Presentation at Higher Seminar at KAU 5 /sep

1. Studying political participation using
a (n)ethnographic method
Jakob Svensson
Presentation MKV Karlstad
5/9 2012

2. Overview
Background and Research Questions
Three Studies
The Method: (n)Ethnography
Problem 1) Nina as Case Study
Problem 2) Ethical issues Studying Online Communities

3. Background and Research Questions
Social Media and the Rationalities of Political Participation
How can we understand contemporary political participation in
connected societies?
What motivates/ governs participation?

4. Background and Research Questions
What is Political Participation?
The Political deals with the organization of society, distribution of
its resources and how to conduct our lives together (Svensson 2011)
Participatory Practices can be subdivided on the basis from
where they are initiated

5. Background and Research Questions
a) Parliamentary Initiated Participation
b) Activist Participation - initiated from outside the Parliament but
direct their participation towards the people and institutions of
representative democracy
c) Popular Cultural Participation – initiated from people and
places outside the Parliament and not from the beginning
directed towards it (Svensson, 2011)

6. Background and Research Questions
Late Modernity - Processes of pluralization, fragmentation and
reflexive individualization are given priority at the expense of the
common cultural frames of reference that dominated social spaces
and its organization in modernity (such as family, nation, class,
party affiliation) (Giddens, Beck, Dahlgren)
Digital Late Modernity – The contemporary online media and
communication landscape develops and interacts in tandem with
the pluralization, fragmentation and reflexive individualization of
culture, lifestyle and tastes (Coleman & Blumler, 2009; Leaning,
2009; Feenberg, 2010; Svensson, 2011)

7. Background and Research Questions
When communication goes from one-to-many to many-to-many on
social media platforms, and reflexive negotiation of the self is
practiced semi-publically in front of networks of peers and like-
minded, political participation changes and becomes governed by
other forms of/ combination of rationalities than before.

8. Overview
Background and Research Questions
Three Studies
The Method: (n)Ethnography
Problem 1) Nina as Case Study
Problem 2) Ethical issues Studying Online Communities

9. Three Studies
Parliamentary Initiated Participation – A study of Nina Larsson

15. Three Studies
Both instrumental and communicative rational discourse to make
her practices meaningful
But something else was going on – social media was used as
amplifiers, for virtual back-patting and image management

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20. Three Studies
Activist Participation – A study of Middle Class Activist in
Southern Stockholm

24. Blg

27. Three Studies
Activists used social media to connect to issues and people with
similar opinions and similar interests - like-mindedness
The more specialized the group, the more possibilities for action -
fragmentation, specialization and action

28. Three Studies
Social media platforms underlined connectedness and responsiveness
as norms/ values online - updating becoming a pivotal practice.
Updating is a two-way practice
Not only about information and mobilization – also about identity
- Social media platforms as looking glasses - Networked Individualism
Late modern reflexive individualization is not only about the liberation of
the individual from institutions of modernity - but also a demand to supply
our life stories, to import our selves into our biographies through our own
actions (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim).

29. Three Studies
Popular Cultural Participation – A study of Qruiser and FBK (?)

30. Overview
Background and Research Questions
Three Studies
The Method: (n)Ethnography
Problem 1) Nina as Case Study
Problem 2) Ethical issues Studying Online Communities

31. (n)Ethnography
Social media platforms are neither neutral artefacts nor have inherent
capacity for social organization and change (Coleman & Blumler;
Feenberg). Technology and society develops in a dialectical relationship
to each other. They should therefore be understood from its uses and its
social contexts (Digital Late Modernity)
Participatory practices on social media platforms are constructed and
made meaningful through a range of complex processes.
Hence it is important to study how and in what contexts political
participation take place on social media platforms.

32. (n)Ethnography
My aims are explorative and hypothesis generative – hence I have
chosen to use an ethnographic method, both in its traditional meaning
(fieldwork - to hang out with, observe, interview and live among
participants - which explains the choices of study objects), but I have
also used ethnography in its virtual form – netnography. Netnography
works well in combination with a more traditional ethnographic method,
especially since the online and offline world mutually influence each
other (Van Dijk, 2006; Baym, 2010).

33. (n)Ethnography
The internet is understood here as a social room, and the aim is to
understand the social interactions taking place online.
As a researcher you can free yourself from the physical place to conduct
observations in a virtual context on communities, focusing on user-
generated information flows.
Social Media platforms can be used as archives of information, and you
can create your own archives

34. (n)Ethnography
Netnography focuses exclusively on net-based social environments. The
physical absence is compensated by different textual and figurative
representations, which gives the user larger possibilities to reflect on, test
and review different ways of action before they become part of the social
interaction. Because of this enhanced possibility/ requirement of
reflexivity, netnography is a good companion to theories of late
modernity.
We can distinguish between asynchronous postings, allowing for
greater reflection and planning and synchronous postings, happening in
real time.

35. (n)Ethnography
In southern Stockholm followed the activists on all their different social
media platforms, took field notes and screenshots.
Quantitative background data – counted tweets, facebook and ning-
postings – who posted and how much.
Participated in online discussions, forwarded tweets
Offline interviews and participations

36. (n)Ethnography
With Nina Larsson I followed her on Twitter, Facebook, A campaign
website, and two blog - took field notes and screenshots.
Content analyses – counted blog facebook and twitter postings, when
and how much she posted – who and what she addressed and retweeted

37. Overview
Background and Research Questions
Three Studies
The Method: (n)Ethnography
Problem 1) Nina as Case Study
Problem 2) Ethical issues Studying Online Communities

38. Problem 1
Having got access to many studies on the Swedish elections 2010,
and not the least the results from the SOM Värmland Survey, I
wanted to put these results in relation with my research results on
Nina's use of Social media in her campaign.
Nina would be framed as an example of how social media were
used in the Swedish elections, hence Nina shall serve as a case.
But it is not completely evident to mix case study and ethnography

39. Problem 1
Most studies from the Swedish elections 2010 focus on either on
political parties, or the electorates use of social media – not on
candidates use. These studies can then mostly be used to
describe the general setting, but they say little about the
“population” of political candidates.
There are studies from the UK and US, but their party system is
different. In a multiparty system like Sweden the party has a
stronger role than in the US and UK

40. Problem 1
Nina would not be a typical case since she did use and integrate
social media (Compared to Grusell & Nord, 2011).
But even though a deviant case her conscious use of social media
makes her suitable for an in-depth explorative study into the
rationales of social media campaigning practices.

41. Problem 1
Consider her as a pathway case (Gerring, 2007) since the study of
her aims at elucidating causal mechanisms behind political
candidates uses .
The study is explorative and hypothesis generating in its aims
rather than hypothesis testing, looking to spread light into
mechanism rather than effects, hence a pathway case.
Nina is an example of a future generation of politicians and her
campaign provides insights into the rationales of campaigning on
social media platforms in a party-based representative democracy.

42. Overview
Background and Research Questions
Three studies
The Method: (n)Ethnography
Problem 1) Nina as Case Study
Problem 2) Ethical issues Studying Online Communities

43. Problem 2
To study popular cultural participation I will participate on the Ice-
hockey team FBK's forum online and the HBTQ forum Qruiser to
study how the political occurs and is discussed and what
rationalities governs political participation here.
I will use mostly a netnographic method (perhaps some offline
interviews/ telephone interviews as well as content analyses).

44. Problem 2
The problem: These sites are not public in the sense that you first
have to become a member before you can take part/ read the
threads.