Political opinion making on blog and twitter – an European comparison of actors, standards and internet literacy – Editor: Heinrich Bücker-Gärtner Report of an International Seminar March 14 th to 26 th , 2010 Berlin School of Economics and Law Faculty of Public Administration Within the framework of the LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME – ERASMUS DE-2009-ERA/MOBIP-ZuV-29794-1-39 2 Contents A Introduction ..................................................................................................... 5 B Programme ..................................................................................................... 7 D Country reports............................................................................................. 15 1 The relation between new media and political awareness in Belgian .. 15 1.1 Walking through the digital divide in Flanders ..................................... 15 1.2 New media and political education ...................................................... 21 1.3 Information through new media as a challenge for journalism............. 27 1.4 Blogs and their consequences............................................................. 38 1.5 Politicians and their blogs: a case-study.............................................. 42 1.6 Conclusions......................................................................................... 45 1.7 References .......................................................................................... 46 2 Political opinion making and web 2.0 in Germany ............................... 51 2.1 The digital divide.................................................................................. 51 2.2 Political education on the internet and media literacy of the users ..... 53 2.3 Political information on the internet - a challenge for journalism.......... 61 2.4 Political blogs in Germany ................................................................... 65 2.5 Political participation on web 2.0 – an example of political youth organizations in Germany.................................................................... 69 3 Political opinion making on blog and twitter - A European comparison of actors, standards and web competences - Report of the University of Vienna ....................................................... 71 3.1 Portraits of politicians in web campaigns – an Austrian example ........ 71 3.2 A comparison of political opinion making and political education on the world wide web ......................................................................... 81 3.3 Right-wing extremism and web 2.0...................................................... 85 3.4 References .......................................................................................... 93 4 Politics & New Media in Poland........................................................... 97 4.1 Preface ................................................................................................ 97 4.2 Brief history of Polish media ................................................................ 97 4.3 Polish Internet users............................................................................ 98 4.4 Media education and media literacy .................................................. 101 4.5 Journalism and new media................................................................ 103 4.6 Blogging in Poland............................................................................. 107 4.7 Politics and the Internet ..................................................................... 113 3 5 Swedish Politics and the New Media................................................. 115 5.1 The Swedish media market ............................................................... 115 5.2 The media literacy of the users.......................................................... 118 5.3 History of journalism .......................................................................... 120 5.4 Classical media on the internet and their use .................................... 121 5.5 New social media............................................................................... 126 5.6 The new journalists – the people....................................................... 133 D Reports of the Workgroups......................................................................... 135 1 Democracy 2.0?................................................................................. 135 1.1 Discussions with politicians ............................................................... 135 1.2 E-petitions.......................................................................................... 136 1.3 E-voting ............................................................................................. 137 1.4 Restrictions by digital divide .............................................................. 137 1.5 Literature ........................................................................................... 138 2 New Media as a Challenge for Journalism ........................................ 139 2.1 Relation between an old and new media........................................... 139 2.2 Journalists and new media – traditional media facing economical problems......................................................................... 140 2.3 Citizen journalism and its impact on traditional journalism................. 141 2.4 Ethics in the ‘new reality’ ................................................................... 143 2.5 Functions of journalism in new media................................................ 144 2.6 Conclusions....................................................................................... 145 3 Possibilities, limits and dangers of political mobilization in democracies and dictatorships by the new media ............................. 146 3.1 Possibilities ...................................................................................... 146 3.2 Limits and dangers ............................................................................ 147 3.3 The European Agenda and the internet............................................. 150 4 More information – less knowledge? ................................................. 151 4.1 Information overload.......................................................................... 151 4.2 E-Learning......................................................................................... 152 4.3 More individualization or more political participation?........................ 154 4 A Introduction Since 1997 the Berlin School of Economics and Law (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin (HWR)) has already organized ten international workshops 1 qualified as Intensive Program (IP) in the context of the European University Pro- gram LIFELONG LEARNING – ERASMUS. There has been a co-operation with at least three universities of different European countries, among them universities from Belgium, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland and Swe- den. The focused subjects vary according to the interests of the participating part- ners. This report is presenting the results of the IP workshop on the subject “Politi- cal opinion making on blog and twitter – an European comparison of actors, stan- dards and internet literacy” which took place in Berlin from March 14 th to 26 th , 2010. These workshops are designed according to the principle “experts meet experts”. They comprise 10 workdays and feature a very intensive participation of students. The students acquire the essential aspects of the topic of the seminary within a preparation course at their home university and prepare a presentation (look part C – reports of different countries). The technical input is completed by the experts’ presentations. On this basis the different viewpoints of the representatives of the participating universities meet and during the workshop the nationally mixed work- groups discuss solutions to the problems and create a report comprising the re- sults thereof (look part D – reports from the workgroups). The concept of the intensive program offers very good conditions for an intensive exchange between lecturers and students of different countries. Besides the tech- nical discussions, especially insights into the specific academic practices (e. g. the way students and lecturers are dealing with each other) and standards (compe- tences of presentation and communication as well as breadth and depth of the students’ technical knowledge) are helpful to receive impulses for the own univer- sity and the personal design of one’s role as lecturer. In the current year the workshop took place at the Faculty of Public Administration of HWR Berlin. The following persons participated: • 2 professors and 9 students of the Faculty of Economic and Public Administration of University College Ghent (Belgium), • 2 lecturers and 8 students of the Faculty of Political Science and Journal- ism of Adam Mickiewicz University Pozna ń (Poland), • 1 lecturer and 8 students of the department of Human Sciences of Lin- naeus-University Växjö/Kalmar (Sweden), • 1 lecturer and 6 students of the Institute of Contemporary History of the University of Vienna (Austria), • 2 professors and 14 students of the Faculty of Public Administration of HWR Berlin 1 http://www.hwr-berlin.de/internationales/projekte/erasmus-intensivprogramme/ 5 The program designed by the hosting faculty (look part B) has put special empha- sis on including practical political experiences. The presentations of the experts won