relevantie van sociale media voor wetenschappers

What is the relevance of

blogs for social scientists?

Chris Aalberts

ESHCCwww.chrisaalberts.nl

Introduction

• The relevance of blogs is very much dependent on your goals in academia

Overview• My academic career• Three domains• Mixed approach• Role of social media

www.chrisaalberts.nlESHCC

Academic career

• Studied communication and methodology• Student assistant in methodology• Thesis on correlated method errors• Two publications on Structural Equation

Modeling• PhD student at the ‘important’ Amsterdam

School for Communications Research• PhD defence in 2006 on young people’s

political engagement• Lecturer at EUR since 2006


What is missing?

• How many articles did I publish?• What is my citation score?• What is the impact factor of my last article?

The answer is:• I do not publish articles, except two early ones• My PhD was a Dutch book• I guess I was lucky to do this ten years ago• Generally, I find international articles irrelevant


Three domains

Domains in which social science can be used:• Social science• Blogosphere (journalism)• Consultancy

I will illustrate these domains with my own research for my PhD, supervised by Prof.Dr. Liesbet van Zoonen


Social science

Research question• What is the meaning of youth culture and

popular culture for political understandings of the young?

Characteristics• Qualitative research • Dutch examples of popular culture• Some new empirical outcomes• Probably, an international article was an option


Blogosphere

Popular question• Are current projects aimed at the young able

to engage them into politics?

Possible problems• Need to get familiar with the media• Arguments are general, not specific• Answers are not neutral but opinionated • Contributions are relevant for a short period


Consultancy

Practical question• How can the young be engaged into politics?

Possible problems• Academically, there are no solutions to this

problem• Not clear what the advice should be• Value of academic background is unclear• Completely different skills are required


Mixed approach

Personal frame: • I make politics understandable for citizens• I make citizens understandable for politicians


What does this mean?

• I am an expert in the area of political communication

• My products are research, books, blogs, lectures, etc.

Sources and products are• Academic research• Journalistic work• Opinion pieces/blogs• Practical experiences in the field


Achter de PVV

Project on the voters of Geert Wilders• 87 in depth interviews• Two research workshops at EUR• Two thesis students at EUR• 55 blogs at DeJaap.nl• Book in Dutch • Lectures, blogs and media appearances

afterwards


Achter de PVV

Similarities with traditional academic work• Based on scientific research• Direct link with teaching at the university

Differences with academic work• No international articles• Focused on a general public• Social media are essential to do this


Achter de PVV

Social media• Main way to publish the results• Tool for discussion on these results• Everyday opinion on right-wing populism• Method to validate the results


Local politics

Local politics and the media• Disappearance of local newspapers• Start of some online alternatives

Questions• Which media content is produced and

consumed about local politics in Dutch municipalities?


Local politics

Part 1: academic research• Research workshop in term 2 on this topic• Interviews with journalists, bloggers,

politicians and citizens• Some thesis projects• Online publications


Local politics

Part 2: local campaigning• Municipal elections in March 2013• Blog series on four local candidates• Exploratory research• Diversity in local democracy

Questions• How does local campaigning take place?• What does local democracy in practice look

like? www.chrisaalberts.nl

ESHCC

Role of social media

Four uses• Distribution of your own work• Medium to publish for a large audience• Discussion tool about results • Personal branding for researchers


Picture

• Blog: Cortega9


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blog_(1).jpg

relevantie van sociale media voor wetenschappers

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