THEMA IM FOKUS

Understanding Platform Governance

More and more people and institutions communicate via Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and co. They allow us to share photos, news, opinions and status updates of all kinds with the whole world. Therefore its importance for political developments and moods is rising. The rules of platforms for sorting and blocking, for liking and sharing determine whose voices get heard, how content is being framed and who gets access to which data.

Articles in this dossier

Why a view is not always a view

To measure the reach of online content on the different existing platforms you need a consistent standard. For example on Facebook three seconds count as a view while on YouTube it’s about 30 seconds. Not only users but also the advertising industry and content producers face difficult problems. They are dependent on the platforms and have to deal with intransparent…

22. December 2016

The blame-game in a post-Trump world

Donald Trump’s victory came as a surprise and/or shock to most pollsters, journalists, scientists, and citizens all over the world. And ever since Trump became the president-elect one question seems to be on many people’s minds: “who is to blame?” The answers to this question ranges from the electoral system to international influence but one particular scapegoat is more prominent…

13. December 2016

Crowd Science

Online platforms offer a variety of opportunities for volunteers to engage in the process of knowledge generation. How are Crowd Science projects brought into being and how do they work? An insight. Setting up Crowd science is scientific research that is conducted with the participation of volunteers who are not professional scientists. Crowd science can be seen as a method of scientific…

7. December 2016

The power of platforms

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram structure public discussion and news perception. As their user numbers grow steadily their influence grows mutually. José van Dijck, professor at the department of Media Studies at University of Amsterdam argues that we are more and more living in a platform society, which is shaped by changing power structures in favor of these new…

30. November 2016

The internet infrastructure’s turn to content

One of the internet’s key features is that it keeps networking functions separate from the content and application services that use these functions. However, networking seems to become infused with content thinking. This might have implications for tomorrow’s internet. One of the internet’s key features is that it keeps networking functions separate from the applications and services that use these…

8. November 2016

How Leave won Twitter: an analysis of 7.5m Brexit-related tweets

How did Eurosceptic (leave) and pro-European (remain) activity compare on social media in the run-up to the EU referendum, and was there a relationship between social media users and votes? To find out how leave and remain compared, we collected more than 7.5 million Brexit related tweets during the 23 days leading up to the referendum through Twitter’s streaming API.…

12. September 2016
professionelles Videostudio

Is this actually still user-generated content on Youtube?

The division between professional media and user-generated content on YouTube can hardly be maintained any more. Web videos are increasingly more professional, especially because amateurs are often supported by specialised companies. Urs Kind is asking whether the definition of user-generated content needs to be updated. Die Bedeutung der Plattform YouTube innerhalb der Medienlandschaft nimmt immer weiter zu. Bislang ging man davon…

11. September 2016

5 questions to…

Max Hänska, Lecturer/Assistant Prof. at De Montfort Universitaet in Leicester, GB. His research topics are Social Media in political communication and grassroot journalism as well as the role of communication that questions decision making. As a visiting researcher at HIIG, Max Hänska is currently focussing on twitter discussions and the rise of an european political public sphere. Interview: Cornelius Puschmann. 1. Max, on your website it says…

26. August 2016
Axel Bruns

5 Questions to …

… Visiting Researcher Dr Axel Bruns, Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Interview by Kirsten Gollatz, HIIG. Question: Axel, time’s flying and your visit at the Humboldt Institute is almost over, unfortunately! What are the questions that brought you to Berlin, and did you find…

15. July 2016

Live-streaming on the web and its implications for the media landscape

Live streaming was a unique selling point for linear television for a long time. In the mean time more and more providers enable users to stream their videos online with their smartphone globally and live. These developments are forcing change in the media landscape. Mid May this year a new record on Facebook has been set when Candace Payne reached…

31. May 2016

When YouTubers Strike Back – DMCA and the case of YouTube’s failed dispute resolution system

When a CEO publicly states that the company is “listening” you know something’s up. So when YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki was forced to tweet these very words this came as a result to a week-long shitstorm which formed under the hashtags #wtfu (Where’s the Fair Use?) and #ProtectYouTubers. At the heart of this public outrage is YouTube’s implementation of the fair…

29. March 2016

Branded Content im TV und auf YouTube: Was sind die Unterschiede?

The mixture of editorial and advertising content in television and on platforms like YouTube is a phenomenon that can widely be observed. Acording to laws this seperation is obligatory at least in Germany for all TV-stations and for online distribution as well. Despite this regulatory framework, the perception of branded content differs from linear television to online platforms. This article…

24. March 2016

Like! Share! Log-in! Facebook-Buttons on websites of third party providers and data protection

In the online business (personal) data is considered a currency to pay for companies’ services. The pursuit of ever larger quantities of data concerning (potential) customers by private (online) companies such as facebook has long been one of the main issues in data protection and privacy discussions. This blog posts examines the different ways facebook exchanges data with and collects…

19. August 2015