New Political Communication Unit announces major new ESRC-funded research project: Political violence in the new media ecology

New Political Communication Unit researchers Ben O'Loughlin and Akil Awan, along with colleague Andrew Hoskins at the University of Warwick, are set to begin work on a new Economic and Social Research Council funded project investigating the impact of new media on the new security environment in the post-9/11 age: Legitimising the discourses of radicalisation: Political violence in the new media ecology.

The two-year project, funded by a grant of £291,000, will treat the idea of 'legitimacy' as central to the development of and support for radicalising views and terrorist acts. This includes the ways in which these are represented in the news media and the apparent ease and speed with which those that espouse and carry out political violence can attract global media attention, and thus 'access' to audiences and the potential to influence policy-makers. These trends have been considerably accelerated with the advent of so-called 'new media', and particularly the Internet, which cheaply and effectively facilitates the organisation of groups and 'networks'. This is particularly the case with 'Web 2.0' which is the 'second generation' of internet services such as social networking sites that enable online collaboration and sharing among users.

The research will investigate the nature of radicalising discourses in Web 2.0 and how these and acts of political violence broadcast on the web are supported and 'legitimated'. This includes exploring how the acts themselves and explanations for them on the web are 'picked up' and represented in the mainstream television news media, through the journalistic and editorial uses of words, phrases, graphics, images, videos and so on. We will look at how interpretations of this term 'radicalisation' are shaped by news representations through investigating audience responses, understandings and misunderstandings.

The researchers will use and develop the latest methodologies and conceptual approaches to media research. Mapping and analysing communications across Web 2.0 and mainstream media, across languages, and across social contexts, presents difficult challenges, and the research will draw on research networks inside and outside of academia to utilise cutting edge analytical techniques in the field.

This research emerges out of a previous project: Shifting Securities: News Cultures Before and Beyond the 2003 Iraq War. Shifting Securities identified a 'growing securitisation of everyday life' in Britain where there is a great deal of mistrust and suspicion between policymakers, journalists, and citizens/news audiences, amplified through media coverage of security issues and events. Key to this are debates about the 'legitimacy' of the different groups involved and particularly concerning the aims and prosecution of the 'War on Terror'. The research will be of interest to policymakers, media organisations, academic researchers and civil society organisations. The project website will be launched in September 2007. Preliminary findings will be made available in July 2008, and a closing conference will be held in autumn 2009.

The YouTube effect

An excellent article on the so-called YouTube effect on US politics. While it's short on analysis, it pulls together the best of the recent examples. Highly recommended.

Update on 2007-07-25 07:30 by Andrew Chadwick

Update: the verdicts on the first YouTube Democratic presidential primary debates are emerging.

New Statesman New Media Awards

Looking at the list of finalists for this year's New Statesman New Media Awards, I'm impressed by a) the mainstream political entries (Cameron and the Downing Street E-Petitions) and b) what we might call 'non-official but with a mainstream purpose' sites (18 Doughty Street, The Government Says, PlanningAlerts).

This reflects a growing emphasis upon tools rather than talk. In other words, the shift towards web 2.0 seems to mean not greater opportunities for citizen dialogue but rather for low threshold ways for individuals to get things done. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it does reflect a conscious choice, of which we should be aware.

[Cross-posted at my Internet Politics book blog]

News and numbers

The BBC is monitoring the US-led ‘surge’ in Iraq , offering various indicators of its success or failure including body counts, levels of electricity provision and Iraqi hospitals’ intake of victims. In the report, the body count comes first, including a neat little graph. But, at the risk of sounding callous, is this body count necessarily the primary indicator of the ‘success’ of these military operations? Is a graph a useful way to think about this situation? The BBC does not include in its report what the military’s stated aims and objectives might be. By imposing their own benchmark, the BBC runs the risk of resentment from US or UK militaries, further weakening trust between journalists and military forces.

Facebook: It came, it saw, it conquered?

