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Digidem Digest - Issue 42 (November 2021)
No full textThe Digidem Digest literature radar was a monthly curated overview of the latest publications with relevance to the research group "Democracy and Digitalization" at the Weizenbaum Institute. Their research focused around the interrelation of digitalization and democratic self-determination, asking how liberal-democratic societies appropriate digital technologies and how democracy is changing within the digital configuration. The present articles and publications were chosen by observation of leading journals within the field - a list can be found at the end of each newsletter
Can Intergroup Contact in Virtual Reality (VR) Reduce Stigmatization Against People with Schizophrenia?
Get PDFPeople with mental disorders such as schizophrenia do not only suffer from the symptoms of their disorders but also from the stigma attached to it. Although direct intergroup contact is an effective tool to reduce stigmatization, it is rare in real life and costly to be established in interventions, and the success of traditional media campaigns is debatable. We propose Virtual Reality (VR) as a low-threshold alternative for establishing contact since it involves less barriers for affected and unaffected persons. In a 2 + 1 experiment (n = 114), we compared the effects of encounters with a person with schizophrenia through a VR video with contact through a regular video and no contact at all on anxiety, empathy, social proximity, and benevolence towards people with schizophrenia. We found that contact via VR reduced stigmatization only for participants who liked the person encountered. Our data suggest that it is crucial how participants evaluate the person that they encounter and that stronger perception of spatial presence during reception plays an important role, too. Therefore, we discussvarious boundary conditions that need to be considered in VR interventions and future research on destigmatization towards mental disorders, especially schizophrenia
From Insult to Hate Speech. Mapping Offensive Language in German User Comments on Immigration
Get PDFIn recent debates on offensive language in participatory online spaces, the term ‘hate speech’ has become especially prominent. Originating from a legal context, the term usually refers to violent threats or expressions of prejudice against particular groups on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. However, due to its explicit reference to the emotion of hate, it is also used more colloquially as a general label for any kind of negative expression. This ambiguity leads to misunderstandings in discussions about hate speech and challenges its identification. To meet this challenge, this article provides a modularized framework to differentiate various forms of hate speech and offensive language. On the basis of this framework, we present a text annotation study of 5,031 user comments on the topic of immigration and refuge posted in March 2019 on three German news sites, four Facebook pages, 13 YouTube channels, and one right-wing blog. An in-depth analysis of these comments identifies various types of hate speech and offensive language targeting immigrants and refugees. By exploring typical combinations of labeled attributes, we empirically map the variety of offensive language in the subject area ranging from insults to calls for hate crimes, going beyond the common ‘hate/no-hate’ dichotomy found in similar studies. The results are discussed with a focus on the grey area between hate speech and offensive language
Platform Matters. Political Opinion Expression on Social Media
Get PDFThis study examines political opinion expression on four social media platforms in Argentina (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp). Drawing on in-depth interviews (N=158) and a survey (N= 700), it examines divergent dynamics of political conversation across platforms, and finds that respondents use platforms in different ways to talk about current affairs. Political discussion practices vary according to shared understandings regarding the content perceived as appropriate and level of privacy attributed to each platform, but not according to socio demographic characteristics. This comparative cross-platform approach indicates that political talk on social media is shaped by: a) the political context; b) each platform’s uptake; and, c) the overlapping of private and public, non-political and political content in a single space. Combining interviews with a survey allows this research to account for both differences in the level of political talk across platforms and the interpretation that underlie these differences. In the polarized Argentine context, online incivility is perceived to be common, and users employ diverging strategies to talk about politics on different platforms. We draw upon these findings to reflect on how varying user practices contribute to understanding social media platforms as culturally distinct spaces
Self-Focused and Other-Focused Health Concerns as Predictors of the Uptake of Corona Contact Tracing Apps. Empirical Study
Get PDF**Background:** Corona contact tracing apps are a novel and promising measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19. They can help to balance the need to maintain normal life and economic activities as much as possible while still avoiding exponentially growing case numbers. However, a majority of citizens need to be willing to install such an app for it to be effective. Hence, knowledge about drivers for app uptake is crucial.
**Objective:** This study aimed to add to our understanding of underlying psychological factors motivating app uptake. More specifically, we investigated the role of concern for one’s own health and concern to unknowingly infect others.
