Weizenbaum Library (Weizenbaum Institute)
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Extracting Meaningful Measures of Smartphone Usage from Android Event Log Data: A Methodological Primer
No full textAs smartphones become increasingly integral to daily life, their importance for understanding human behavior will only continue to grow. Recognizing the potential of objective data on smartphone usage and the challenges associated with raw Android event log data, this paper provides a foundational guide for extracting meaningful measures of smartphone usage from such data. We describe the characteristics of Android event log data, define key smartphone usage types (i.e., glances, sessions, and episodes), and briefly discuss common challenges in handling these data. The core of the paper presents a detailed practical procedure to extract relevant usage metrics (sessions, glances, app episodes) from raw Android event logs, described visually, verbally, and with pseudo-code (with sample data and code in R available in the supplementary materials). This guide aims to equip researchers with the knowledge and tools to effectively utilize Android event log data, advancing knowledge of smartphone use patterns and their effects
Is Authenticity an Effective Antidote to Misinformation?
Full text linkThe growing impact of false and misleading information is a cause for concern. Some have suggested an authenticity crisis as the cause, namely, the fact that we can no longer be certain of the source and integrity of a particular piece of information. To fix this, the ubiquitous use of digital signatures has been proposed to (re)establish the authenticity of information. We argue that this is unlikely to curb the impact of misinformation for several reasons. First, little evidence suggests that more authenticity could theoretically solve part of the misinformation problem. In fact, the implied use of signatures as a proxy for veracity is fundamentally problematic. Second, there are significant barriers to the practical implementation of ubiquitous signing. Lastly, we point out potential negative side effects. We conclude that authenticity is not effective in countering misinformation.The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space and the State of Berli
Between geoeconomic competition and local embeddedness - how Chinese investors influence digitalisation in acquired German manufacturing companies
Full text linkThe growing economic and geopolitical importance of digital technologies and data, coupled with the Chinese Government’s expressed ambition for Chinese companies to occupy a leading position in this domain, raises questions regarding the role of acquired foreign subsidiaries in realising this objective. Drawing on comparative capitalism research, this paper discusses how local institutions, investor strategies, and the aspirations of the Chinese Government interact to shape the digital transformation of manufacturing companies in Germany. It empirically investigates how digitalisation is unfolding in 15 German manufacturing companies with Chinese investors and enhances the understanding of the influence of Chinese MNCs on company-level digitalisation abroad. The eight companies that undertake digitalisation projects show that the German companies mainly control the digitalisation of processes while Chinese parent companies and subsidiaries in China play a key role in developing digital business models. This signals a shift in innovation patterns and changes in inter-firm relationships
Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: April 2025
Full text linkDer Literatur Digest ist eine monatlich erscheinende Zusammenstellung des aktuellen Forschungsstandes zu Themen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Digitalisierung und Politik. Er präsentiert die neuesten Erkenntnisse zu Fragen der politischen Partizipation und guter Bürgerschaft in Zeiten der Digitalisierung.The Literature Digest is a monthly compilation of the current state of research on topics at the nexus of digitalization and politics. It presents the latest findings on issues of political participation and good citizenship in times of digitalization
Reddit as a “Safe Space”: Topic Modeling of Online Mental Health Communities for Depression and Anxiety
Full text linkThis study explores the thematic landscape of depression, anxiety, and general mental health communities on Reddit, examining how users seek support within these online health communities (OHCs). Grounded in community theory, which frames OHCs as spaces for connection, shared identity, and collective learning (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015), this research identifies unique and overlapping themes across 16 subreddits. The results show that all three communities address four main thematic categories (everyday life, dealing with the disease, diagnosis, and therapy) and prioritize emotional support over medical information-seeking. However, each community has a distinct focus: depression discussions revolve around negative self-reflection, anxiety communities emphasize active coping and stress relief, and broader mental health communities address diverse topics, including trauma. By highlighting OHCs’ dual role in providing emotional and informational support, this study advances health communication science, underscoring the therapeutic value of online spaces in reducing isolation and offering alternative support networks. Future research should examine interaction dynamics to improve the understanding of how OHCs contribute to positive coping strategies.The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF
Purple Code – With Rosa Wevers
No full textIn this episode, we sit down with Rosa Wevers, Dutch researcher, curator, and critical thinker at the intersection of gender studies, digital technology, and the arts. Rosa shares her journey into exploring how systems of oppression are entangled with technological development, especially AI. Together, we ask: How can art challenge dominant narratives about tech? How is technology shaping society and culture? As we navigate an era of shifting power structures and deepening crises, Rosa offers sharp insights into why critical engagement with technology has never been more urgent — and how art can help us imagine otherwise
Purple Code – With Elisa Lindinger
No full textElisa is co-founder of SUPERRR, a lab for feminist futures that Elisa founded together with Julia Kloiber. SUPERRR deals with traditional questions of digital rights and understands feminism as inherent intersectional feminism. Our guest Elisa works to create a base where different expertise can come together and have fruitful conversations about digital, but also social justice issues. In this episode, she talks about how to practice and establish a “thinking about the future” that helps policy makers shape visions and laws that do not harm those who are already disadvantaged, but benefit us all. Elisa and her colleagues provide methods on how to address digital rights issues in a world of massive inequalities. She asks: How can we bring in our own narratives and define our own playing field? For Elisa, digital policy must be framed as social policy, and this is a crucial factor
Decoding revision mechanisms in Wikipedia: Collaboration, moderation, and collectivities
Full text linkResearch on knowledge collaboration in Wikipedia has predominately focused on metadata at the article level or editor-centric analyses, often overlooking the complexities of knowledge collaboration and its contextual dependencies. This study takes a novel, fine-grained approach to investigating revision mechanisms in Wikipedia’s knowledge collaboration. By considering modified sentences as carriers of collective knowledge and spaces in which epistemic power is negotiated, it reconstructs their revision sequences and examines how editorial, contextual, content, and temporal factors shape Wikipedia’s revision dynamics. A total of 140,593 revisions (by 48,643 editors) of 76,525 sentences in 537 Wikipedia articles related to climate change were analyzed using text mining, natural language processing, survival analysis, and meta-analysis. The findings expand our understanding of how epistemic power is negotiated through collective endeavors underlying bureaucratic rules and community moderation in Wikipedia
Digital turn without digital methods? Mapping the journey of journalism studies
Full text linkRecent years have seen a growing diversity in journalism studies, primarily ascribed to digital transformation in the contemporary context. Analyzing 6,770 publications from the five major journalism journals—*Journalism*, *Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly*, *Journalism Practice*, *Journalism Studies*, and *Digital Journalism*—between 1995 and 2022, we find new evidence that the digital turn is highly visible in journalism studies.
Using document co-citation analysis, we first have identified distinct and coherent, yet loosely integrated, research clusters that focus on different journalistic topics, i.e., specialties. Second, we find that digital journalism has not only been integrated into the research agendas within the field but has also formed stand-alone and distinct research clusters. We further show that field structure has developed over the years in response to digital transformation. Yet, digital and computational methods remain in the stark minority compared with the more traditional methods. Our results suggest that journalism studies could benefit from novel inter-cluster communications and methodological innovations
Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: January 2025
Full text linkDer Literatur Digest ist eine monatlich erscheinende Zusammenstellung des aktuellen Forschungsstandes zu Themen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Digitalisierung und Politik. Er präsentiert die neuesten Erkenntnisse zu Fragen der politischen Partizipation und guter Bürgerschaft in Zeiten der Digitalisierung.The Literature Digest is a monthly compilation of the current state of research on topics at the nexus of digitalization and politics. It presents the latest findings on issues of political participation and good citizenship in times of digitalization