I've been forced to seriously re-assess my view on Facebook in recent months.  First of all, I didn't have an account - and was fairly anti the whole idea of getting one.  Everything I had heard about Facebook was that it was a "locked down" environment - both in terms of the software and presentation available to users and the social networks that you could access on it.  As someone who has their own blog, who likes to control content, presentation and attached aps, and, perhaps most crucially of all, tries to be open to the Internet and its users, whether I've met them before or not, this seemed the complete antithesis of everything I wanted the Internet to be about.  Instinctively I favoured MySpace, which seemed a more open environment, where you had more control over presentation and the information was more accessible.  However, I was ultimately persuaded by a younger friend - which seems to be a recurring pattern amongst my peer group - who was using Facebook at university to sign up, and became the proud owner of a profile.  And I have to confess that I did find it useful.  It is a very convenient way to stay in touch with people or to make new contacts.  For the absent minded like myself, the birthday reminders alone made the whole system worthwhile.

We can notice two interesting elements in the development of Facebook, one social and the other technological.  Socially, people are using Facebook for all kinds of social activities, moving it far beyond a sophisticated version of Friends Reunited.  I was talking to another friend about this.  When I mentioned the One Million Strong For Barack campaign (currently with about 310,019 members), she was really put off.  Now my friend has a degree in politics, so is hardly disinterested in these matters.  However, for her Facebook was a place where she chatted with her friends.  Politics seemed to be a nasty, aggressive intrusion.  This cuts straight to the heart of the matter.  It is obvious to see why a political campaign would want to have 300,000-odd people supporting them online (although the real value of those figures, as I've blogged before, is one of the great mysteries of the modern political process) but there is a different question for average users. 

The fundamental issue is this; are social networking sites public or private spaces?  Or are they creating some new form of hybrid?  Should we imagine a social networking site to be like a busy coffee shop, with people conducting different conversations at different tables, some talking about music, others about film, or whatever else takes their fancy.  If we think of it in these terms, it is quite possible to imagine a group of activists meeting in the corner, chatting about which candidate they are going to support and how they are going to be active on their behalf.  Even if we do think of a social networking site in this way, there is still one crucial question.  Do you arrange to meet your friends before you go there (so are you just importing you offline friends?), or are you able to just drop in a meet new people, based upon shared interests you might have?  Or put another way, are you allowed to eavesdrop on other people's tables and, if the conversation takes you fancy, pull up a chair and join in?  The alternative extreme to the public space arrangement is to construct a social networking site that is more akin to a private environment.  Not a coffee shop, more a like a house party with no gatecrashers. 

Historically, this has always been Facebook's greatest selling point.  The fact it was locked down was appealing to many users - it made them feel safe, whereas the Internet itself felt like the Wild West.  Necessarily, this kind of structure will make a social networking site less useful to, for example, politicians running for office, as they will be much harder to develop a snowball effect in an online environment were people are less connected.  As a result, it will become far less rational for politicians to become involved social networking sites of this kind.  It probably isn't a coincidence that the rise to prominence of Facebook as a political campaigning tool has coincided with some measure of deregulation on the social networking site.  For example, the (slightly controversial) news feed was introduced in September 2006, whilst the site has also started to allow non-students to sign up (Wikipedia has a good article on Facebook including the history of the site).  It also, of course, makes the site commercially more valuable too.

These social changes though sink into insignificance in comparison with what Facebook has been up to in recent weeks and its evolving technology.  The site now allows third-parties to write applications that can be installed on your profile with a single click - so I now have an del.icio.us feed, so that every item I click on gets posted onto my profile; a graffiti ap that allows you to draw pictures on my page; the iLike ap that allows me to list my favourite songs and tie them to YouTube videos; a built in video player; and (my personal favourite) iRead, which allows me to select books from the Amazon database, indicate whether I have read them, want to read them or am currently reading them, as well as rate them and write reviews.  These are then all displayed on your profile.  Anyone can click and see my virtual bookshelf. 

It is very easy to get carried away about these kind of things.  And I frequently do (although I'm not the only one).  But I wonder if this might be a really, really, really profound event in the history of the Internet.  Let's think back to the 1980s and early 90s.  Computers were getting more powerful.  It was now practical to have unit on a desk that could do quite a lot of useful stuff.  But for the potential of this new technology to be realised a second ingredient was required.  That ingredient was - love them or hate them - Microsoft.  We went from something like this to something more - bizarrely - like this.  Computing became graphical, accessible and, perhaps most crucially of all, standardised and, as a result, entered into every office and a great many homes too. 

