International audience ; In this paper, we deal with a kinetic model to describe the evolution of the opinion in a closed group with respect to a choice between multiple options, e.g. political parties, which takes into account two main mechanisms of opinion formation, namely the interaction between individuals and the effect of the mass media. We provide an existence and uniqueness result for the model, and then we numerically test it in some relevant cases.
International audience ; In this paper, we deal with a kinetic model to describe the evolution of the opinion in a closed group with respect to a choice between multiple options, e.g. political parties, which takes into account two main mechanisms of opinion formation, namely the interaction between individuals and the effect of the mass media. We provide an existence and uniqueness result for the model, and then we numerically test it in some relevant cases.
International audience ; In this paper, we deal with a kinetic model to describe the evolution of the opinion in a closed group with respect to a choice between multiple options, e.g. political parties, which takes into account two main mechanisms of opinion formation, namely the interaction between individuals and the effect of the mass media. We provide an existence and uniqueness result for the model, and then we numerically test it in some relevant cases.
This study aimed to understand the impact of electronic and social media sources in progression of political understanding, and political participation of youth in Pakistan. This study further explains the learning process through media as it has emerged as one of the strongest agents of socialization in the recent times. A sample size of 329 respondents (graduate level students) was selected systematically from public sector higher educational institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Pakistan. The data was analyzed through chi-square test to determine the relationship between political participation and youth behavior. A significant relationship (p=0.017) was found between medias programs' efficiency and decisions of government on various national and international issues with youth behavior. It is proved that formation of opinion on the helm of authority largely influenced by media. There was a strong and significant relationship (p=.000) between political party's agendas bring forth by media sources to gain mass support or vote. It indicatesthat political talk shows and advertisements on electronic media have manipulated minds of masses. Political campaign via electronic media effects youth behavior proved significant (p=.001). A strong association was also proved between media efforts to motivate people and bring them to vote (p=0.000) with youth behavior shows the efficiency and worth of media programs for the sustainability of democratic values. Again media proved its decisive role in establishing the public opinion about various political parties and their role in national interests, their zeal and synergies spending on national cause. Political parties motivate people through advertisements and conveying their vision, mission to their voters. Relation of media advertisement and youth's opinion was strongly significant (p=0.000) with youth behavior. It again showed that media as a tool can be very useful to mass mobilization for political purposes. The study concluded that media can play a pivotal role in motivating youth to become politically active as it works as catalysts in upbringing the latest information to the recipients and can succeed in determining a position of trust among the viewers. The study recommended that electronic media should focus on its programs to bring more reality and standard, making it more trustworthy, valid and reliable. It can be beneficial for youth, researchers and policy makers. Keywords: political attitude, infotainment, socialization, electronic media, youth behavior
In: Karamychev , V A & Swank , O H 2022 , ' A social image theory of information acquisition, opinion formation, and voting ' , European Journal of Political Economy . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2021.102164
Recent empirical research on voter turnout has revealed a variety of regularities. Citizens who expect to be asked about their turnout decisions after the elections are more likely to vote. Parents whose children enter the electorate are more likely to vote when their children live home than when they left home. Citizens without social networks acquire less information about politics. We develop a model that can explain these and other empirical findings. In our model, citizens receive disutility from being perceived not to have voted. This motivates a citizen to vote. Moreover, a citizen feels worse being perceived not to have voted when he is thought to have a strong opinion as this raises expectations about his voting behavior among peers. When a citizen anticipates that he will likely vote, the latter concern motivates him to acquire information, to participate in political discussions, and to vote. However, when a citizen anticipates that he will likely abstain from voting, he shies away from politics to lower his peers' expectations.
The article contributes to the literature on the political use of hashtags. We argue that hashtag assemblages could be understood in the tradition of representing public opinion through datafication in the context of democratic politics. While traditional data-based epistemic practices like polls lead to the 'passivation' of citizens, in the digital constellation this tendency is currently challenged. In media like Twitter, hashtags serve as a technical operator to order the discursive fabrication of diverse publicly articulated opinions that manifest in the assemblage of tweets, algorithms and criticisms. We conceptualize such a critical public as an epistemic sensorium for dislocations based on the expression of experienced social imbalances and its political amplification. On the level of opinion formation, this constitutes a process of democratization, allowing for the expression of diverse opinions and issues even under singular hashtags. Despite this diversity, we see a strong tendency of publicly relevant actors such as news outlets to represent digital forms of opinion expression as unified movements. We argue that this tendency can partly be explained by the affordances of networked media, relating the process of objectification to the network position of the observer. We make this argument empirically plausible by applying methods of network analysis and topic modelling to a dataset of 196,987 tweets sampled via the hashtag #metwo that emerged in the German Twittersphere in the summer of 2018 and united a discourse concerned with racism and identity. In light of this data, we not only demonstrate the hashtag assemblage's heterogeneity and potential for subaltern agency; we also make visible how hashtag assemblages as epistemic practices are inherently dynamic, distinguishing it from opinion polling through the limited observational capacities and active participation of the actors representing its claims within the hybrid media system.
