitudes and positions. We conducted an elite survey in Germany and present evidence that these assumptions only partially hold true. In our sample, only around a third of Twitter accounts are operated by the corresponding politician alone. In our view, this is a conservative estimate and should further decrease as political elites' social media strategies professionalize over the coming years. We also find that most politicians state that there are no party guidelines regarding Twitter and that their tweets are not checked by a central authority in the party. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on social media in general.

Abstract
Linking digital trace data to existing panel survey data may increase the overall analysis potential of the data. However, producing linked products often requires additional engagement from survey participants through consent or participation in additional tasks. Panel operators may worry that such additional requests may backfire and lead to lower panel retention, reducing the analysis potential of the data. To examine these concerns, we conducted an experiment in the German PASS panel survey after wave 11. Three quarters of panelists (n = 4,293) were invited to install a research app and to provide sensor data over a period of 6 months, while one quarter (n = 1,428) did not receive an invitation. We find that the request to install a smartphone app and share data significantly decreases panel retention in the wave immediately following the invitation by 3.3 percentage points. However, this effect wears off and is no longer significant in the second and third waves after the invitation. We conclude that researchers who run panel surveys have to take moderate negative effects on retention into account but that the potential gain likely outweighs these moderate losses.

Mit dem Panel Arbeitsmarkt und soziale Sicherung (PASS) baut das IAB seit 2007 einen zentralen Datensatz für die Arbeitsmarkt-, Armuts- und SGB-II-Forschung in Deutschland auf. Befragt werden in jährlichem Rhythmus zum einen Haushalte, die Transferleistungen beziehen und zum anderen Haushalte der allgemeinen Wohnbevölkerung. In jedem dieser Haushalte wird zunächst mit einer Person ein Haushaltsinterview und anschließend mit jeder Person ab 15 Jahren ein Personeninterview geführt.
Mit Hilfe des PASS können zentrale Forschungsfragen, wie beispielsweise die Dynamik des Bezugs von Arbeitslosengeld II sowie die Auswirkungen des Transferleistungsbezugs auf die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der betroffenen Haushalte und Personen untersucht werden. Aber auch über den Kernbereich Beschäftigung und Arbeitslosigkeit hinaus bietet das PASS ein breites Fragenspektrum, das z.B. auch zahlreiche soziodemographische Merkmale oder subjektive Indikatoren (wie Zufriedenheit, Ängste und Sorgen, Erwerbsorientierung) beinhaltet.