Rens Vliegenthart’s research while affiliated with Wageningen University & Research and other places

... nuancing the debate further, scholars also mention the 'judicial and legislature constraints' (chan, 2024) in realising election trust and integrity and argue that omission of this aspect is glaring in much of the extant scholarship focusing on election integrity. however, scholars caution that it is not a priori that citizens trust high quality elections as they may discredit such and conversely have trust in low quality elections (Vliegenthart et al., 2024). studying electoral integrity is significant as 'fair and democratic elections legitimise the elected government, foster political trust and satisfaction with democracy, and generate acceptance of election outcomes by opposition parties and citizens (Vliegenthart et al., 2024, p. 496). ...

Reference:

Zimbabwe opposition’s quest for electoral reforms in the post-GNU era: from Unity to action

... Thus, following the literature we expect right-wing parties to use Google Ads more (Gibson & Römmele, 2001) and left-leaning parties to use it less due to the latter's more critical view on tech giants and stronger support for data protection legislation (Kruschinski & Haller, 2017). Indeed, Vliegenthart et al. (2024) find that right-wing political self-placement increases general levels of the acceptability of targeted ads further, thus increasing the use of such communication techniques by right-wing parties. Furthermore, we expect the use of different targeting and/or exclusion criteria to correspond with parties' voter bases (Stuckelberger & Koedam, 2022): Right-wing parties tend to target older and rural populations, while left-leaning parties focus on younger and urban populations. ...

Reference:

Reaching the Voters: Parties use of Google Ads in the German Federal election 2021

... Policy journalists and EU correspondents prioritize exclusive information but face economic limits, which drives them toward efficient sourcing (Martins et al., 2012;Lorenz, 2017;Plavec, 2020). Lobbyistjournalist interactions may vary from formal press conferences to informal chats with anonymous sources (Davis, 2009;Maurer and Beiler, 2018) and, in the EU context, are reported by Schwinges et al. (2024) to involve off-stage exchange patterns that sometimes evolve into long-term partnerships, influence reporting dynamics and shape content before its creation. Communication settings often exist outside official contexts, which encourages participants to transcend professional norms (Malling, 2023). ...

Reference:

Can informal lobbying be responsible? Evidence from Brussels

... The literature on DDC in a national context looks at party-level variables for understanding differences in how extensive and sophisticated data practices are. Chu et al. (2024) look at party age and distinguish between new parties and established parties, but do not find that in practice this distinction is significant for online ad microtargeting. New parties do not benefit more from online ads since they do not necessarily base their success on social media use. ...

Reference:

Data-Driven Campaigning in Data-Dense Small Multiparty Systems: A Party-Level Analysis

... Issue-related political microtargeting aims to create congruence between the addressed issue and the citizen's interests and/or stances (Chu et al., 2023;Endres, 2020). While issue-related political microtargeting is not as widely used as targeting location and socio-demographic criteria-likely for feasibility reasons-it is still prevalent and ascribed significant influential potential (Bennett & Gordon, 2021;Y. ...

Reference:

More Than Meets the Eye: Understanding Political Microtargeting Processing With Gaze-Cued Retrospective Think-Aloud Methodology

... Song et al. (2019) identified a dichotomous representation from 2009 to 2017, depicting China as both a market disruptor and a potential economic catalyst. Zhao et al. (2023) observed an equilibrium between risk and opportunity until 2005, after which tariff disputes shifted focus towards risks and human rights issues. Notwithstanding this trend, Apirakvanalee and Zhai (2023b) noted recent favourable depictions of Chinese economic achievements in BBC podcasts covering China's Belt and Road Initiative while also highlighting uncertainties about its global impacts. ...

Reference:

Portrayals of Chinese companies in American and British economic news tweets during China’s macroeconomic transitions 2007–2023

... By associating each event on the user's device with a timestamp, Android event log data enable linkage with other data collected through different techniques. Such data could be collected via, for example, mobile experience sampling methods, other device sensors (e.g., motion sensors, environmental sensors, position sensors), 1 external sensors, or data from other platforms (Otto et al., 2024). Combining Android event log data with other data sources holds the potential to provide substantial insight into the existence, nature, and extent of a range of media effects across various domains (e.g., well-being, sleep, mobility, news exposure, and multitasking). ...

Reference:

Extracting Meaningful Measures of Smartphone Usage from Android Event Log Data A Methodological Primer

... Sweden has a Democratic Corporatist media system (Br€ uggemann et al., 2014) and remains a country where traditional news media continues to hold a prominent place in citizens' media diets (Newman et al., 2023). While alternative partisan media have become more important, exposure to such outlets is still relatively low in Sweden (Vliegenthart et al., 2024). This may suggest that some of the results are less likely to be replicated in other contexts. ...

Reference:

An asymmetrical reinforcing spiral? Disentangling the longitudinal dynamics of media use and mainstream media trust

... In the Netherlands, studies undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic found increasing distrust as communication and policymaking were focused on technical or scientific knowledge (e.g. Harambam, 2023;Prettner et al., 2023). Studies such as the one described in Box 12.1, and more recent studies about the Dutch vaccination campaign, found that by portraying anyone who poses critical questions as a 'conspiracy theorist' arguably creates a greater gap between citizens, science and government bodies. ...

Reference:

Dealing with the Pitfalls of Inclusion and Diversity: How to Involve Citizens Experiencing Distance from and Distrust of Science and Governance

... Alternative explanations warrant consideration, such as the influence of media portrayals (Surjatmodjo et al. 2024;Van Remoortere and Vliegenthart 2023), the impact of political scandals (Bowler and Karp 2004), and the effects of political polarization in South Korea (Han 2022), each of which may independently affect public trust in the political system. Additionally, legislative gridlock may intensify public distrust by drawing attention to perceived inefficiencies within government rather than to the socio-demographic composition of Assembly members (Schreckhise et al. 2024). ...

Reference:

Elite Politics, Mass Discontent and Political Inequality in South Korea: Who Represents Me?