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Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: July 2023
No full textDer 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.
Zusätzlich zum PDF bieten wir den Digest im BibTeX-Austauschformat an.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.
In addition, we provide this Literature Digest as BibTeX file.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Clickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint
Get PDFMany scientists share preprints on social media platforms to gain attention from academic peers, policy-makers, and journalists. In this study we shed light on an unintended but highly consequential effect of sharing preprints: Their contribution to conspiracy theories. Although the scientific community might quickly dismiss a preprint as insubstantial and ‘clickbaity’, its uncertain epistemic status nevertheless allows conspiracy theorists to mobilize the text as scientific support for their own narratives. To better understand the epistemic politics of preprints on social media platforms, we studied the case of a biomedical preprint, which was shared widely and discussed controversially on Twitter in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Using a combination of social network analysis and qualitative content analysis, we compared the structures of engagement with the preprint and the discursive practices of scientists and conspiracy theorists. We found that despite substantial engagement, scientists were unable to dampen the conspiracy theorists’ enthusiasm for the preprint. We further found that members from both groups not only tried to reduce the preprint's epistemic uncertainty but sometimes deliberately maintained it. The maintenance of epistemic uncertainty helped conspiracy theorists to reinforce their group's identity as skeptics and allowed scientists to express concerns with the state of their profession. Our study contributes to research on the intricate relations between scientific knowledge and conspiracy theories online, as well as the role of social media platforms for new genres of scholarly communication.This work has been partially funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII138 (Weizenbaum Institut
Enhancing decision-making of IT demand management with process mining
Get PDFPurpose Digitalization, innovation and changing customer requirements drive the continuous improvement of an organization's business processes. IT demand management (ITDM) as a methodology supports the holistic governance of IT and the corresponding business process change (BPC), by allocating resources to meet a company's requirements and strategic objectives. As ITDM decision-makers are not fully aware of how the as-is business processes operate and interact, making informed decisions that positively impact the to-be process is a key challenge. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors address this challenge by developing a novel approach that integrates process mining and ITDM. To this end, the authors conduct an action research study where the researchers participated in the design, creation and evaluation of the approach. The proposed approach is illustrated using two sample demands of an insurance claims process. These demands are used to construct the artefact in multiple research circles and to validate the approach in practice. The authors applied learning and reflection methods for incrementally adjusting this study’s approach. Findings The study shows that the utilization of process mining activities during process changes on an operational level contributes to (1) increasing accuracy and efficiency of ITDM; (2) timely identification of potential risks and dependencies and (3) support of testing and acceptance of IT demands. Originality/value The implementation of this study’s approach improved ITDM practice. It appropriately addressed the information needs of decision-makers and unveiled the effects and consequences of process changes. Furthermore, providing a clearer picture of the process dependencies clarified the responsibilities and the interfaces at the intra- and inter-process level
A Longitudinal Study of the Potentials of Parasocial Interaction with a Historical Figure for History Education
Get PDFHistorical figures have been increasingly brought into the Instagram world, providing insights into the past from a first-person perspective by addressing followers in stories or posts. This type of representation promotes the parasocial interaction (PSI) that creates the illusion of a face-to-face interaction with a media figure. This suggests the possibility that historical Instagram accounts might offer a novel platform for history education
Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: January 2023
No full textDer 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.
Zusätzlich zum PDF bieten wir den Digest im BibTeX-Austauschformat an.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.
In addition, we provide this Literature Digest as BibTeX file.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
The structural transformation of the scientific public sphere: Constitution and consequences of the path towards open access
Get PDFWe are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the ‘serials crisis’. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non- profit publication infrastructures
Design thinking capabilities in the digital world: A bibliometric analysis of emerging trends
Get PDFRecent research suggests that design thinking practices may foster the development of needed capabilities in new digitalised landscapes. However, existing publications represent individual contributions, and we lack a holistic understanding of the value of design thinking in a digital world. No review, to date, has offered a holistic retrospection of this research. In response, in this bibliometric review, we aim to shed light on the intellectual structure of multidisciplinary design thinking literature related to capabilities relevant to the digital world in higher education and business settings, highlight current trends and suggest further studies to advance theoretical and empirical underpinnings. Our study addresses this aim using bibliometric methods—bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis as they are particularly suitable for identifying current trends and future research priorities at the forefront of the research. Overall, bibliometric analyses of the publications dealing with the related topics published in the last 10 years (extracted from the Web of Science database) expose six trends and two possible future research developments highlighting the expanding scope of the design thinking scientific field related to capabilities required for the (more sustainable and human-centric) digital world. Relatedly, design thinking becomes a relevant approach to be included in higher education curricula and human resources training to prepare students and workers for the changing work demands. This paper is well-suited for education and business practitioners seeking to embed design thinking capabilities in their curricula and for design thinking and other scholars wanting to understand the field and possible directions for future research
Community-Governed and Community-Paid Publishing: Resilient Support for Independent Open Access Journals
Get PDFCommunity-driven open access journals foster the idea of a biblio-diverse publishing ecosystem and challenge the prevalent commercialization of academic publishing. But despite their importance, their existence is threatened. With little to no budget they operate mostly on "gifted labor" (Adema/Moore, 2018, 8) by their editorial teams and free support by public infrastructures. The first part of this article describes the model, key functions, and governance principles of community-driven open access journals within the business of global academic publishing. In promoting fair, resilient, and gratis open access, they contribute to the evolution of an inclusive and biblio-diverse publishing ecosystem. In the second part I will detail ways to support community-driven open access journals, e.g., through substantial funding, coaching, and networking. Following-up on this, I will end with introducing a network developed by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society that provides information materials and increases visibility for these journals.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Chatting about the unaccepted: Self-disclosure of unaccepted news exposure behaviour to a chatbot
Get PDFConversational technologies such as chatbots have shown to be promising in eliciting self-disclosure in several contexts. Implementing such a technology that fosters self-disclosure can help to assess sensitive topics such as behaviours that are perceived as unaccepted by others, i.e. the exposure to unaccepted (alternative) news sources. This study tests whether a conversational (chatbot) format, compared to a traditional web-based survey, can enhance self-disclosure in the political news context by implementing a two-week longitudinal, experimental research design (n = 193). Results show that users disclose unaccepted news exposure significantly more often to a chatbot, compared to a traditional web-based survey, providing evidence for a chatbots’ ability to foster the disclosure of sensitive behaviours. Unlike our hypotheses, our study also shows that social presence, intimacy, and enjoyment cannot explain self-disclosure in this context, and that self-disclosure generally decreases over time.This study was funded by the Research Priority Area Communication and its Digital Communication Methods Lab (digicomlab.eu) at the University of Amsterdam
Municipalities’ digitalization and sustainability transformations: A network approach for designing a transdisciplinary knowledge community
Get PDFIn response to changing climatic conditions and the increasing need for more inclusive and participatory municipal service provision, many municipalities are undergoing a dual transformation process, one digital and one socio-ecological one. However, municipalities are at different stages and with different paces, often neither know what each other’s transformation processes look like nor have the tools and resources for meaningful cooperation. To foster knowledge sharing and mutual learning, we use a network approach for designing a transdisciplinary knowledge community for municipalities undergoing such transformation processes. This research in progress serves to improve the transfer between science and practice