Polls: the opinion of the people or statements from the media?

The third week of September is traditionally an exciting week for Dutch politicians. It’s the official start of the political season. It all starts with the speech of Queen Beatrix on ‘prinsjesdag’. The content is written entirely by the government, and contains the political program for 2011-2012. After the ceremonial happening of the balcony scene (where the entire royal family waves to the people), it’s the Secretary of Finance’s turn to present the suitcase with the national budget. The real fireworks start on Wednesday as the government defends the choices for cuts or taxes.

Tagged with: polls, panels, politics, participation,

Terrorism is crossmedia

The shocking killing spree in Oslo is a stark reminder of the fact that violence is an extremely effective way to draw attention. Some of the media attention is due to the sheer number of casualties (77). However, Breivik is not, or not only, a psychopath going on a killing spree to satisfy a deeply felt need for revenge. While he probably used a ``rationalization’’ of the killing, his main intention seems to have been promoting his political ideas on multiculturalism. A killing spree by someone who looked reasonably normal beforehand is already very unsettling. Finding that it was meant to further stir up an emotional issue like immigration, and the treatment of the (perceived) cultural and political elite of society, makes it even more unsettling. I think Breivik was fully aware of this and made it central to his planning, because I believe what he did was planning a cross medial marketing campaign using an event as a medium to attract attention. In a perverse sort of way, he did this very well as he is so far out of the ordinary that he will not be forgotten in years to come. Needless to say, that should not be taken as a recommendation of his methods. Instead I want to begin analyzing what makes us so vulnerable.

Tagged with: terrorism, breivik, crossmedia, politics, politicians, wilders,

How to analyze political tweets

The politics are totally into social media. Nothing new about that. That politicians are trying to close the gap between politics and the people by using social media, is also nothing new. But is this really the reason why they are using social media, or are they only saying this. What kind of messages is sent by politicians? How do people react to these messages? To what extent do politicians respond to the reactions of citizens? In the past two years Chris Aalberts and Maurits Kreijveld have done research to find answers to these questions. These answers are described in their book ‘veel gekwetter, weinig wol’. To my humble opinion, the most interesting contribution from this research is the number of new questions that come out of their results. I would like to describe some answers from Aalberts and Kreijveld given to the three questions above. With these answers I’d like to ask some new questions and introduce you to the new database that gives opportunities to answer these new questions. 

Tagged with: database, politics, social media,