Nils intervjuas i Rapport: "Alla är dåliga"

Inslag i Rapport idag. Jag intervjuas om hur partierna klarar sig på sociala medier inför EU-valet. Jag sa en hel del om ojämlika mediesituationer, varför nischmedier är viktiga, och att allt kommer att bli bättre med lite övning, men det som fanns kvar var: "Alla är dåliga." Tja, det stämmer ju, det också.

Science Wars?

For decades, there has been a science war going on between (social) scientists arguing about things like quantitative versus qualitative research, positivism versus hermeneutics, probabilistic causality versus the impossibility of establishing causality at all. I guess you know.

I guess that my own ontological world has not undergone any fundamental changes during my time as first an undergrad and now a grad student in political science: I believe basically that there is a world out there, but that our understanding of it is socially constructed, and that we however have the possibility of striving towards providing better  provisional truths. 

And in that quest for truth different types of methods might be useful. I personally have worked with both discourse analysis and large-N survey material, and I find that the results I get from different strategies of conducting research are fulfilling different research objectives, but also contribute to the establishment of the same (provisional) truth.

I have colleagues that make sarcastic remarks about number nerds and other colleagues that work themselves up about the posties.  I don't get it. I actually buried postmodernism in an art performance in 2005 (see picture; we buried an empty box), but I still believe that it is possible to learn things from poststructuralist thinkers.

However, I have a hunch that things might change. Several grad students in my own cohort seem to share my beliefs about social science and positioning in a postrelativistic universe. Let's see.  

Situation report

Hardest of all is to find time for the dissertation. About everything else comes in the way. Today I spent the entire morning at didactics class for teachers (which btw is great - my students in Public Administration class will notice that things have changed next week). In the afternoon I worked with a professor on the dissertation draft of a fellow grad student - the MEP in the making Max Conrad - he's on the hunt for a European public sphere, and he's sort of found it. Then off to a brief meeting with the vice chairman of the Students' Credit Union of which I'm the chairman - interrupted by Expressen journalist Natalia Kazmierska calling me to ask about the Pirate Party: is it underrated or overrated? Quick answer: both.

The Pirate Party, yes. Maybe I'll devote a longer post to them, they are an interesting example of an online-driven movement with an online-driven agenda (freedom of speech + freedom of information) seemingly succeeding in breaking through to the mainstream debate. They are currently the fourth largest party in Sweden by membership.

Getting tens of thousands of people to sign on to what is probably mostly a simple act of showing support is not as amazing as it sounds, though. Membership in the Pirate Party is free and comes with no strings attached. It remains for the Pirate Party to show exactly how they will turn this anonymous bulk of friendly people to votes in the ballot box. Ticking 'yes' in a box is so much easier than actually voting in the EP elections, not to speak of encouraging others to do so.

Having said that, it is in no way impossible for the Pirate Party to do just that. People who underestimate (or should that be misunderestimate?) them often don't understand the communicative logic in place that mobilises myriads out of nowhere. The Pirate Party is a brave and fascinating way of canalising one-issue-movements into parliamentary action. But we will see about that.

Nils pratar astroturfing i sociala medier i P3

Jag medverkar i P3:s Kvällspasset ikväll med ett kort intervju om utifall bloggbävningen verkligen var en gräsrotsrörelse eller ej.

Spoiler: "det beror på vad man menar med gräsrotsrörelse". Inte konstigt att gräsrotsbloggare är arga över DN:s bevakning, både på nyhetsplats och ledarsidan. Inte heller konstigt att folk blir tagna på sängen av uppgifter om att teleoperatörer och reklambyråer bidrog med pengar och kunnande.

Jag ska vara med ca 18.15, man kan lyssna här.

Läs gärna om mitt gästinlägg på Terracombloggen där jag redan den 19 januari ifrågasatte bloggbävningen som vrede ur folkdjupet. Men också detta: det finns ingen klar motsättning mellan ideellt engagemang och att ha friends in high places.

Naturligtvis var också den här bloggen en del av bloggbävningen. Läs bara här och här: "The Swedish blogosphere lost the battle, but what a glorious battle it was."