**Methods:** A two-wave survey with 346 German-speaking participants from Switzerland and Germany was conducted. We measured the uptake of two decentralized contact tracing apps officially launched by governments (Corona-Warn-App, Germany; SwissCovid, Switzerland), as well as concerns regarding COVID-19 and control variables.
**Results:** Controlling for demographic variables and general attitudes toward the government and the pandemic, logistic regression analysis showed a significant effect of self-focused concerns (odds ratio [OR] 1.64, P=.002). Meanwhile, concern of unknowingly infecting others did not contribute significantly to the prediction of app uptake over and above concern for one’s own health (OR 1.01, P=.92). Longitudinal analyses replicated this pattern and showed no support for the possibility that app uptake provokes changes in levels of concern. Testing for a curvilinear relationship, there was no evidence that “too much” concern leads to defensive reactions and reduces app uptake.
**Conclusions:** As one of the first studies to assess the installation of already launched corona tracing apps, this study extends our knowledge of the motivational landscape of app uptake. Based on this, practical implications for communication strategies and app design are discussed
Does Car-Sharing Reduce Car Ownership? Empirical Evidence from Germany
Get PDFThe sharing economy is making its way into our everyday lives. One of its business models, car-sharing, has become highly popular. Can it help us increase our sustainability? Besides emissions and vehicle miles traveled, one key aspect in the assessment regards the effect of car-sharing on car ownership. Previous studies investigating this effect have relied almost exclusively on surveys and come to very heterogeneous results, partly suggesting spectacular substitution rates between shared and private cars. This study empirically explores the impact of car-sharing on noncorporate car ownership and car markets in 35 large German cities. The analysis draws on publicly available data for the years 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2017, including, among others, the number of shared cars per operating mode (free-floating and station-based) and the number of cars owned and registered by private individuals (i.e., excluding company cars). We find that one additional station-based car is associated with a reduction of about nine private cars. We do not find a statistically significant relation between car ownership and free-floating car-sharing. Neither type of car-sharing appears to impact the markets for used and new cars significantly. Given the measurable impacts on car ownership levels, this result is surprising and invites future research to study car-sharing’s impact on the dynamics of car markets
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.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 odd couple. Contrasting openness in innovation and science
Get PDFOver the last few decades, two domains have undergone seemingly similar transformations: Closed innovation turned into open innovation, closed science into open science. In this essay we engage critically with recent calls for a close coupling of the two domains based on their apparent commonality: openness. Comparing the historically-specific ways in which openness has been defined and mobilised, we find substantial differences between open innovation and open science. While openness in innovation was developed as an analytic concept and redefined quite flexibly over time, openness in science was created as a programmatic concept and its initial definition has been preserved rather rigidly. Contrasting openness in innovation and science helps anticipate some of the unintended consequences that a close coupling of these domains might yield. A close coupling might alienate advocates for change within the academic community, marginalise maintenanceoriented collaborations between science and practice, and increase the dependence of science on profit-oriented platforms. Reflecting upon these unintended consequences can help policy-makers and researchers to fine-tune their concepts for new forms of engagement across the science-practice divide
Erzählen im Reallabor. Ein Beitrag zur konzeptionellen Ausgestaltung partizipativer Methoden der gemeinsamen Wissensproduktion durch Erzählräume im Reallabor
Get PDFThe transdisciplinary intersection between science and society in the real-world-laboratory approach is seen as a potential for generating transformational knowledge. At the same time, there are open questions in the methodological implementation, which are addressed in this paper by insights on experimental formats of storytelling. Using the example of the research project INTERPART, this paper explores the questions how intercultural spaces of participation in urban development can be expanded and what changes in institutional processes are required to achieve this. The paper involves two academic disciplines – spatial planning and design research – and fields of practice. Central findings include how deliberately designed narrative situations promote the co-production of transformative knowledge by encouraging participation in research and engaging citizens as experts of everyday life in co-research. The paper thus contributes to the current discourse on participatory research and co-production of knowledge in the context of methodological differentiation of real-world laboratory approaches
Digidem Digest - Issue 36 (May 2021)
No full textThe Digidem Digest literature radar was a monthly curated overview of the latest publications with relevance to the research group "Democracy and Digitalization" at the Weizenbaum Institute. Their research focused around the interrelation of digitalization and democratic self-determination, asking how liberal-democratic societies appropriate digital technologies and how democracy is changing within the digital configuration. The present articles and publications were chosen by observation of leading journals within the field - a list can be found at the end of each newsletter