TY - INPR A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Stephany, Fabian T1 - How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: 'Highjacking' Hashtags in Times of COVID-19 N2 - Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of 'hashjacking'. For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of 'hashjacking' in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by 'hashjacking' COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts. KW - COVID-19 KW - Far-Right KW - Hashjacking KW - Hashtag KW - Networks Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/n6f3r ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Stephany, Fabian ED - Weber (et al.), Ingmar T1 - “Hashjacking” the Debate: Polarisation Strategies of Germany’s Political Far-Right on Twitter T2 - Social Informatics. SocInfo 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11864 N2 - Twitter is a digital forum for political discourse. The emergence of phenomena like fake news and hate speech has shown that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Recent findings suggest that some political actors might employ strategies to actively facilitate polarisation on Twitter. With a network approach, we examine the case of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of a “hashjacking” strategy (The use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one’s own social media agenda.). Our findings suggest that right-wing politicians (and their supporters/retweeters) actively and effectively polarise the discourse not just by using their own party hashtags, but also by “hashjacking” the political party hashtags of other established parties. The results underline the necessity to understand the success of right-wing parties, online and in elections, not entirely as a result of external effects (e.g. migration), but as a direct consequence of their digital political communication strategy. KW - Hashtags KW - Networks KW - Political communication strategies Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34971-4_21 SN - 978-3-030-34971-4 VL - 11846 SP - 298 EP - 308 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Stephany, Fabian T1 - How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: ‘Hashjacking’ as a Disinformation Strategy in Times of COVID-19 T2 - Complex Networks & Their Applications X. COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 1016 N2 - Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourses on social platforms can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of ‘hashjacking’(The use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one’s own social media agenda.). For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of ‘hashjacking’ in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by ‘hashjacking’ COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts. KW - COVID-19 Hashtags Networks Political communication strategies #CoronaVirusDE #FlattenTheCurve Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-3-030-93413-2 SN - 978-3-030-93412-5 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93413-2_9 SP - 100 EP - 111 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Stockmann, Daniela A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Cingolani, Luciana A1 - Griffin, Rachel A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Kupi, Maximilian A1 - Mones, Haytham A1 - Munzert, Simon A1 - Riordan, Rónán A1 - Stockreiter, Simona T1 - Implementing Data Access of the Digital Services Act: Collaboration of European Digital Service Coordinators and Researchers in Building Strong Oversight over Social Media Platforms N2 - The EU Digital Service Acts signals a move away from self-regulation towards co-regulation of social media platforms within the European Union. To address online harms and rising platform power the DSA clarifies responsibilities of platforms and outlines a new technology regulatory framework to increase oversight. One key oversight instrument constitutes Article 40 of the DSA, which lays out data access for vetted researchers, who add value to regulators and the broader public as creators of knowledge, educators, advisors, innovators, and watchdogs. Currently, the EU Commission and national governments make important decisions regarding Digital Service Coordinators (DSCs) that play a key role in implementation. Based on expertise on European public administration and political science we lay out key challenges and success factors of DSCs that will play a role in promoting successful cooperation between DSCs and researchers. We provide three recommendations: First, we recommend to strengthen transfer of scientific knowledge into policy-making by processing publicly accessible publications within public administrative bodies. To this end, capacities of DSCs need to be increased. In addition, we also point towards the database of vetted researchers collected by the Board of DSCs as important resource in order to strengthen knowledge transfer. Second, the DSC network requires agile institutions with fast response time in order to enable researchers to play a constructive role in implementation. This also includes institutional procedures between DSCs and the Intermediary Body and Data Protection Agencies. To avoid delay in implementation agile institution-building needs to start now. Finally, institutional safeguards will help to avoid strategic choice of companies of the DSC of establishment. At the same time, the Irish DSC's capacity should be strengthened compared to other national DSCs since most large intermediary services providers have their European headquarters in Ireland. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-49479 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-4947 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Urquhart, Michael T1 - Disinformed social movements: A large-scale mapping of conspiracy narratives as online harms during the COVID-19 pandemic JF - Online Social Networks and Media N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic caused high uncertainty regarding appropriate treatments and public policy reactions. This uncertainty provided a perfect breeding ground for spreading conspiratorial anti-science narratives based on disinformation. Disinformation on public health may alter the population’s hesitance to vaccinations, counted among the ten most severe threats to global public health by the United Nations. We understand conspiracy narratives as a combination of disinformation, misinformation, and rumour that are especially effective in drawing people to believe in post-factual claims and form disinformed social movements. Conspiracy narratives provide a pseudo-epistemic background for disinformed social movements that allow for self-identification and cognitive certainty in a rapidly changing information environment. This study monitors two established conspiracy narratives and their communities on Twitter, the anti-vaccination and anti-5G communities, before and during the first UK lockdown. The study finds that, despite content moderation efforts by Twitter, conspiracy groups were able to proliferate their networks and influence broader public discourses on Twitter, such as #Lockdown in the United Kingdom. KW - Disinformation, Conspiracy theory, Anti-vaccination, Anti-5G, Social network analysis, COVID-19, Social movements, Twitter, Public