Gen AI in Business - Global Trends Report 2024.pdf
#InternetPart12 Berntzen Day 1
1. Digital Society and Social
Networks
Guest Lecture, University of Torino, 14.05.2012
Lasse Berntzen
Vestfold University College
Tonsberg, Norway
lasse.berntzen@hive.no
2. About me
• Associate Professor at Faculty of Business and Social Science,
Vestfold University College, Norway
• Research interests:
• Digital Society
• eDemocracy, eParticipation, eDemocracy
• Public Sector Innovation
• Research projects:
• Webcasting of local council meetings
• ePetitions (elektronisk innbyggerinitiativ) (Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development)
• Candidate blogs (Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development)
• Digital Planning Dialog (Research Council of Norway)
• eGovMon (Research Council of Norway)
• Consultative (EEA)
• eGovMoNet (European Union Commision)
• Net-EUCen (European Union Commision)
• Also: External expert for Council of Europe and EU
3. Content
• Mostly based on contemporary research literature
and observations, but also based on:
o Two research projects
• Candidate blogs
• eGovMon (Facebook use by Municipalities)
o Collaboration with Vestfold County municipalities
• Larvik, Andebu, Lardal,Tjøme
4. Social Media
• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Social media are media for social interaction, using
highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.
• Social media uses web-based technologies to turn
communication into interactive dialogues.
• Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein also define social
media as "a group of Internet-based applications that
build on the ideological and technological foundations
of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of
user-generated content."…
• A common thread running through all definitions of
social media is a blending of technology and social
interaction for the co-creation of value.
5. Web 2.0
What is Web 2.0 or “Social Media” about?
• Collaboration
• Sharing
• Interoperability (e.g. through RSS)
• User-centered design
• Fun
8. The Web 2.0 world
• Twitter (Social networks, messaging)
• Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo (Social networks,
messaging)
• Blogs (sharing)
• YouTube (sharing videos)
• Flicr (sharing photographs)
• Wiki (Collaboration, sharing)
9. Users of Web 2.0
• (Some sort of timeline)
• Individuals
• Organizations/Social Movements
• Politicians
• Business
• Government
10. Norwegian users
Application Users
Facebook 2.627.700
blog.no 1.016
Biip.no 446.849
LinkedIn 585.847
Origo 277.199
Twitter 276.084
Numbers are from Halogen.no
http://www.halogen.no/tjenester/losninger/sosiale-
medier/norske-brukere-i-sosiale-medier/
(Updated April 18th 2012)
11. New groups of users
• National TV 2010:
• The older are taking over Facebook
12.
13. Studying WEB
2.0
Some observations from own research
14. Why is Web 2.0
interesting?
• Web 2.0 has regular users
• What web sites have regular users?
• NOT MANY!
• Most web sites have only sporadic users, e.g.
personal or municipal web sites.
• Information on demand
15. Regular users
• Newspaper web sites attract regular users
• Social media also attract regular users
• Some users access such web sites several times a
day..
17. Politicians
• More than individuals..
• Politicians have embraced the internet
• Obama campaign, fundraising
• Norwegian prime minister
• What they use:
o Blogs
o Facebook
o Twitter
o YouTube
23. Blog
• Web Log
• Website or part of website
• Maintained by individual or group
• Regular entries
• Reverse chronological order
• Interactive (allows readers to comment)
24. Why blogging
• Unfiltered opinions
• No discrimination
• Immediate dissemination
• Possible interaction with voters
25. Blogging project
• Municipal elections 2007
• Context: Revitalization of democracy through
directly elected mayors
• Vestfold county: 5 municipalities was selected as
participants
• 32 candidates for mayor
27. Results/numbers
• 31 out of 32 candidates used blogs
• 395 articles during the pre-election period
• 153 comments from readers (strict rules!)
• 4261 unique IP adresses
• 75000 page accesses to individual blogs
• 25000 page accesses to summaries
30. What we learned
• Dissemination is the biggest motivator
• Created some headlines in regional and local
media (Press/local radio used blogs)
• Support organization was necessary
• Small impact on election result, but some citizens
gave nice feedback
36. Municipalities on
Facebook
• The number of municipalities using Internet as a
communication channel with their citizens is steadily
increasing.
• Data collected by the author in November 2009
showed that 26 Norwegian municipalities were
actively using Facebook to interact with and inform
their citizens.
• Alltogether 73 municipalities were present on
Facebook, but the remaining profiles were either
established by third-parties or used for employees.
37. Case example: City of
Larvik, Norway
• November 2008, discussion and implementation
• Target group: Age 18 to 30
• Targeted information
• First use: To inform about a course for young mothers
• DEMO
38. Mobilization
• Oil spill accident: Asking for volunteers
• Getting volunteers to read for old people
39. Interaction
• Ask what the citizens want
• This is particularly relevant to planning processes
40. Oops
• If you do not have a strategy, you may find yourself
in a strange position
• Research on Municipalities on Facebook
• Very interesting results
52. Background
• The Digital Society – What is happening when
technology is put into use?
• Social Media Week, Rome
• Take Action Now – Panel on e-Campaigning
o Daria Santucci, University of Turin
• Panel discussed e-campaigns
• But the story really started back in 2003..
53. Software Patent Directive
• During the fall of 2003, the European Commission
proposed a new software patent directive.
• The open source community, other organizations
and individuals were concerned that the new
patent directive would hinder innovation.
• A petition web site was set up, and more than
300.000 signatures were collected.
• On September 24th 2003, the European Parliament
passed the directive, but with significant limits on
the patentability of software
• On July 6th 2005, the European Parliament rejected
a revised proposal with 648 against 14 votes.
