Political Participation in the Digital Age: an Ethnographic Comparison Between Iceland and Germany Tiemann-Kollipost, Julia
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www.ssoar.info Political Participation in the Digital Age: An Ethnographic Comparison Between Iceland and Germany Tiemann-Kollipost, Julia Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Dissertation / phd thesis Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: transcript Verlag Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Tiemann-Kollipost, J. (2020). Political Participation in the Digital Age: An Ethnographic Comparison Between Iceland and Germany. (Digitale Gesellschaft, 25). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839448885 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de Diese Version ist zitierbar unter / This version is citable under: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-72532-8 Julia Tiemann-Kollipost Political Participation in the Digital Age Digital Society | Volume 25 This open access publication has been enabled by the support of POLLUX (Fachinfor- mationsdienst Politikwissenschaft) and a collaborative network of academic libraries for the promotion of the Open Access transformation in the Social Sciences and Humanities (transcript Open Library Politik- wissenschaft 2020) This publication is compliant with the “Recommendations on quality standards for the open access provision of books”, Nationaler Open Access Kontaktpunkt 2018 (https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/2932189) Universitätsbibliothek Bayreuth | Landesbibliothek | Universitätsbibliothek Universitätsbibliothek der Humboldt- Kassel | Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Universität zu Berlin | Staatsbibliothek Köln | Universität Konstanz, Kommuni- zu Berlin | Universitätsbibliothek FU kations-, Informations-, Medienzentrum Berlin | Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld | Universitätsbibliothek Koblenz-Landau | (University of Bielefeld) | Universitäts- Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig | Zentral- u. bibliothek der Ruhr-Universität Bochum Hochschulbibliothek Luzern | Universitäts- | Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek | bibliothek Mainz | Universitätsbibliothek Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Marburg | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Universitätsbibliothek Dresden | Universi- München Universitätsbibliothek | Max tätsbibliothek Duisburg-Essen | Univer- Planck Digital Library | Universitäts- und sitäts- u. Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf | Landesbibliothek Münster | Universitäts- Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg bibliothek Oldenburg | Universitätsbiblio- | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian thek Osnabrück | Universitätsbibliothek Senckenberg | Universitätsbibliothek Passau | Universitätsbibliothek Potsdam | Gießen | Niedersächsische Staats- und Uni- Universitätsbibliothek Siegen | Universitäts- versitätsbibliothek Göttingen | Universitäts- bibliothek Vechta | Universitätsbibliothek bibliothek Graz | Universitätsbibliothek der der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar | Universi- FernUniversität in Hagen | Martin-Luther- tätsbibliothek Wien | Universitätsbibliothek Universität Halle-Wittenberg | Staats- und Wuppertal | Universitätsbibliothek Würz- Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, burg | Zentralbibliothek Zürich | Bundes- Hamburg | Technische Informations- ministerium der Verteidigung - Bibliothek | bibliothek Hannover | Gottfried Wilhelm Landesbibliothek Oldenburg Leibniz Bibliothek - Niedersächsische Julia Tiemann-Kollipost, born in 1986, works at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin. A cultural anthropologist, she completed her PhD at the University of Göttingen. Earlier, she has worked at the Göttingen Institute for Democratic Research. She specializes in the fields of political and digital anthropology, as well as the study of everyday culture and the culture of consumption. Julia Tiemann-Kollipost Political Participation in the Digital Age An Ethnographic Comparison Between Iceland and Germany Dissertation at the University of Göttingen (2018) Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Regina Bendix, Prof. Dr. Valdimar Hafstein (University of Iceland) This book is based on my dissertation, which was kindly supported by Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft (German Business Foundation) (sdw) and Graduier- tenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen (Graduate School for Humani- ties Göttingen) (GSGG). Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No- Derivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-commer- cial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work and for commer- cial use, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting rights@ transcript-verlag.de Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. The obligation to research and clear permission lies solely with the party re-using the material. © 2020 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Cover illustration: pixabay.com Proofread by Matthew Fennessy, Hamburg Typeset by Sascha Bühler, Tübingen-Unterjesingen Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4888-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4888-5 EPUB-ISBN 978-3-7328-4888-1 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839448885 Table of Content Acknowledgements | 7 1 Introduction | 11 2 State of Research | 17 2.1 Update Loading? – (Re)defining Political Participation | 18 2.2 Internet and Politics | 31 2.3 Conclusion | 44 3 Doing Ethnography I: Constructing Research Fields | 45 4 Research Fields | 53 4.1 LiquidFriesland | 54 4.2 Betri Reykjavík | 60 5 Doing Ethnography II: Methods and Translating Them into Practice | 65 6 Methodology | 69 6.1 Participant Observation | 69 6.2 Interviews | 71 6.3 Focus Groups | 74 6.4 Conclusion | 75 7 Doing Ethnography III: Making Sense of the Data | 77 8 Results and Discussion | 81 8.1 Political Participation – A Definition? | 81 8.2 Information Practices through the Ages | 83 8.3 Communication within Online Participation Tools: Software is Politics | 97 8.4 Political Participation in the Digital Age | 144 8.5 The Role of Geographical Proximity in (Online) Political Participation | 190 8.6 Conclusion | 195 9 Conclusion | 197 10 Appendix | 201 10.1 Works Cited | 201 10.2 Figures | 221 Acknowledgements It takes a village to raise a child. Apparently, this saying rings true not only for children out of flesh and bones, but also for those out of paper. At this point, thanks to many people and institutions that helped in creating and bearing the latter are due. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Regina Bendix, who has ac- companied me on my journey through academia from the very beginning. Don’t worry too much about university and good grades for now – in this first time away from home, you might have to learn how to cook an egg for yourself. This piece of advice given by Prof. Bendix to a lecture hall full of first-year bachelor students in 2007 has stuck with me ever since. And it perfectly sums up Prof. Bendix’ thoughtful, gentle, and holistic approach to supervising . Thank you, Regina. Another villager helping to raise this paper child of mine is its second su- pervisor Prof. Valdimar Tr. Hafstein. Already a supervisor to my master’s thesis investigating Betri Reykjavík, also one of the research fields for this book, Prof. Hafstein has supportingly accompanied me in the further development of my re- search questions for many years. An Icelander himself, Prof. Hafstein served as a patient counterpart in testing and refining my assumptions about Icelandic culture and society. It was his down-to-earth and pragmatic nature that provided me with, amongst many other things, housing during field stays in Reykjavík and meetings with hard-to-get interview partners. Takk fyrir, Valdimar. I also have to thank Prof. Michaela Fenske, the supervisor of my already men- tioned master’s thesis. My master’s thesis was actually born out of a paper I pre- sented in her class on political culture as early in 2011. Being both a very calm and determined teacher, Prof. Fenske supported me from the very beginning in pursuing my research questions. Cuddles from her sweet dog during meetings also helped. Moreover, thanks are due to Dr. Julia Fleischhack. Although we only met at the end of my writing process, member of the examining board Dr. Fleischhack kindly drew my attention to interesting concepts and latest literature vital to my research. 8 | Political Participation in the Digital Age Clearly, this book would not exist without the many interlocutors I met in both Friesland and Iceland over the years. All of them were wonderful people and I am forever grateful that they took the time to talk to me about politics, participation, the Internet, and the best places to get coffee. Danke and takk! To the Stiftung