Baklavas, Social Forums, Commercialised Protesting and 19th Century Politics

Just a few brief notes from the day - I hope to be able to delve more thoroughly on the subjects later on.

1) Last year, I participated in a survey administered to participants of the 2008 European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden. A preliminary report of the basic statistics has now been compiled by coordinators (and friends of mine) Magnus Wennerhag and Richard Andersson. Richard is soon to join the department as a Ph D candidate, which is great. Without disclosing too much, I find the numbers on reported Internet usage from participants interesting. Expressions of political participation and engagement in Internet media seems to be much more common than any other form of participation. To be continued.

2) I'm currently working on a paper on the use of commercial social media platforms by alternative protest movements with my dear friend an colleague Tina Askanius over at the Dept of Media and Communication here at Lund. Specifically, we are looking at how protesters in Copenhagen fighting for a new "Ungdomshus" and organisers and participants of the 2008 ESF used social media. Hint: it doesn't matter how alternative or underground you are or position yourself as, you use commercial social media platforms anyway. The results will be presented at a conference called "Shaping Europe in a Globalized World" in Zürich in June. To be continued.

3) I had lunch with my supervisors today. Afterwards we were talking about the history of Swedish public administration (my head supervisor is currently working on a project dedicated to electoral fraud) and it turns out that very little has been written about Swedish 19th century public administration and political history, although lots of things happened in that time that are important for the understanding of contemporary Sweden: the coup d'etat and the new constitution of 1809, the historical change in Swedish trade policy towards free trade, the restructuring of employment strategies of civil servants, etc.

4) The department is welcoming a new Ph D candidate today, a student from Turkey who had already finished her dissertation, but who was told that she wouldn't be allowed to graduate because it was hurtful to the Turkish state (I believe the word "Kurdish" is in the title). So she will be finishing her Ph D here instead. A glorious day for free science. It's also my birthday, and I have bought 2 kgs of baklava for the occasion.

That's it for now.

Swedish royalty in social media: we are amused

This video of King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and "Herr Daniel Westling" announcing the engagement of Victoria and Daniel and their marriage in early summer 2010 has gone truly viral for the past few days.

Posted by the YouTube channel "Hovstaterna" (Royal Court), it has as of today above 140 000 views, which is a lot for a video in Swedish, where a mere 10 000 views should be considered a success.

And I cannot help to think whether it has gained its popularity from the royal glow itself, or from the fact that the royals look and sound incredibly uncomfortable and stiff in this situation, rendering the 5 minute clip, well, hilarious. For Christ's sake, couldn't they have gotten a teleprompter?

Twittering exploding in U.S. Congress (and everywhere else)

I spent an hour this morning watching U.S. president Obama's speech to the Congress. And as the cameras sweeped across the aisles and benches I noticed something strange: every now and then, you would see a Congressman staring, not at the president, but at the display of a mobile phone.

Who were they texting? The answer was as obvious today as it would have been incomprehensible a couple of years ago. They were twittering.

From the Washington Post:

"Then there was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), in whose name this text message was sent at about the time the president spoke of the need to pull the country together: "Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour." A few minutes later, another message came through: "Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer."

It's bad enough that Americans are paralyzed by economic jitters. Now the president has to deal with lawmakers paralyzed by Twitter. At a time of national emergency, when America needs the focused attention of contemplative and reflective lawmakers, they are dispatching rapid-fire thoughts in 140 characters or less."

Twitter exploded in Sweden during the first two months of 2009. Pioneers in microblogging were social media fanatics, a few journalists and some bloggers. Jaiku was the most popular microblogging service in Sweden and Finland for a long time, although with a small number of users. And then, for some reason, lots of people switched to Twitter, at the same time as newcomers flooded in.

And now, 60 days later, it's mainstream. Politicians and corporations feel the need for being present at the platform - although, as usually, not everyone knows exactly what to do with it.

Hans Kullin predicted in early January that Twitter would be a crucial tool in the Swedish elections in 2010. We shall see. And I will take a close look tha next time I watch a Riksdag debate. Is that Leif Pagrotsky texting?

Oh, and I'm twittering as liv99ngu.