The article contributes to the literature on the political use of hashtags. We argue that hashtag assemblages could be understood in the tradition of representing public opinion through datafication in the context of democratic politics. While traditional data-based epistemic practices like polls lead to the 'passivation' of citizens, in the digital constellation this tendency is currently challenged. In media like Twitter, hashtags serve as a technical operator to order the discursive fabrication of diverse publicly articulated opinions that manifest in the assemblage of tweets, algorithms and criticisms. We conceptualize such a critical public as an epistemic sensorium for dislocations based on the expression of experienced social imbalances and its political amplification. On the level of opinion formation, this constitutes a process of democratization, allowing for the expression of diverse opinions and issues even under singular hashtags. Despite this diversity, we see a strong tendency of publicly relevant actors such as news outlets to represent digital forms of opinion expression as unified movements. We argue that this tendency can partly be explained by the affordances of networked media, relating the process of objectification to the network position of the observer. We make this argument empirically plausible by applying methods of network analysis and topic modelling to a dataset of 196,987 tweets sampled via the hashtag #metwo that emerged in the German Twittersphere in the summer of 2018 and united a discourse concerned with racism and identity. In light of this data, we not only demonstrate the hashtag assemblage's heterogeneity and potential for subaltern agency; we also make visible how hashtag assemblages as epistemic practices are inherently dynamic, distinguishing it from opinion polling through the limited observational capacities and active participation of the actors representing its claims within the hybrid media system.
Do illiberal regimes suppress public discourse on environmental problems? We advance theory on environmental information control and test whether civil liberties have influenced the diffusion of climate change concern across 118 countries. Using a spatial model of synthetic panel data from 611,909 individuals, we find each unit change in the 7-point civil liberty index to impact climate change concern by 5 [95% CI: ±2] percentage points in the short term, a result that is robust to unobservable confounding and consistent across thousands of plausible model specifications. We find the effect to be even stronger for affluent countries, but much smaller for low-income countries and highly educated cohorts. A spatial system of seemingly unrelated regressions suggests that news coverage and protest activities could be pathways for civil liberties to influence public opinion. Our study has implications for the merits of democratic governance of climate change and for comparative public opinion formation.
The main idea of the article is to study the activities of Ukrainian political Internet bloggers who can express their point of view on various issues for a sufficiently large audience. The activities of Anatoly and Olga Sharij) were analyzed. Both of them actively lead their blogs on YouTube. The total audience of these bloggers is more than 2.3 million users only on YouTube. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the insufficient number of similar research materials concerning the features of the development of modern blogging. The results of the study are of practical importance, since they can be used for further study of the blogosphere and bloggers as journalists of the 21st century. According to our forecasts, the development of blogging and its effectiveness will all happen at a faster pace.
This paper uses third sector attitudes in Sweden as a test case for general assumptions about how citizens in ideologically structured West European political systems apply ideological schemas as shortcuts to political preferences. Third sector attitudes are found to be affected by all ideological schemas mirrored by the party system (state-market, Christian traditionalism, and growth-ecology). Moreover, contrary to what is implied by findings from America, these effects are very stable across socio-economic groups (especially those of the dominant state-market schema). Similarly, no interaction effects of political sophistication could be traced, and the relative impact of the schemas remains the same regardless of whether or not the third sector is presented as an alternative to the welfare state. Finally, consistent with theoretical expectations, the extent to which schemas have been made salient prior to the judgement affects their relative impact. The implications of these findings for the nature of public opinion formation in ideologically clear and structured political systems are discussed. ; Dieses Papier nutzt die Einstellungen zum Dritten Sektor in Schweden als Testfall für generelle Annahmen darüber, wie Bürger in westeuropäischen politischen Systemen, die ideologisch strukturiert sind, von ideologischen Schemata auf kürzestem Wege zu politischen Präferenzen kommen. Es läßt sich feststellen, daß Einstellungen zum Dritten Sektor von allen ideologischen Schemata beeinflußt werden, die sich im Parteiensystem wiederfinden (Staat-Markt, christlicher Traditionalismus und Wachstum-Ökologie). Im Gegensatz zu dem, was US-amerikanische Untersuchungsergebnisse implizieren, sind diese Effekte zudem über sozio-ökonomische Gruppen hinweg sehr stabil (vor allem die Effekte, die mit dem dominierenden Staat-Markt-Schema zusammenhängen). Es läßt sich gleichermaßen keine Wechselwirkung mit politischer Erfahrung nachweisen und der relative Einfluß der Schemata bleibt gleich, egal ob der Dritte Sektor als Alternative zum Wohlfahrtsstaat dargestellt wird oder nicht. Schließlich bestätigen sich die theoretischen Erwartungen, daß das Ausmaß, in dem die Schemata vor der Beurteilung hervorgehoben werden, sich auf ihren relativen Einfluß auswirkt. Es wird diskutiert, welche Implikationen diese Ergebnisse für die Vorstellung davon haben, wie Meinungsbildung auf der individuellen Ebene in ideologisch klaren und strukturierten politischen Systemen funktioniert.
