MatthewHindman.com: Political science, political communication, and Internet politics http://www.matthewhindman.com Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:05:03 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.matthewhindman.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.matthewhindman.com MatthewHindman.com: Political science, political communication, and Internet politics http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008073040/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/Competing-Against-Google-is-Hard.html Just ask the folks at Cuil.com (http://www.cuil.com), a new search engine which launched last week. Reviews of the new search engine have not been good (http://www.crn.com/software/209800399). Google has thousands of employees doing research and development; Cuil.com has 18. The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:58:14 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008071739/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/Gastronomical-Googlearchy.html Here is a real-world example of how winners-take-all algorithms (such as Google's PageRank) are shaping offline behavior. The new iPhone has an application called Urbanspoon whereby, by shaking the phone, the hip and hungry urbanite is directed to a nearby restaurant.Problem is, the New York Times reports (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/dining/16note.html), the phone only picks restaurants that already have a wealth of positive reviews: If Urbanspoon users haven’t visited and taken a shine to a place, you’ll be shaking your way to carpal tunnel syndrome before it pops up. Googlearchy: it's not just for Web sites any more. The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:58:39 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008070938/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/Debating-the-Power-of-Political-Email.html The Politico's Ben Smith (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/) has a story on Hillary Clinton's e-mail list (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11532.html), and its ostensible power. For political scientists, data on the effectiveness of political e-mail has been mixed at best. Recent field experiments by campaign scholars have found that, compared to control groups, supporters who received candidate e-mail were not more likely to support the candidate, or to turn out on election day. But despite my initial skepticism, traffic data suggests that e-mail has indeed become a powerful force in the 2008 presidential election. Consider the chart below. The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:43:30 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008070737/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/-I-Hate-the-Bloggers.html John McCain on our (supposedly) fragmenting media environment: wset9i4b0b4 Two comments: The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:48:11 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008070736/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/-The-Only-Criterion-for-Membership-Is-a-Modem.html Several aspects of online political discourse never cease to surprise me. Foremost among these is the inability of extremely bright people to understand that they themselves are not ordinary citizens. Andrew Sullivan had a minor classic of the bloggers-are-just-ordinary-folks genre recently. Referring to David Brooks' New York Times op-ed piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27brooks.html) about a group of young right-leaning writers, Sullivan commented (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/06/the-next-conser.html) that Like the blogosphere itself, it's an open group. And the only criterion for membership is a modem. Um, no. Take a closer look at exactly who is on this list: The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:01:06 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008070131/The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy/Announcing-The-Myth-of-Digital-Democracy.html I'm very pleased to announce that my book will be published this winter by Princeton University press. The title: The Myth of Digital Democracy. Over the coming months, I'll be using this space to discuss the book's themes and central findings. Here is the blurb from the Princeton catalog: The Myth of Digital Democracy - The Myth of Digital Democracy Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:03:32 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008052235/Research/The-Hyperlinked-Society-and-the-Online-Public-Sphere.html Another edited volume to which I've contributed has made it to press. The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age, edited by Joe Turow (http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/jturow/) and Lokman Tsui (http://www.lokman.org/) , has come out from DigitalCultureBooks, a new imprint of the University of Michigan Press. My contribution is entitled What is the Online Public Sphere Good For ? My very short answer: scandals and fact-checking, but NOT giving ordinary citizens greater voice in politics. I am particularly critical of what I term trickle up theories of online discourse. Scholars like Yochai Benkler (http://www.benkler.org/) , Daniel Drezner (http://www.danieldrezner.com/) , and Henry Farrell (http://www.henryfarrell.net/) are right about many things, but I argue that their vision of an accessible, bottom-up political discourse doesn't fit with the available evidence. You can see a preprint of the chapter here (images/docs/hindman_online_public_sphere_pre.pdf) . If you like what you read, the book can be purchased from Amazon here (http://www.amazon.com/Hyperlinked-Society-Questioning-Connections-Digital/dp/0472050435/) . Research - Research Thu, 22 May 2008 20:00:00 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2008070434/Research/Infomation-Government-and-Open-Source-Politics.html Governance and Information Technology: From Electronic Government to Information Government, the collected volume edited by David Lazer (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/david-lazer) and Viktor Mayer-Schö (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/viktor-mayer-schoenberger)enberger (http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/viktor-mayer-schoenberger) , is now out from MIT Press. The volume includes my chapter 'Open Source Politics' Reconsidered: Emerging Patterns in Online Political Participation. My previous discussion of the chapter can be found here (index.php/2007050121/Research/Reconsidering-Open-Source-Politics.html) , and while you can find a preprint version of my chapter here (images/docs/hindman--reconsidering%20open%20source%20politics.pdf) .Better yet, click here (http://www.amazon.com/Governance-Information-Technology-Electronic-Government/dp/0262633493) to buy the book from Amazon. Research - Research Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:00:00 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2007041619/Research/Amos-Andy-n-the-APSA-Political-Scientists-the-Public-and-the-Origin-of-Commercial-Broadcasting.html In recent years, many have called for political science to engage more strongly with the public. In his 2004 APSA presidential address, Robert Putnam declared that attending to the concerns of our fellow citizens is... an obligation as fundamental as our pursuit of scientific truth. Other scholars (and other APSA presidents) have echoed this theme. APSA committees on inequality, and on civic education and engagement, have recently striven to make their work more accessible and more relevant. There is a strange omission in these debates. In calling for political science to have a stronger public presence (in Putnam's words), scholars have ignored the historical period when the public presence of political science was at its zenith. Research - Research Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2007032317/Research/We-Don-t-Need-No-Stinkin-Parties.html Legislative scholars have long argued about the role that political parties play in shaping how legislators vote. Some claim that parties just reflect members' preexisting preferences. Others suggest that the highly-structured voting patterns seen in the U.S. congress are due to the bonding effects parties provide.This conference paper (coauthored with Rodolfo Espino (http://www.asu.edu/clas/polisci/personnel/espino.html)) looks at the parties v. preferences debate using an unusual data source: roll call voting data from the Arizona Territorial Legislature. Party organizations were slow to arrive in Arizona; when they finally did emerge, they were weaker and more divided than in nearly any other area of the U.S. The five decades of territorial voting data help disentangle the influence of partisanship, and suggest that neither side in the parties v. preferences debate has it quite right. Click here (images/docs/espinohindmanwpsa2007.pdf) for a .pdf file of the paper. Full citation and abstract below the fold. Research - Research Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.matthewhindman.com/index.php/2007060816/Research/Voice-Equality-and-the-Internet.html The book manuscript is finally off to reviewers. I'm glad to have the project off of my desk, and onto the desks of others. But it also means that I have a relatively polished book manuscript ready for general perusal. Click here (images/docs/hindman--voice%2C%20equality%2C%20and%20the%20internet--draft%205.30.07.pdf) if you would like to read it. (Warning--the link is to a 650 KB .pdf file.) I would love to hear comments and criticisms. I'm also offering a $.10 bounty for every typo found. First come, first served. Research - Research Fri, 08 Jun 2007 22:17:11 +0100