Linn Sandberg: Socially Mediated Issue Ownership, with a case study of the Swedish 2014 election

Linn Sandberg (University of Oslo) is a guest at DIGSSCORE this fall, finishing her PhD-thesis. She will present a paper from her project.

Abstract:
Given the growing importance of issue competition in advanced Western democracies, and the growing use of social media during elections, this paper studies how socially mediated issue ownership forms on Twitter. It shows a significant degree of issue consistency in what issues parties are associated with on Twitter and how issue ownership is measured in representative surveys. Some issue ownership deviations also emerged, which could be interpreted as short-term changes in issue competition. Using social media as a data source for analyzing short-term influences on perceived party issue ownership might therefore be a fruitful approach and complement the traditional approach to measuring public opinion through surveys. The results presented in this paper also deepen our understanding of how issues evolve and transform on social media, which is important in order to evaluate the role of social media in contemporary political communication.

Lunch is served at first come, first served basis.