We demonstrate a simple model of opinion diffusion where a local opinion leader acts as the initiator of public discussion. We show the possibility of driving a significant wedge between opinions of two groups that exhibit homophily even though individuals are highly conformist. In particular, we show that there exists an opinion gap between the group which the opinion leader belongs to (referred to as the residence community) and the other group; and this opinion gap is increasing in the relative size of the residence community. Using a unique dataset of national referenda in Switzerland from 2008 to 2012, we show that members of parliament (MPs) match referenda outcomes in their residence communities closer than they do in neighboring communities, and this wedge interacts signicantly with the relative size of the residence community, thus aligning with our theoretical conjectures. We conclude that observed opinion gaps can actually be overrated to the extent that they are driven by structures that underlie the social web of different groups within the society.
Understanding human interactions and behavior in modern social contexts is a necessary condition, for the design of public policies to face the challenges induced by digital technology today and understand its functioning and impact on the society. The form that social influence takes and the way it operates rely on the technology or the medium used. Therefore, it is essential to include features of modern social networks in theoretical models and study the relevance of regulations of digital technology. This is precisely the goal pursued in this present dissertation. Chapter 1, joint with Francis Bloch, considers a targeting problem with peer effects where the identity of individuals is anonymized. Chapter 2 studies opinion formation in social networks, by taking into account the inequality of attention towards expressed opinions. Chapter 3, joint with Alexia Lochmann, models the behavior of individuals when cultural identity is at play and when individuals interact in two different contexts with their peers. ; La compréhension des interactions et des comportements humains dans les contextes sociaux modernes est une condition nécessaire à la conception de politiques publiques permettant de relever les défis induits par la technologie numérique aujourd'hui et de comprendre son fonctionnement et son impact sur la société. La forme que prend l'influence sociale et son mode de fonctionnement dépendent de la technologie ou du support utilisé. Il est donc essentiel d'inclure les caractéristiques des réseaux sociaux modernes dans les modèles théoriques et d'étudier la pertinence des réglementations de la technologie numérique. C'est précisément l'objectif poursuivi dans le cadre de la présente thèse. Le chapitre 1, en collaboration avec Francis Bloch, examine un problème de ciblage avec des effets de pair où l'identité des individus est anonymisée. Le chapitre 2 étudie la formation de l'opinion dans les réseaux sociaux, en prenant en compte l'inégalité d'attention envers les opinions exprimées. Le chapitre 3, en ...
Understanding human interactions and behavior in modern social contexts is a necessary condition, for the design of public policies to face the challenges induced by digital technology today and understand its functioning and impact on the society. The form that social influence takes and the way it operates rely on the technology or the medium used. Therefore, it is essential to include features of modern social networks in theoretical models and study the relevance of regulations of digital technology. This is precisely the goal pursued in this present dissertation. Chapter 1, joint with Francis Bloch, considers a targeting problem with peer effects where the identity of individuals is anonymized. Chapter 2 studies opinion formation in social networks, by taking into account the inequality of attention towards expressed opinions. Chapter 3, joint with Alexia Lochmann, models the behavior of individuals when cultural identity is at play and when individuals interact in two different contexts with their peers. ; La compréhension des interactions et des comportements humains dans les contextes sociaux modernes est une condition nécessaire à la conception de politiques publiques permettant de relever les défis induits par la technologie numérique aujourd'hui et de comprendre son fonctionnement et son impact sur la société. La forme que prend l'influence sociale et son mode de fonctionnement dépendent de la technologie ou du support utilisé. Il est donc essentiel d'inclure les caractéristiques des réseaux sociaux modernes dans les modèles théoriques et d'étudier la pertinence des réglementations de la technologie numérique. C'est précisément l'objectif poursuivi dans le cadre de la présente thèse. Le chapitre 1, en collaboration avec Francis Bloch, examine un problème de ciblage avec des effets de pair où l'identité des individus est anonymisée. Le chapitre 2 étudie la formation de l'opinion dans les réseaux sociaux, en prenant en compte l'inégalité d'attention envers les opinions exprimées. Le chapitre 3, en collaboration avec Alexia Lochmann, modélise le comportement des individus lorsque l'identité culturelle est en jeu et lorsque les individus interagissent dans deux contextes différents avec leurs pairs.
