TY - RPRT A1 - Breaugh, Jessica A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Rackwitz, Maike A1 - Palaric, Enora T1 - Research Report on Collaborative Management for ICT Enabled Public Sector Innovation BT - Work Package 6 – Deliverable 6.4 N2 - The process of digitalising government is rapidly gaining speed, resulting in a pressing need for increased inter-governmental integration and challenging the traditional silo structures of government. This has sparked the adoption of inter-governmental collaborative working arrangements and efforts to develop joint standards and solutions; yet little is known about how exactly this manifests itself in the context of ambitious digitalisation projects. This report provides new empirical evidence on the challenges and dynamics of collaboration within and between public organisations in order to drive digital transformation. The report begins with a literature review on collaborative management with a particular focus on collaboration in the context of government digitalisation. This literature serves as a basis for developing a set of five propositions regarding how intergovernmental collaborative digitalisation projects can be best designed and managed. Following the conceptual framework of the TROPICO project deliverable 6.3 developed by Rackwitz et al. (2020), the report investigates the interplay between system context, collaboration challenges and dynamics (i.e. complexity, risk and power imbalances), public management interventions (i.e. institutional design and leadership) as well as outcomes. Emphasis is placed upon the role of institutional design and leadership in order to cope with the challenges inherent to collaborative governance approaches. The framework and related propositions are then verified through the use of empirical findings from ten comparative case studies from five European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, and the United Kingdom). The case studies, presented in detail in TROPICO deliverable 6.3, examine the development of national government-wide online portals, as well as the implementation of municipal Smart City initiatives. The cases show that the system dynamics and challenges of digitalisation projects, such as size and scope, tend to generate resource-intensive and demanding working conditions. Creating hybrid structures that incorporate both network and hierarchical approaches has been a common approach to handling these conditions and balancing the demands of inter-departmental collaboration with the inherent accountabilities and existing working cultures of public organisations. At the steering level, a central coordinator with collaborative leadership skills was found to be key to driving the projects forward and achieving outcomes. Participatory, network-style approaches at the working group level were successful in balancing the demands of all collaborative partners and encouraging wide-scale engagement. In addition, opting for wide-scale inclusion, setting ground rules and clear processes as well as a focus on trust and social capital development proved essential. While most leadership approaches still maintain elements of transactional leadership in managing projects, collaborative leadership approaches such as bringing stakeholders together, mediating problems, and guiding and steering the process were used in many instances to handle the complexities inherent in the project objectives. In the conclusion of the report, contributions are discussed, followed by an outline for future research avenues. Y1 - 2020 UR - https://tropico-project.eu/download/d6-4-research-report-on-collaborative-management-for-ict-enabled-public-sector-innovation/?wpdmdl=1571&refresh=60c51d2fad4cf1623530799 N1 - This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.726840 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Breaugh, Jessica A1 - Rackwitz, Maike A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard A1 - Nõmmik, Steven A1 - Bello, Benedetta A1 - Boon, Jan A1 - Van Doninck, Dries A1 - Downe, James A1 - Randma-Liiv, Tiina T1 - Deconstructing complexity: A comparative study of government collaboration in national digital platforms and smart city networks in Europe JF - Public Policy and Administration N2 - This research deconstructs complexity as a key challenge of intergovernmental digitalisation projects. While much of the literature acknowledges that the fundamental restructuring coupled with technical capacity that these joint projects require leads to increased complexity, little is known about how different types of complexity interact within the collaborative process. Using established concepts of substantive, strategic, and institutional complexity, we apply complexity theory in collaborative digital environments. To do so, eight digital projects are analysed that differ by state structure and government level. Using a cross-case design with 50 semi-structured expert interviews, we find that each digitalisation project exhibits all types of complexity and that these complexities overlap. However, clear differences emerge between national and local level projects, suggesting that complexity in digitalisation processes presents different challenges for collaborative digitalisation projects across contexts. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/09520767231169401 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bryson, Joanna T1 - Robot, all too human JF - XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students N2 - Advanced robotics and artificial intelligence systems present a new challenge to human identity. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3313131 VL - 25 IS - 3 SP - 56 EP - 59 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bryson, Joanna T1 - Europe Is in Danger of Using the Wrong Definition of AI JF - Wired N2 - Some intelligent systems are at risk of being excluded from oversight in the EU's proposed legislation. This is bad for both businesses and citizens. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-regulation-european-union/ ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bryson, Joanna ED - Dubber, Markus ED - Pasquale, Frank ED - Das, Sunit T1 - The Artificial Intelligence of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: An Introductory Overview for Law and Regulation T2 - The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI N2 - Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technical term often referring to artifacts used to detect contexts for human actions, or sometimes also for machines able to effect actions in response to detected contexts. Our capacity to build such artifacts has been increasing, and with it the impact they have on our society. This does not alter the fundamental roots or motivations of law, regulation, or diplomacy, which rest on persuading humans to behave in a way that provides sustainable security for humans. It does however alter nearly every other aspect of human social behaviour, including making accountability and responsibility potentially easier to trace. This chapter reviews the nature and implications of AI with particular attention to how they impinge on possible applications to and of law. Y1 - 2019 SN - 9780190067397 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190067397.013.1 PB - Oxford University Press ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bryson, Joanna T1 - The Past Decade and Future of AI’s Impact on Society T2 - Towards a New Enlightenment? A Transcendent Decade N2 - Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technical term referring to artifacts used to detect contexts or to effect actions in response to detected contexts. Our capacity to build such artifacts has been increasing, and with it the impact they have on our society. This article first documents the social and economic changes brought about by our use of AI, particularly but not exclusively focusing on the decade since the 2007 advent of smartphones, which contribute substantially to “big data” and therefore the efficacy of machine learning. It then projects from this political, economic, and personal challenges confronting humanity in the near future, including policy recommendations. Overall, AI is not as unusual a technology as expected, but this very lack of expected form may have exposed us to a significantly increased urgency concerning familiar challenges. In particular, the identity and autonomy of both individuals and nations is challenged by the increased accessibility of knowledge. Y1 - 2019 SN - 9788417141219 VL - 11 PB - BBVA ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Bogani, Ronny ED - Campbell, Aifric T1 - Robot Nannies Will Not Love T2 - The Love Makers N2 - How artificial intelligence and robotics are transforming the future of love and desire: a philosophical thriller and essays.A chance encounter between two women and a road trip into the future: It's Christmas Eve, and Scarlett, banker-turned-technologist, is leaving a secret underground lab to catch the last flight that will get her home in time to open presents with her three-year-old son. She offers a lift to a young woman in distress, who shares her intimate life story as they drive to the airport. These revelations will have devastating consequences for both of them. The Love Makers is a philosophical thriller about female friendship, class, motherhood, women, and work--and how artificial intelligence and robotics are transforming the future of love and desire. Aifric Campbell combines her novel with essays from leading scientists and commentators who examine what's at stake in our human-machine relationships. What is our future as friends, parents, lovers? Will advances in intelligent machines reverse decades of progress for women? From robot nannies to generative art and our ancient dreams of intelligent machines, The Love Makers blends storytelling with science communication to investigate the challenges and opportunities of emergent technologies and how we want to live. ContributorsRonny Bogani, Joanna J. Bryson, Julie Carpenter, Stephen Cave, Anita Chandran, Peter R. N. Childs, Kate Devlin, Kanta Dihal, Mary Flanagan, Margaret Rhee, Amanda Sharkey, Roberto Trotta, E. R. Truitt, and Richard Watson Y1 - 2021 UR - https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/publications/the-love-makers/ SN - 97819126858442 SP - 249 EP - 258 PB - Goldsmiths Press CY - London ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Eisenlauer, Martin T1 - Artificial Intelligence and ethics T2 - Faster than the Future Y1 - 2021 SP - 57 EP - 73 CY - Barcelona ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Haataja, Meeri T1 - The European Parliament’s AI Regulation: Should We Call It Progress? JF - Amicus Curiae N2 - The European Union (EU) has been leading the world with its influential digital regulation. However, the EU’s legislative process is sufficiently complex and careful that some national legislation clearly influenced by the EU’s AI Regulation is already in place in other countries, before the law has even been finalized in the EU. Meanwhile, other states and regions are just beginning to develop AI policy. For both the EU and such others, we here describe the outcomes of the first round of legislative action by one of the EU’s two legislative bodies, the European Parliament, in terms of modifying the Artificial Intelligence Act. The Parliament has introduced a number of changes we consider to be enormously important, some in a very good way, and some in a very bad way. At stake is whether the AI Act really brings the power and strength of product law to continuously scale improved practice on products in the EU with intelligent components, or whether the law becomes window-dressing aimed only at attacking a few elite actors post hoc. We describe here the EU process, the changes and our recommendations. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://journals.sas.ac.uk/amicus/article/view/5612 U6 - https://doi.org/10.14296/ac.v4i3.5612 VL - 4, Series 2 IS - 3 SP - 707 EP - 718 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bryson, Joanna A1 - Malikova, Helena T1 - Is There an AI Cold War? JF - Global Perspectives N2 - Regulation is a means societies use to create the stability, public goods, and infrastructure they need to thrive securely. This policy brief is intended to both document and to address claims of a new AI cold war: a binary competition between the United States and China that is too important for other powers to either ignore or truly participate in directly, beyond taking sides. We argue that while some of the claims of this narrative are based at least in part on genuine security concerns and important unknowns, evidence for its extreme binary nature is lacking. This absence of factual evidence is concerning, because related geopolitical tensions may be used to interfere with regulation of AI and agencies associated with its development. Here we first document and then analyze the extremely bipolar picture prominent policymakers and political commentators have been recently painting of the AI technological situation, portraying China and the United States as the only two global powers. We then examine the plausibility of these claims using two measures: internationally registered AI patents and the market capitalization of the companies that hold them. These two measures, while each somewhat arbitrary and imperfect, are often deployed in the context of the binary narrative and can therefore be seen as conservative choices in that they should favor exactly the “champions” of that narrative. In fact, these measures do not produce bipolar results: Chinese capacity has been exaggerated and that of other global regions deprecated. These findings call into question the motivation behind the documented claims, though they also further illuminate the uncertainty concerning digital technology security. We recommend that all parties engage in contributing to a safe, secure, and transparent regulatory landscape. KW - technology policy, digital governance, artificial intelligence, transnational regulation, polarity Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2021.24803 VL - 2 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cingolani, Luciana T1 - Infrastructural state capacity in the digital age: What drives the performance of COVID-19 tracing apps? JF - Governance N2 - In a context where states increasingly complement their physical presence with digital means, the classic idea of infrastructural state power needs reconsideration. The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unparalleled opportunity to that end, given the uniformity of one type of digital infrastructural intervention - the offer of contact tracing apps - and its highly varying performance across geographies. Against this backdrop, the article seeks to expand traditional discussions on state infrastructural power by testing a series of propositions on the explanatory factors behind tracing apps' emergence and adoption rates. The findings stemming from a pool of 150 countries show no straightforward connection between traditional and digital forms of infrastructural power. They also point at the primacy of governmental trust over financial, institutional, and technological factors - including privacy standards - when explaining high adoption, suggesting that the relational aspect of infrastructural power acquires a proportionally greater weight in the digital era. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12666 SP - 1 EP - 23 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cingolani, Luciana ED - Elsevier, T1 - The survival of open government platforms: Empirical insights from a global sample JF - Government Information Quarterly N2 - For a number of years scholars have theorized about a change of paradigm in the collaborative practices between governments and citizens as a result of the newly emerged many-to-many forms of connectivity. A vibrant agenda on open government has flourished since, with critical advances on the conceptual front, but much less empirical testing of its propositions. This article makes use of a recognized typology of co-production initiatives in order to implement a Cox hazards survival analysis of 465 open government platforms from a global sample in 87 countries. Its main findings suggest that government-initiated collaborations have the lowest risk of termination and that citizen-to-government initiatives the highest. They also show that while internationally-exerted pressure for openness favors the genesis of open government platforms, it does not affect their survival chances. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2020.101522 VL - Volume 38 PB - Elsevier ET - Issue 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cingolani, Luciana A1 - Hildebrandt, Tim T1 - Incentive Structures for the Adoption of Crowdsourcing in Public Policy: A Bureaucratic Politics Model JF - Sustainability N2 - Collective intelligence paradigms have been increasingly embraced by the public sector as a way to address complex policy challenges. The field is limited, however, by our little, comparative understanding of the political economy factors that create incentives around the adoption of certain types of collective intelligence over others in different organizational settings. This article uses a typology of citizen-sourced open innovation models based on the work of Daren Brabham as well as insights from Elinor Ostrom and Archon Fung, in order to produce a theoretical model of the determinants of crowdsourcing adoption decisions in the public sector. The model derives a political economy analysis that matches various administrative scenarios to different collective intelligence modalities and developments. The insights are illustrated through a number of crowdsourcing initiatives and provide important lessons to practitioners designing such collective challenges. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su142012982 VL - 14 IS - 20 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Cingolani, Luciana A1 - McBride, Keegan A1 - Hammerschmid, Gerhard T1 - Human Centric Smart Cities. Redefining the smart city. N2 - Smart cities have traditionally been studied from a technocentric perspective. However,such technological conceptualizations of smart cities are no longer adequate in today’s society. This policy brief discusses another alternative, human centric smart cities. Human centric smart cities are cities that practice smart governance, are collaborative, focused on user needs, supportive of innovation, and are ultimately oriented towards the development of wellbeing and the creation of public valuefor its citizens. In human centric smart cities, the use, implementation, and development of technology is guided by these foundations. The policy brief draws on insightgenerated from an international symposium organized for the City of Berlin on the future of smart cities. The brief itself is structured around four core aspects: human centricity, inter-sectoral collaboration, data governance, and administrative capacity. The brief ends by providing initial recommendations on how to start thinking about and implementing new human centric smart city strategies. Key Points: • In human centric smart cities, adopting a public valueor happiness orientedapproach to development will be critical. • The notion of innovation and service development inside human centric smartcities is changing, driven primarily by a shift in the structure of smart city ecosystems. • New human centric smart city data governance strategies must be in line withthe creation of public value, data sovereignty, and the maintenance offundamental rights and freedoms such as those related to privacy andfreedom of expression. • The change towards more collaborative, open, and human centric smart citieswill require new governance strategies and new administrative capacities. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-44106 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cowls, Josh A1 - Darius, Philipp A1 - Santistevan, Dominiquo A1 - Schramm, Moritz T1 - Constitutional metaphors: Facebook’s “supreme court” and the legitimation of platform governance JF - New Media and Society N2 - Who governs—and who should govern—online communication? Social media companies, international organizations, users, or the state? And by what means? A range of rhetorical devices have been used to simplify the complexities associated with the governance of online platforms. This includes “constitutional metaphors”: metaphorical allusions to traditional political concepts such as statehood, democracy, and constitutionalism. Here, we empirically trace the ascent of a powerful constitutional metaphor currently employed in the news media discourse on platform governance: characterizations of Facebook’s Oversight Board (OB) as a “supreme court.” We investigate the metaphor’s descriptive suitability and question its normative and political ramifications. We argue that uncritical characterizations of the OB as Facebook’s “supreme court” obscure its true scope and purpose. In addition, we argue that appropriating the socio-cultural symbolism and hence political legitimacy of a supreme court and mapping it onto a different type of actor poses a threat to responsible platform governance. KW - constitutional metaphors KW - content analysis KW - digital constitutionalism KW - Oversight Board KW - platform governance Y1 - 2022 UR - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14614448221085559 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221085559 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Darius, Philipp T1 - Who polarizes Twitter? Ideological polarization, partisan groups and strategic networked campaigning on Twitter during the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections 'Bundestagswahlen' JF - Social Network Analysis and Mining N2 - Political campaign activities are increasingly digital. A crucial part of digital campaigning is communication efforts on social media platforms. As a forum for political discourse and political communication, parties and candidates on Twitter share public messages and aim to attract media attention and persuade voters. Party or prominent candidate hashtags are a central element of the campaign communication strategy since journalists and citizens search for these hashtags to follow the current debate concerning the hashed party or political candidate. Political elites and partisans use social media strategically, e.g., to link their messages to a broader debate, increase the visibility of messages, criticize other parties, or take over their hashtags (hashjacking). This study investigates the cases of the most recent 2017 and 2021 German federal elections