The project deals with the contemporary measurement and regulation of opinion power on the Internet. Among other things, proposals will be developed on how the opinion power of intermediaries (e.g. social media, search engines) can be determined and taken into account in regulation. Subproject I will develop a typology of non-journalistic content providers with political relevance and examine their contribution to diversity. In subproject 2, an automated method for estimating opinion power will be developed, in which both the receptive and communicative resonance of providers will be measured. Subproject 3 focuses on diversity as the central target norm of media concentration control. The question is what influence the communication logic of intermediaries has on content diversity and how this is to be evaluated in the context of usage diversity. The expected outputs of the project are (1) tested instruments for identifying non-publicized providers with political relevance, (2) procedures for the automated estimation of opinion power and diversity measurement in the field of intermediaries, and (3) recommendations for a modern regulation of media opinion power.
Head of project:
Prof. Dr. Birgit Stark
Responsible research staff:
Daniel Stegmann M.A.
Cooperation partners:
Prof. Dr. Carsten Reinemann
Prof. Dr. Simon Hegelich
Funding:
Bayerisches Forschungsinstitut für digitale Transformation (bidt)
Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM)
Period:
2019-2023