Understanding human interactions and behavior in modern social contexts is a necessary condition, for the design of public policies to face the challenges induced by digital technology today and understand its functioning and impact on the society. The form that social influence takes and the way it operates rely on the technology or the medium used. Therefore, it is essential to include features of modern social networks in theoretical models and study the relevance of regulations of digital technology. This is precisely the goal pursued in this present dissertation. Chapter 1, joint with Francis Bloch, considers a targeting problem with peer effects where the identity of individuals is anonymized. Chapter 2 studies opinion formation in social networks, by taking into account the inequality of attention towards expressed opinions. Chapter 3, joint with Alexia Lochmann, models the behavior of individuals when cultural identity is at play and when individuals interact in two different contexts with their peers. ; La compréhension des interactions et des comportements humains dans les contextes sociaux modernes est une condition nécessaire à la conception de politiques publiques permettant de relever les défis induits par la technologie numérique aujourd'hui et de comprendre son fonctionnement et son impact sur la société. La forme que prend l'influence sociale et son mode de fonctionnement dépendent de la technologie ou du support utilisé. Il est donc essentiel d'inclure les caractéristiques des réseaux sociaux modernes dans les modèles théoriques et d'étudier la pertinence des réglementations de la technologie numérique. C'est précisément l'objectif poursuivi dans le cadre de la présente thèse. Le chapitre 1, en collaboration avec Francis Bloch, examine un problème de ciblage avec des effets de pair où l'identité des individus est anonymisée. Le chapitre 2 étudie la formation de l'opinion dans les réseaux sociaux, en prenant en compte l'inégalité d'attention envers les opinions exprimées. Le chapitre 3, en collaboration avec Alexia Lochmann, modélise le comportement des individus lorsque l'identité culturelle est en jeu et lorsque les individus interagissent dans deux contextes différents avec leurs pairs.
Understanding human interactions and behavior in modern social contexts is a necessary condition, for the design of public policies to face the challenges induced by digital technology today and understand its functioning and impact on the society. The form that social influence takes and the way it operates rely on the technology or the medium used. Therefore, it is essential to include features of modern social networks in theoretical models and study the relevance of regulations of digital technology. This is precisely the goal pursued in this present dissertation. Chapter 1, joint with Francis Bloch, considers a targeting problem with peer effects where the identity of individuals is anonymized. Chapter 2 studies opinion formation in social networks, by taking into account the inequality of attention towards expressed opinions. Chapter 3, joint with Alexia Lochmann, models the behavior of individuals when cultural identity is at play and when individuals interact in two different contexts with their peers. ; La compréhension des interactions et des comportements humains dans les contextes sociaux modernes est une condition nécessaire à la conception de politiques publiques permettant de relever les défis induits par la technologie numérique aujourd'hui et de comprendre son fonctionnement et son impact sur la société. La forme que prend l'influence sociale et son mode de fonctionnement dépendent de la technologie ou du support utilisé. Il est donc essentiel d'inclure les caractéristiques des réseaux sociaux modernes dans les modèles théoriques et d'étudier la pertinence des réglementations de la technologie numérique. C'est précisément l'objectif poursuivi dans le cadre de la présente thèse. Le chapitre 1, en collaboration avec Francis Bloch, examine un problème de ciblage avec des effets de pair où l'identité des individus est anonymisée. Le chapitre 2 étudie la formation de l'opinion dans les réseaux sociaux, en prenant en compte l'inégalité d'attention envers les opinions exprimées. Le chapitre 3, en collaboration avec Alexia Lochmann, modélise le comportement des individus lorsque l'identité culturelle est en jeu et lorsque les individus interagissent dans deux contextes différents avec leurs pairs.