54. Property tax
• In Norway municipalities decide whether or not to
collect property tax.
• February 2005, Holmestrand, Norway (a small city
with a population of 10.000 (This is where I live)
• The majority coalition of the local government
proposed introduction of property tax.
• Since property tax had been downplayed as a non-
issue during the municipal election campaign in
2003, some citizens felt deceived by the majority
coalition.
55. Property tax
• One citizen, Tommy Sundstrøm, took the matter in
his own hands.
• He downloaded an open source petition
application from the Internet, set up his own web
site and registered the domain name nok-er-
nok.net. (enough-is-enough)
• By sending e-mails to friends and acquaintances,
asking them to sign, and also to forward the
message, he was able to collect around 700
signatures within short time.
56. Property tax
• The largest party (Labour) changed its position, and
the proposal was abandoned.
• The mayor made explicit references to the e-
campaign when explaining the change of position.
• Also, the majority coalition fell apart as a result of
this abandonment.
57. Research
• These two campaigns relied on technology to
mobilize citizens against the political body
responsible for a decision.
• They were both successful..
• But is there any theoretical framework that can be
used to explain such campaigns?
58. Social Movement Theory
• Substantial base of research on Social movements
• Vietnam war, Women liberation, Environmentalists
• Social movements is one type of campaigns
• Can Social Movement Theory be used to explain
the successes?
60. Social Movements
• Political objective, change the society, long lasting
• Campaigns can be short lived, and can have other
objectives, e.g. a marketing campaign
• Formal or informal structure that directs goals and
means of the social movement
• Campaigns in social movements have a protest
repertoire, means, tactics, strategies
• Demonstrations, signing a petition..
• Is lifespan important anymore? Technology may
reduce time to achieve a result.
61. Social Movements
• A protest group is, by definition, a collectivity of
actors who want to achieve their shared goal or
goals by influencing decisions of target.
• What is the difference between a protest group
and a social movement
o Size
o Structure
o Longevity
• But what is really size, structure and longevity?
[Karl-Dieter Opp: Theories of Political Protest and Social Movements,
Routledge, 2009]
62. Social Movement Theory
• During the last two decades, there has been a growing
consensus that social movements can be explained
from three factors: This theory identifies three factors that
must be present.
• Political opportunities
• Mobilizing structures
• Framing processes
[McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1996). Introduction: Opportunities,
mobilizing structures, and framing processes - toward a synthetic, comparative
perspective on social movements. In D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy & M. N. Zald
(Eds.), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (pp. 1-20): Cambridge
University Press.]
63. Social Movement Theory
• Political opportunities
• A political opportunity must exist. In order to
mobilize, there must be a possibility to change
current policy. If no one believes it is possible to do
something about a problem, it will be impossible to
mobilize.
64. Social Movement Theory
• Mobilizing structures
• There must be some kind of structure that makes it
possible to enroll supporters of the movement. John D.
McCarthy (McCarthy 1996) tried to enumerate the
range and variety of mobilizing structures. He stressed
the importance of existing informal human networks
such as kinship and friendship networks for mobilization.
But mobilizing structures may also include such things as
a computer network. In this context the computer
network may help mobilization, by facilitating enrollment
and communication. Without mobilizing structures, it will
be impossible to mobilize.
65. Social Movement Theory
• Framing processes
• There must be a clear message that is well
understood by people deciding to support or not to
support the movement. If there is no clear
message, it will be impossible to mobilize.
66. Political Campaigns
Two types of politcal
campaigns:
Politicians trying to
Political
influence the public,
e.g. election
campaigns
campaigns
Grassroot
Citizens trying to
influence politicians campaigns
67. Campaigns
• Bottom up (Initiated by the public)
o Grassroot campaigns
o Campaigns by organizations / groups
• Top down (Initiated by politicians)
o Election campaigns
o Campaigns to get support for a cause
68. Grassroot campaigns
• What is the grassroot?
• From answers.yahoo.com:
"grass roots" means at the individual level.
So a grass roots campaign is one where most of the
action and support is coming from little
guys/individuals at the local level as opposed to a
top-down campaign where big money donors and
people in powerful positions are driving it.
69. What is new
• So we had successful e-campaigns for many years
• But what is new, what is the new mechanisms or
new technology?
73. Impact of Technology
• Technology has always been important
• Technology gives tactical advantages
• But technology can also cause superficial
participation
• Clicktivism
77. Egypt
• Protest repertoire
o Demonstrations in the streets
o But also through social media
• Colleague
• Facebook very important
• Fear wall broke
78. Set Maria Amelie Free
• The case of Maria Amelie, 25 years old
• Illegal immigrant
• Came to Norway when 15 years old
• Finished her M.Sc. Degree in Norway
• Expelled by the Norwegian Government
80. Set Maria Amelie Free
• Facebook
• More than 60.000 «likes» in two days
• More than 90.000 «likes» in one week
81. Set Maria Amelie Free
• She was sent back to Russia,
• But government was pressured into changing the
rules
• She is now arranging documents to get ready for
applying for a work permit in Norway.
• Gave a lot of focus on how illegal immigrants are
treated
84. Interrelationsship
• No social media campaign lives its own life!
• The interrelationship of traditional media and social
media
• Result is often upward spiral
85. New ways
• Background information, fact finding
• Real time updates
o «She is now put in the police car»
o «Watch TV2 now»
• Mobilization for other activities
o Demonstrations
o Amnesty online campaign
o Recurring
• New phenomen: Like, comment, unlike
• Upward spiral effect