health, Trust in government Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osnem.2021.100174 VL - 26 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Urquhart, Michael ED - Ginsborg, Lisa ED - Gori, Paula T1 - Informational Power and Disinformation: Actors, Messages, Incentives, and Techniques of Disinformation Campaigns T2 - Disinformation N2 - Disinformation has become a pivotal concern for policymakers globally. While the issue has been a longstanding issue for communication and foreign affairs scholars and practitioners, recent years have seen an escalation in its severity driven by geopolitical conflicts like the Ukraine war or the Israel-Gaza conflict. These conflicts, coupled with international tensions, are exacerbated by state-led foreign interference and information manipulation intersecting with domestic partisan disinformation campaigns. Democracies with open media systems are particularly exposed to disinformation campaigns by other actors. In this article, we understand disinformation campaigns as a political instrument of increasing the power of interpretation among target groups. These may be populations of foreign states but also domestic citizens that are targeted with disinformation by partisan groups or autocratic governments. To better assess the aim of disinformation campaigns, we propose to focus on informational power as a mediator underpinning Michael Mann’s IEMP model based on ideological, economic, military, and political power. Working from this theoretical framework, we discuss the actors, messages, incentives, and techniques and tactics of disinformation campaigns from a European perspective. KW - Political communication KW - Information Ethics Y1 - 2026 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00480-2_11 SP - 187 EP - 211 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dempsey, Mark A1 - McBride, Keegan A1 - Haataja, Meeri A1 - Bryson, Joanna T1 - Transnational Digital Governance and Its Impact on Artificial Intelligence T2 - The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance N2 - The rapid pace of technological advancement and innovation has put existing governance and regulatory mechanisms to the test. There is a clear need for new and innovative regulatory mechanisms that enable governments to successfully manage the integration of digital technologies into our societies, and to ensure that such integration occurs in a sustainable, beneficial, and just manner. Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands out as one of the most debated of such innovations. What exactly is it, how should it be built and deployed, how can it be used, and how should it be regulated? Yet across the period of this debate, AI is becoming widely used and addressed within existing, evolving, and bespoke regulatory contexts. The present chapter explores the extant governance of AI and, in particular, what is arguably the most successful AI regulatory approach to date, that of the European Union. The chapter explores core definitional concepts, shared understandings, values, and approaches currently in play. It argues that not only are the Union’s regulations locally effective, but, due to the so-called “Brussels effect,” regulatory initiatives within the European Union also have a much broader global impact. As such, they warrant close consideration. Y1 - 2022 SN - 9780197579329 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197579329.013.16 N1 - A pre-print version is available at: https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xu3jr PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - INPR A1 - Dempsey, Mark A1 - McBride, Keegan A1 - Haataja, Meeri A1 - Bryson, Joanna T1 - Transnational digital governance and its impact on artificial intelligence N2 - The rapid pace of technological advancement and innovation has put governance and regulatory mechanisms to the test. There is a clear need for new and innovative regulatory mechanisms that enable governments to successfully manage the integration of such technologies into our societies and ensure that such integration occurs in a sustainable, beneficial, and just manner. Artificial Intelligence stands out as one of the most debated such innovations. What exactly is it, how should it be built, how can it be used, and how and should it be regulated? Yet, in this debate, AI is becoming widely utilized within both existing, evolving, and bespoke regulatory contexts. The present chapter explores in particular what is arguably the most successful AI regulatory approach to date, that of the European Union. We explore core definitional concepts, shared understandings, values, and approaches currently in play. We argue that due to the so-called ‘Brussels effect’, regulatory initiatives within the European Union have a much broader global impact and, therefore, warrant close inspection. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xu3jr ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Drapalova, Eliska A1 - Wegrich, Kai T1 - Who Governs 4.0? Varieties of Smart Cities JF - Public Management Review N2 - Research on smart cities is still at an early stage. The conjecture of this article is that smart city strategies and their impacts will inevitably vary across contexts; however, the debate still lacks an analytical toolkit that guides the exploration of such varieties (and similarities) of smart cities. Combining existing research on the governance of smart cities with theories of business–state relations from political economy, this article develops an analytical framework and typology that captures varieties (and similarities) of smart city policies and governance. We apply this framework to four illustrative cases: Prague, Barcelona, Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2020.1718191 VL - 22 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elston, Thomas A1 - Rackwitz, Maike A1 - Bel, Germà T1 - Going separate ways: ex-post interdependence and the dissolution of collaborative relations JF - International Public Management Journal N2 - Interdependence is typically regarded as the cause of inter-organizational collaboration. But it is also a consequence. Collaboration itself creates new interdependence as partners become more entwined in one another’s operations and experience the vetoes, compromises, delays, and risks inherent in joint working. This paradox – mitigating one set of interdependencies by creating another – renders collaborative relations inherently unstable. Dissolution may occur if “ex-post” interdependence becomes more troublesome than the original “ex-ante” trigger for the partnership. We test this proposition through comparative analysis of 13 sustained, aborted, and dissolved inter-municipal cooperations in English local government. Ex-post interdependence was most pronounced in those partnerships that ended in dissolution, and informed the design of replacement arrangements. It was also a contributory factor in the abortive cases. But ex-post interdependence was minimized in the group of sustained collaborations by management actions that streamlined the coordination burden imposed by joint working. These findings have implications for partnership design, the collaborator’s skillset, and theories of collaborative public management. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10967494.2023.2271468 ER -