Let's fast forward.  Web 2.0 is in theory here already.  Yet how many people are really using it?  I can count my (non-Internet studying) friends who use RSS on the fingers of one hand, much less social bookmarking sites.  But now, Facebook is giving many more people the opportunity to use these technologies in a practical and accessible way, to transfer, chunk and prioritise information.  So maybe Facebook will become the Web 2.0 operating system?  Or maybe something else will come along tomorrow that will eclipse it?  I don't know.  But even in the few weeks since it launched its applications element, Facebook has made it clear that there is a niche for such a presence, and whoever gets it right first will become a very, very powerful organisation indeed. 

This should raise some concerns too, as has already been noted by some.  Indeed, if this is potentially the third great personal computing monopoly, then it is arguably the most dangerous.  People chose MS products because they served a purpose.  There were some network benefits (for example the ability to produce standardised documents that you could be pretty sure you could open on most machines), but largely it was about the relationship between an individual computer user and their PC.  It was always conceivable that someone could come along with something better, cheaper or easier to use.  Google's, the possessor of the second great monopoly, is perhaps on even less sure ground.  After all, people choose a search engine because it fulfills a specific function - it gives them the best list of results when they type a term in.  Although people might through habit keep going to Google, it is entirely conceivable that someone could come up with a better search engine, and gradually erode Google's market share simply through the quality of their product. 

But Facebook is an entirely different proposition.  This argument was made to me by Richard Price, the founder and director of a new social networking website for researchers called academia.edu, who I met through a mutual friend at a party a few months ago.  Social networking sites, he reckoned, were inherently monopolistic.  You don't just join them for the quality of the service, but also because of - perhaps obviously enough - the network that is attached to it.  In other words, once you have a really successful social networking site set up, it is quite hard to break it down, regardless of what other products might be out there.  Facebook's early lead may already be on the verge of turning into permanent advantage.                

Update on 2007-07-10 11:02 by Nick Anstead

An interesting footnote to this post.  The argument that social networking sites are naturally monopolistic is based on the argument that the costs of moving from one to another are high - not least persuading your two-hundred friends to go with you.  However, there might be technical work-arounds to overcome this problem.  The Biving's Report highlights one possible development in this area.

When news hosts attack

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"... or so goes the famous line in Oscar winning film Network.   The plot focuses on news anchor Howard Beale, who, when he is fired for poor ratings, threatens to commit suicide live on air (bizarrely this element of the plot was actually influenced by real events).  However, in making his pronouncement, he becomes a lightning rod for all manner of public dissatisfaction and a ratings sensation, making TV like this.  There was something akin to a "network" moment on MSNBC the other day when news reader Mika Brzezinska refused to read an item about Paris Hilton. This event neatly summarised some of the tensions inherent in the modern TV newsroom, especially since the advent of 24 hours news.   

TV news is a strange medium. In the past few days, I've had 24 hour news on in the background quite a lot whilst I've been working - first for the Deputy Leadership election results on Sunday, then the Prime Ministerial handover on Wednesday, and the reshuffle yesterday, and then for details of the attempted London bombing today. The nature of continual news is quite frantic (and thus also quite exciting), but also deeply repetitive, as information is at a premium. As a viewer, you have to take everything with a pinch of salt, as organisations clearly have access to different sources and are willing to run it with different levels of supporting evidence. Sky, for example, proclaimed that Alan Johnson was going to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party about forty-five minutes before the result came out on Sunday, necessitating a slightly embarrassing volte-face later on.

The Brzezinska-incident highlights another tension in 24 hour news - that it must be all things to all people. It needs to cover "serious" news, celebrity stories, sport, finance and everything else. The danger is that it may end up pleasing no one. I do wonder if this will be something that will limit the lifespan of this kind of communications. Other new communication technologies, especially those derived from the Internet, such as RSS, give the consumer a great deal of control over what information they are presented with. In contrast, TV news seems to be deeply prescriptive and top-down. Ultimately, I would guess we will see some kind of hybrid media, as Internet and television technology merge with each other.

Update on 2007-07-06 09:31 by Nick Anstead

Media commentator Mark Lawson seems to agree with some of my arguments in an article in today's Guardian.

