This book offers a framework for the analysis of political communication in election campaigns based on digital trace data that documents political behavior, interests and opinions. The author investigates the data-generating processes leading users to interact with digital services in politically relevant contexts. These interactions produce digital traces, which in turn can be analyzed to draw inferences on political events or the phenomena that give rise to them. Various factors mediate the image of political reality emerging from digital trace data, such as the users of digital services’ political interests, attitudes or attention to politics. In order to arrive at valid inferences about the political reality on the basis of digital trace data, these mediating factors have to be accounted for. The author presents this interpretative framework in a detailed analysis of Twitter messages referring to politics in the context of the 2009 federal elections in Germany. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the field of political communication, as well as practitioners active in the political arena.

Big data raise major research possibilities for political communication scholars who are interested in how citizens, elites, and journalists interact. With the availability of social media data, academics can observe, on a large scale, how people talk about politics. The opportunity to study political discussions is also available to media organizations and political elites—examining how they make use of big data represents another fruitful scholarly trajectory. The scholars involved in Digital Discussions represent forward thinkers who aim to inform the study of political communication by analyzing the behavior of and messages left by citizens, elites, and journalists in digital spaces. By using a variety of methodological approaches and bringing together diverse theoretical perspectives, this group sheds light on how big data can inform political communication research. It is critical reading for those studying and working in communication studies with a focus on big data.

Provides academics, journalists, and general readers with bird's-eye view of data-driven practices and their impact in politics and media.

The challenge of disentangling political communication processes and their effects has grown with the complexity of the new political information environment. But so have scientists’ toolsets and capacities to better study and understand them. This edited volume focuses on the use of Computational Communication Science (CCS) to address key questions in political communication, highlighting methodological innovations and the theoretical, practical, and institutional challenges in the field. Topics include clickbaiting, propaganda, political polarization, and media framing. The book starts by mapping the challenges and opportunities of data collection and analysis, focusing on computational methods to address theory-driven questions in political communication. Chapters highlight the theoretical, empirical, and institutional aspects of Computational Communication Science (CCS) relevant to the field, assessing the challenges of data requirements, digital signal semantics, and the crucial role of infrastructures, academic institutions, ethics, and training in computational methods. Considering all of these aspects, individual chapters showcase methodological innovations, applying CCS to topics like clickbaiting in the context of propaganda in authoritarian regimes, the visual content produced by political elites, political and affective polarization, and the media coverage of public policy as well as framing in the news media. The volume also offers scholarly contributions on the theoretical, practical, and institutional significance of CCS and the challenges in realizing its potential in political communication. A significant contribution to the field of political communication, this volume will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of communication studies, politics, media studies and sociology. It was originally published in Political Communication.

Much has been made of the speed and constancy of modern politics. Whether watching cable news, retweeting political posts, or receiving news alerts on our phones, political communication now happens continuously and in real time. Traditional research methods often do not capture this dynamic environment. Early studies that guided the study of political communication took place at a time when transistors and FM radio, television, and widely distributed films technologically changed the way people gained information and developed knowledge of the world around them. Now, the environment has transformed again through digital innovations. This book provides one of the first systematic assessment of real-time methods used to study the new digital media environment. It features twelve chapters—authored by leading researchers in the field—using continuous or real time response methods to study political communication in various forms. Moreover, the authors explain how viewer attitudes can be measured over time, message effects can be pin-pointed down to the second of impact, behaviors can be tracked and analyzed unobtrusively, and respondents can naturally respond on their smartphone, tablet, or even console gaming system. Leading practitioners in the field working for CNN, Microsoft, and Twitter show how the approach is being innovatively used in the field. Political Communication in Real Time is a welcome addition to the growing field of interest in "big data" and continuous response research. This volume will appeal to scholars and practitioners in political science and communication studies wishing to gain new insights into the strengths and limitations of this approach. Political communication is a continuous process, so theories, applications, and cognitive models of such communication require continuous measures and methods.

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Technology and Politics is a landmark resource that offers a comprehensive overview of the ways in which technological development is reshaping politics. Providing an unparalleled starting point for research, it addresses all the major contemporary aspects of the field, comprising entries written by over 90 scholars from 33 different countries on 5 continents.

Big data raise major research possibilities for political communication scholars who are interested in how citizens, elites, and journalists interact. With the availability of social media data, academics can observe, on a large scale, how people talk about politics. The opportunity to study political discussions is also available to media organizations and political elites—examining how they make use of big data represents another fruitful scholarly trajectory. The scholars involved in Digital Discussions represent forward thinkers who aim to inform the study of political communication by analyzing the behavior of and messages left by citizens, elites, and journalists in digital spaces. By using a variety of methodological approaches and bringing together diverse theoretical perspectives, this group sheds light on how big data can inform political communication research. It is critical reading for those studying and working in communication studies with a focus on big data.

This SAGE Handbook brings together cutting edge social scientific research and theoretical insight into the emerging contours of digital society. Chapters explore the relationship between digitisation, social organisation and social transformation at both the macro and micro level, making this a valuable resource for postgraduate students and academics conducting research across the social sciences. The topics covered are impressively far-ranging and timely, including machine learning, social media, surveillance, misinformation, digital labour, and beyond. This innovative Handbook perfectly captures the state of the art of a field which is rapidly gaining cross-disciplinary interest and global importance, and establishes a thematic framework for future teaching and research. Part 1: Theorising Digital Societies Part 2: Researching Digital Societies Part 3: Sociotechnical Systems and Disruptive Technologies in Action Part 4: Digital Society and New Social Dilemmas Part 5: Governance and Regulation Part 6: Digital Futures

A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

Communication technologies, including the internet, social media, and countless online applications create the infrastructure and interface through which many of our interactions take place today. This form of networked communication creates new questions about how we establish relationships, engage in public, build a sense of identity, and delimit the private domain. The ubiquitous adoption of new technologies has also produced, as a byproduct, new ways of observing the world: many of our interactions now leave a digital trail that, if followed, can help us unravel the rhythms of social life and the complexity of the world we inhabit--and thus help us reconstruct the logic of social order and change. The analysis of digital data requires partnerships across disciplinary boundaries that--although on the rise--are still uncommon. Social scientists and computer scientists have never been closer in their goals of trying to understand communication dynamics, but there are not many venues where they can engage in an open exchange of methods and theoretical insights. This handbook brings together scholars across the social and technological sciences to lay the foundations of communication research in the networked age, and to provide a canon of how research should be conducted in the digital era. The contributors highlight the main theories currently guiding their research in digital communication, and discuss state-of-the-art methodological tools, including automated text analysis, the analysis of networks, and the use of natural experiments in virtual environments. Following a general introduction, the handbook covers network and information flow, communication and organizational dynamics, interactions and social capital, mobility and space, political communication and behavior, and the ethics of digital research.