Ben O'Loughlin will present his ongoing research on dual screening with Andrew Chadwick and Cristian Vaccari at the DIgital Society Network and the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield today. Details below.

Wednesday 27th April 2016
Location: Room G18, Elmfield Building
Time: 1:00-2:00PM

Engaging to Influence: Why People Dual Screen Leaders Debates

Abstract

Dual screening—the complex bundle of practices that involve integrating live broadcast media and social media—is now routine for many citizens during important political media events. But do these practices shape political engagement, and if so, why? And if dual screening does shape engagement, can parties and their supporters harness this? We devised a unique research design combining a large-scale Twitter dataset and a custom-built panel survey focusing on the broadcast party leaders’ debates held during the 2014 European Parliament elections in the United Kingdom. We find that relatively active, “lean-forward” practices, such as commenting live on social media as the debate unfolded, and engaging with conversations via Twitter hashtags, have the strongest and most consistent positive associations with political engagement. Running a second iteration of this methodology during the 2015 British General Election, we identify how some users have come to approach dual screening strategically as one more opportunity to achieve influence before, during and after a political media event.

The Digital Society Network draws together an interdisciplinary team of researchers engaged with research at the cutting-edge of society-technology interactions.

Thanks to Helen Kennedy for organising the seminar.