Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

Transcription

1 Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology Series Editors Carlo Ruzza Department of Sociology and Social Research University of Trento Trento, Italy Hans-Jörg Trenz Department of Media, Cognition & Communication University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark ARENA Centre for European Studies University of Oslo Oslo, Norway

2 Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These processes comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynamics of social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about changing power relations as they affect people s lives, social networks and forms of mobility. The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights and opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and coalitions, societal interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within and across the European space. We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Sociology and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political attitudes and values; political communication and public spheres; states, communities, governance structure and political institutions; forms of political participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and democratization. More information about this series at

3 Mauro Barisione Asimina Michailidou Editors Social Media and European Politics Rethinking Power and Legitimacy in the Digital Era

4 Editors Mauro Barisione Department of Social and Political Sciences Università degli Studi di Milano Milan, Italy Asimina Michailidou ARENA Centre for European Studies University of Oslo Oslo, Norway Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Control Number: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Igor Stevanovic / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom

5 Preface After years of near-obscurity in the news media spheres of Europe, European Union institutions have been catapulted in the public eye in recent times, not necessarily of their own accord but certainly because of their decisions and the effects these have on European citizens everyday lives. Although not new to crises and scandals (see the Commission resignation scandal of the late 1990s; the failed Constitutional Treaty of the early 2000s), the EU has been facing particularly turbulent times since the outbreak of the Eurocrisis in 2009, which together with the refugee crisis, repeated terror attacks on EU ground and Brexit have left both its public image and legitimacy in tatters. Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, are a key factor in amplifying the contestation of EU values and actions in the public sphere. At the same time, this newfound publicity and ensuing public scrutiny has coincided with an ever bolder embrace of social media by EU and national political institutions themselves, as well as with a dramatic increase in social media-driven political movements across the Union, some of which have emerged strong enough to claim a stake in the national and EU political sphere/ establishment. What are we to make of this digital mediatisation of European politics? Has the increased use of social media by citizens and political actors alike brought about a change in the quality of European political discourse, including a redressing of the balance between elite and citizen v

6 vi Preface voices in public debate? Or should any potential transformation be solely associated with the propagation of hate speech and fake news in a hyperemotional and algorithm-driven social media environment? Drawing on the empirical research presented in the different chapters of this volume, we make the case both by way of a conclusion and as a future direction of research for public Europeanism. The loosely connected, social mediaenabled European demos, whose impact on political power may not be immediately measurable but which changes the dynamics of political public discourse (and thus of politics) in a fundamental, possibly longlasting, manner.

7 Acknowledgements This intellectual enterprise originated within the many exchanges of the European Sociological Association Political Sociology Network at international conferences and workshops, and we are thankful to its members and board for offering us the space to develop our idea and supporting us throughout. The ECPR Standing Group on Internet and Politics has also provided us with another inspirational forum to present and develop our book ideas. Many thanks also go to the contributing authors of this volume for their commitment to this project. Their timely and smooth cooperation made our editorial work thoroughly enjoyable. Special thanks go to a number of people who offered us their inspirational feedback at various stages during the project: Brian McNair, John Erik Fossum, Eli Skogerbø, Øyvind Ihlen and the Political Communication Research group at the Department of Media and Communication in the University of Oslo; and the three anonymous Palgrave reviewers who evaluated our book proposal early on. Coordinating the efforts of all contributors across Europe and bringing everyone together for a two-day intensive workshop in Oslo would not have been possible without the financial support granted by the Research Council of Norway and the generous hospitality of the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, both of which we gratefully acknowledge. Last but not least, vii

8 viii Acknowledgements we offer our thanks to Tor Kristian Haldorsen, ARENA s editorial assistant, for his precise and patient work in putting together the final manuscript.

9 Contents 1 Do We Need to Rethink EU Politics in the Social Media Era? An Introduction to the Volume 1 Mauro Barisione and Asimina Michailidou 2 Social Media, Personalisation of News Reporting, and Media Systems Polarisation in Europe 25 Pablo Barberá, Cristian Vaccari and Augusto Valeriani 3 Engaging with European Politics Through Twitter and Facebook: Participation Beyond the National? 53 Michael Bossetta, Anamaria Dutceac Segesten and Hans-Jörg Trenz 4 A Digital Movement of Opinion? Contesting Austerity Through Social Media 77 Mauro Barisione and Andrea Ceron 5 Building Contention Word-by-Word: Social Media Usage in the European Stop ACTA Movement 105 Dan Mercea ix

