DATA TWITTER POPULISME

Twitterdata van Wilders, Baudet, Asscher en Klaver geupload naar Voyant.
Hier is de interface voor het maken van analyse en visualisaties.

Rechtsboven verschillende  opties voor analyse; linksonder selecteer documenten.
De gemaakte analyses kunnen ook worden geexporteerd!

VOYANT TOOLS
(klik op export rechtsboven om te vergroten of andere analyse)


Hieronder een scatterdiagram van de vier twitterbestanden:
(klik om te vergroten)

Toelichting: De positie van de vier documenten met tweets is rood omcirkelt. De eindpunten van de dimensies zijn de rode vierkanten. De x as heb ik geinterpreteerd als: van vreemdelingenhaat naar identiteit; deze as verklaart 49% van de variantie. Y as heb ik opgevat als: van samenwerking naar souvereiniteit; verklaart 37% van de variantie.

TWO FACES OF TWITTER POPULISM IN THE NETHERLANDS

Twitter - mini-blogging or messaging service on the internet - has changed the process of communication. In professional communication networks like for example journalism Twitter is an important new source. Twitter brought fundamental change

in professional political communication networks. The classical model of communication of Berelson and Lazersfeld, known as ‘two step flow of communication,’ seems to have lost it predominance to Twitter. Direct communication to the audiences gained in importance. An important issue in discussion about the consequences of Twitter is the idea of equality in the process of communication. Because in principle the technology behind Twitter does not discriminate between users, whether they are politicians, journalists or ordinary citizens. This equality between users lowers the threshold to participate in the process of communication, and therefore it is said Twitter contributes to democracy. With references to the classical study of Jurgen Habermas about the changes in the public sphere, Twitter could enhance the process of democratic decision making and contribute to open public debate.

Optimism

This technological optimism about Twitter emerged in the nineties of past century when the Internet was still freely developing. However, in the light of recent developments, especially the rise of populism on Twitter, one can have serious doubts. In this study we will analyze the tweets of two Dutch politicians: Geert Wilders (PVV, Party for Freedom) and Thierry Baudet (FvD, Forum for Democracy), Both parties are relatively new in the Dutch political landscape. They both rose because of the resistance against the neo-liberalism that replaced the traditional party system based on religion and ideology.

HET TWITTER-POPULISME VAN WILDERS EN BAUDET

Twitter heeft het communicatieproces fundamenteel veranderd. In professionele communicatienetwerken als de journalistiek  is Twitter een belangrijke nieuwsbron. In politieke netwerken heeft  het klassieke communicatiemodel van Berelsen en Lazarsfeld aan belang ingeboet. Niet meer ‘two step flow’, maar directe communicatie is het trefwoord. Een belangrijk punt in debatten over het effect van Twitter is dat het een gelijk speelveld creëert. Immers, er zijn in principe geen technologische aspecten die een onderscheid maken tussen de participanten, of het nu politici, journalisten of burgers zijn. De verlaging van de drempel schept gelijkheid die ten goede komt aan het democratische proces is de redenering. In die zin zou Twitter bijdragen tot een vergroting van de democratische besluitvorming en publieke discussie, vaak met verwijzingen naar Habermas’ studie over openbaarheid.

Dit technologisch optimisme, dat hand in hand ging het de opkomst van Internet blijkt nauwelijks stand te kunnen houden in het licht van de feitelijke ontwikkelingen. Meer in het bijzonder als we kijken naar het twitteren van Wilders en Baudet.

Protect your Privacy against Surveillance Capitalism

Compared to China we are doing much better, most people think. Here the government is not watching us like a digital big brother. Using face recognition on each corner, watching your online behavior and storing all these data in file. This only partly true as here the big tech companies are watching us; surveillance capitalism by Facebook Google and the like. Our digital data, our wanderings on the internet are collected, exchanged and sold, for advertising and finally to make money. Data as silicon snake oil. Also here your privacy is under attack.

Some time ago I down loaded some location data collected by Google and it was scary to see details of my whereabouts. Here is the story with the maps(http://d3-media.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-data-traveling-back-in-time.html).

How can you protect yourself against this breach of privacy? 

MoodleBox

LAMP
Moodle is an excellent e-learning environment. The software is open source. Free, open  and completely controlled by the admin. However installing Moodle is a bit complicated and time consuming. Apart from a complete web server, a database must be installed too. You need a complete LAMP sever(Linux, Apache, Mysql and Php) . For small e-learning project it is also overkill.

MOODLE IN A PI
The solution for small project, fast and easy install in Moodlebox, running on RaspberryPi.
Download the image and flash it on an sd-card of minimal 32 GB. You have various options to connect to the service. Over Ethernet, when RaspberryPi is connected to a LAN; access from outside, from the internet is also possible, using a domain name and port forwarding. Moodlebox creates its own wireless network, so user can also log in using WiFi. Connecting with an app is the last possibility. The guides for setting up all these different connection is strait forward and easy to use.

CONNECTIONS
For me the most interesting advantage is the scale: a small RaspberryPi that could be used in almost any classroom or computer-lab, and is directly- over LAN or WiFi - accessible. My number of students/journalist in a training is now more than 20, that number can easily handled by the Pi.

EXCEL BASICS
Let's take an example. Excel skills are a prerequisite for data journalism. However you don't want to start from scratch. It is better when the participants have worked a bit with Excel; exactly here is the e-learning environment needed. As preparation  for the training they start at the Moodlebox with the Excel course. 

D3 MEDIA under Water

Bonne Vallon, Seychelles.

At the end of 7 training session at 7 African cities, diving at the last one, Victoria Mahe island.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/sOrZA3jhiYs

JOURNALISM AS ALGORITHM

Automating the News. How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media. By Nicholas Diakopoulos 

ISBN 9780674976986 ; Harvard University Press 2019

At the end of a training in standard data journalism, focusing on Excel, scraping and visualizing data a question came up how to integrate data skills in journalism education? Discussion ended in two opposed opinions. The first stated that is was cheap and easy to integrate data journalism skills in the standard curriculum as a kind of specialization. That is instead of TV, Radio, Magazines and Newspapers, an other choice for specialization was created high lighting wide range of data journalism skills. The opposition took a longer approach and defended the idea of creating a new curriculum that could be named computational journalism. Computer science and therefore coding like R would be an important element. Then, I was not convinced by the arguments of the second group and believed that borrowing elements of computer sciences for data journalism would be the right approach.

Now I am less convinced and believing that there is demand for a separate study as computational journalism. There are interesting developments in that direction. First there is the growing interest in the use of R at leading news media.