called 'Bundestagswahlen'. The investigation (1) identifies communities of partisans in retweet networks in order to analyze the polarization of the most prominent hashtags of parties, 2) assesses the political behavior by partisan groups that amplify messages by political elites in these party networks, and 3) examines the polarization and strategic behavior of the identified partisan groups in the broader election hashtag debates using #BTW17 and #BTW21 as the prominent hashtags of the 2017 and 2021 elections. While in 2017, the far-right party 'Alternative für Deutschland' (AfD) and its partisans are in an isolated community, in 2021, they are part of the same community as the official party accounts of established conservative and liberal parties. This broader polarization may indicate changes in the political ideology of these actors. While the overall activity of political elites and partisans increased between 2017 and 2021, AfD politicians and partisans are more likely to use other party hashtags, which resulted in the polarization of the observed parts of the German political twitter sphere. While in 2017, the AfD polarized German Twitter, 2021 shows a broader division along the classical left–right divide. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-022-00958-w VL - 12 ER - TY - THES A1 - Darius, Philipp T1 - Are social media platforms accelerators of democratic fragmentation? An inquiry into the relationship of democratic fragmentation and social media platforms in three political arenas: political campaigns, protest movements and democratic institutions N2 - Whilst social media platforms provide global communication environments, these platforms are not primarily designed for political debates. This may have adverse effects on democracy and contribute to democratic fragmentation. This dissertation project investigates the role of social media platforms as potential accelerators of fragmentation in established democracies. The overarching question of this dissertation explores to what extent social media platforms may contribute to fragmentation that may result in the erosion of democracy. This dissertation comprises three articles focusing on three political arenas 1) political campaigns, 2) protest movements, and 3) democratic institutions. The first paper investigates the polarisation of online political behaviour on Twitter in democratic election campaigns. The analysis is based on Twitter data of German political parties and election hashtags during the final week of the 2017 and 2021 German Federal elections. The study’s findings suggest that the far-right party AfD seeks to polarise online discourse as a strategy and that far-right online partisans may influence the public reception of politicians and established parties. The second paper examines the formation of protest movements on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The 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 messages and influence broader public discourses on Twitter, such as #Lockdown in the United Kingdom. The findings underline social platforms' potential for protest formation that can result in disinformed social movements. The third paper inspects social platform companies’ mimicking of democratic institutions like Meta’s oversight board for content decisions that may erode existing democratic institutions. The study traces the emergence of the supreme court metaphor for Meta’s oversight board and its use in the US News discourse. The findings emphasise how private organisations and the use of constitutional metaphors can erode the legitimacy of supreme courts and other democratic institutions. The dissertation’s findings imply that social media platforms, besides their democratically desirable function for democratic participation and deliberative potentials, contribute to democratic fragmentation in the inspected arenas of political campaigns, disinformed protest movements and democratic institutions. Thus, extended research data access is key to better understanding the social implications of social media platforms and finding adequate regulations of recommender systems, content moderation, and advertisement-based business models. T3 - Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School - 06/2023 Y1 - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-50557 U6 - https://doi.org/10.48462/opus4-5055 N1 - Parts of the dissertation have been published: Chapter 3: Darius P (2022) “Who Polarizes Twitter? Ideological Polarisation, Partisan Groups and Strategic Networked Campaigning on Twitter during the 2017 and 2021 German Federal Elections ‘Bundestagswahlen.’” Social Network Analysis and Mining 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-022-00958-w. The version of record of this article, first published in Social Network Analysis and Mining, is available online at the Publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-022-00958-w Chapter 4: Darius P, Urquhart M (2021) “Disinformed Social Movements: A Large-Scale Mapping of Conspiracy Narratives as Online Harms during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Online Social Networks and Media 26: 100174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osnem.2021.100174 Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Chapter 5: Cowls J, Darius P, Santistevan D, Schramm M (2022) “Constitutional Metaphors: Facebook’s ‘Supreme Court’ and the Legitimation of Platform Governance.” New Media & Society, April 5, 2022, 14614448221085560. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221085559 N1 - Shelf mark: 2023D006 + 2023D006+1 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 - 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 -