10 x Contents 6 Campaigning for Gender Equality Through Social Media: The European Women s Lobby 123 Helena Seibicke 7 A Framework for Evaluating European Social Media Publics: The Case of the European Parliament s Facebook Page 143 Ancuța-Gabriela Tarța 8 Extreme Right, the Internet and European Politics in CEE Countries: The Cases of Slovakia and the Czech Republic 167 Manuela Caiani and Alena Kluknavská 9 Social Media as Propaganda Tools: The Greek Conservative Party and National Elections 193 Yiannis Mylonas 10 Mediated Frustration and Self-Legitimation 219 Terje Rasmussen 11 Twitter, Public Engagement and the Eurocrisis: More than an Echo Chamber? 241 Asimina Michailidou 12 Debating Responsibility on the Eurozone Crisis in Traditional Media Newspaper Reporting in Greece and Germany Under a Social Media Lens 267 Jochen Roose, Moritz Sommer, Franziska Scholl, Maria Kousis, Kostas Kanellopoulos and Angelos Loukakis 13 Erratum to: Engaging with European Politics Through Twitter and Facebook: Participation Beyond the National? E1 Index 291

11 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms AfD ACTA API PD DNA DAAA ECB EP EWL EU isa IPRs ICTs M5S NCD PIPA SOPA PP PSOE UK CDU CSU VAR SMIC Alternative für Deutschland Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [Twitter] Application Programming Interface [Italian] Democratic Pary (Partito Democratico) Digitally Networked Action Discursive Actor Attribution Analysis European Central Bank European Parliament European Women s Lobby European Union Integrated Sentiment Analysis Intellectual Property Rights Information and Communication Technologies [Italian] Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) [Italian] New Centre Right (Nuovo Centrodestra) Protest IP Act Stop Online Piracy [Spanish] People s Party (Partido Popular) Spanish Socialist Worker s Party United Kingdom Christian Democratic Union of Germany Christian Social Union in Bavaria Vector AutoRegressive model Salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance (Minimum wage) xi

12 List of Figures Fig. 2.1 Ideological positions of media outlets and journalists. 41 Fig. 4.1 Mentions of austerity on Twitter in the UK, France, and Italy (1 March 25 May 2014) 86 Fig. 4.2 A framework for analysis of twitter statements about austerity based on the combination of (1) source of statement and (2) type of framing 89 Fig. 4.3 (a) Percentage of non-negative statements about austerity by country over time (weeks before EP election) 93 Fig. 4.3 (b) percentage of party-driven statements by country over time (weeks before EP election) 94 Fig. 4.3 (c) percentage of EU-framed statements by country over time (weeks before EP election) 95 Fig. 6.1 Popularity of women s organisations on Facebook and Twitter 135 Fig. 7.1 How user comments respond to the original post by the European Parliament (n = 1738) 154 Fig. 7.2 Types of justifications of opinions in user comments (n = 1738) 155 Fig. 8.1 (a) The network of the Slovak extreme right and (b) the network of the Czech extreme right 176 Fig. 8.2 The place of European issues in extreme right discourses in the Czech Republic and Slovakia ( ) 181 xiii

13 xiv List of Figures Fig. 8.3 The issue attention of the extreme right on Europe across time in the Czech Republic and Slovakia ( ) 182 Fig Most popular hashtags in the Greferendum Twittersphere 254

14 List of Tables Table 2.1 Summary statistics 36 Table 2.2 Estimated media political parallelism, by country and media format 38 Table 2.3 Ideological extremism, by account type, country, and media format 43 Table 2.4 Determinants of editorialisation and popularity of news accounts on twitter (OLS regressions) 45 Table 3.1 Degrees of political engagement 58 Table 3.2 Digital architectures matrix 63 Table 3.3 Impact of Twitter and Facebook s digital architectures on the styles and degrees of engagement 65 Table 4.1 Distribution of tweets on austerity by sentiment, source of statement, type of framing, and country 87 Table 4.2 VAR models and tests for Granger causality between mentions of austerity and mentions of collective action protests in the UK, Italy, and France 97 Table 7.1 Criteria for evaluating the Facebook public 151 Table 8.1 Measures of cohesion of the Slovak and Czech (online) extreme right networks 178 Table 8.2 The 10 most quoted enemies and friends in the discourse of the Slovak and Czech Republic extreme right organisations when talking about Europe ( ) 184 xv

15 xvi List of Tables Table 11.1 The echo-refraction matrix for capturing inclusiveness and engagement in the Eurocrisis Twittersphere; source: the author, based on Rieder (2012) 249 Table 12.1 Expectations for comparison of source sets 276 Table 12.2 The 20 most frequent senders for each source (in per cent of all cases) 279 Table 12.3 Attribution forms by sets of sources 282 Table 12.4 Europeanisation of attributions by sets of sources 283