Media Analysis Workshop: Reflections

Why do journalists appear to fit news events into simple paths – even before those events have happened? Why do we commemorate so many events today – even if, like the Iraq war, those events haven’t even finished? How do we discern the role of media in forming memories of events? And when analysing media texts, if the meaning of words and images are always context-dependent, how can we possibly know the context of communications in today’s complex interplay of ‘new’ and ‘old’ media? If we’re tracing the movement and adaptation of political ideologies and discourses online, anywhere in the world, we can’t possibly know the social setting of those participating – can we? Researchers attending the media analysis workshop hosted by the NPCU this week examined three major research projects that wrestle with these challenges (see post below for details).

Participants also discussed the pros and cons of various software for media analysis, such as Transana, Touchgraph, IssueCrawler and HyperRESEARCH. It seems some or all of these will be used by participants in subsequent projects in the coming year, but nobody felt these packages were wholly adequate. Researching political communication today appears to involve a lot of muddling by, as the ‘object’ of analysis – the intersection of media and political relations – appears in a state of permanent revolution.

Careless Talk Costs Credibility

The big political story of the day in the UK is the defection of long-serving Tory MP Quentin Davies to the Labour Party.  The day before he takes over as PM, this is doubtless quite a coup for Gordon Brown, with Davies's resignation letter being a full blooded blast at the David Cameron and current Conservative strategy (for local reaction to the resignation, look here*).

I was having a little look round the Conservative blogosphere to see what the reaction to this was, when I found a very interesting comment on ConservativeHome.  It rather put me in mind of the famous "Careless Talk Costs Lives" posters from World War II.  In big capital letters, it read: 

"EVERYONE SHOULD BE CAREFUL WHAT THEY WRITE ON THIS THREAD. THE MEDIA WILL BE READING IT. EXTREME COMMENTS BY NAMES I DO NOT RECOGNISE WILL BE DELETED." 

It purported to be from "Editor" and it has now been up for some eight or so hours, so it would seem likely it is genuine.  This comment raises all kinds of questions about how high profile blogs are run and what their function is.  Firstly, and most obviously, it vests a great deal of power in this "editor" figure - they get to define what is and isn't extreme, seemingly on a case-by-case basis, as no useful definition is offered in the comment.  Secondly, the idea that those known personally to the blogger will be given greater latitude to express their views is also strange.  This would imply that blogs, rather than being open and free form environments, are actually quite closed and locked down discussion forums, with a privileged clique given greater levels of free speech.  Thirdly, although the blog is called Conservativehome, it is in theory an open community - in other words, you don't have to be a member of the Conservative Party or subscribe to conservative values to comment.  But the post seems to be implying that the blog fulfills a role of aiding and abetting conservatism - although whether this is defined in an ideological or partisan sense is not made clear - to extent that it will seek to protect it from embarrassment at the hands of the media.  Comments not meeting this criteria will be removed.
 
A fourth significant question is at least implied too, which is just how seriously the media take such blogs and comments on them.  Given the possibility of trolling and the fact that any comment can only be attributed to one individual who may or may not have any link with the Conservative Party, it would seem very foolish for any member of the media to get excited about a particular comment on a blog and then start quoting it as having some significance.  It will be interesting to see if that is happening anywhere.             

* I do feel the need to highlight the most fantastic quote in this article from a Conservative councillor, who said: "I was going to a party to mark his 20th anniversary as our MP but that's been cancelled."

Minister In Second Life

Although this happened a few days ago, I missed it until now.  Really, it is a bit of a double whammy for e-government.  The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just launched an online carbon calculator.  Of course, the danger with such projects appeal only to the people who are already converts to the need to cut carbon emissions - and it has little impact on the broad sway of the British public.  However, there can be little doubt that there is growing awareness and concern about enhanced global warming amongst the electorate, so maybe this facility will act play an educational role for those wanting to find out more.
 
Also, David Miliband, by far the most prominent government blogger, has become the first cabinet minister to appear in Second Life, undertaking an interview with Sky News's Adam Boulton about the launch of the climate calculator.  Given what I am studying, I have a dreadful confession to make; I have never actually used Second Life*, but I'm still not entirely convinced by the value of "virtual worlds" in civil life - in particular, I don't know if they offer a greater level or more effective type of interaction than other online tools.  However, fair play to any politician who tries this kind of technology out and isn't scarred off by it. 

* This is, by the way, something I am trying to rectify now, as I have just signed up for an account to have a play with it.