Social Networking on Climate

Change: The IDEAL-EU Experience

Francesco Molinari & Erika Porquier
Krems, 6th May 2010
 Abstract
  Our paper reports about the deployment of a multilingual Social
Networking Platform in three Regions of Europe (Catalonia,
Poitou-Charentes and Tuscany), in the context of a EU-funded
Preparatory Action on eParticipation (IDEAL-EU), dealing with
the issue of climate change and energy policy making at the level
of the European Parliament.
  The US (“Obama”) approach and a novel “European” usage of
social networks in political online discourses are compared.
  A recommendation to policy makers is that social networking can
be useful whenever the topics under discussion are limited in
scope, but also wide in implications, so that they require moving
forward from “one-shot” and “ad-hoc” participation experiments,
towards the permanent coverage of “mission critical” Public
Administration functions.

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 Overarching research questions

1.  Are computer-based social networks a valid extension of

those based on face-to-face interaction?
2.  Can the former be of use for politicians and policy makers?
3.  Are there any structural differences between the “US” and
the “EU” approach (if any) to social networking in politics?

 Not a systematic collection of evidence, but some hints

from existing theories and practice

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 Evidence
Research Question #1

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 Contradictory trends?
Global Web Traffic to Social Unique Visitors Growth Vs.
Networking Sites Penetration

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 Social implications of Dunbar’s number

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 Source: Hill and Dunbar (2003)

“ Maximum network size averaged 153.5 individuals,

with a mean network size of 124.9 for those individuals explicitly contacted;
these values are remarkably close to the group size of 150 predicted for humans
on the basis of the size of their neocortex. Age, household type, and the
relationship to the individual influence network structure, although the
proportion of kin remained relatively constant at around 21%. Frequency of
contact between network members was primarily determined by two classes of
variable: passive factors (distance, work colleague, overseas) and active factors
(emotional closeness, genetic relatedness). Controlling for the influence of passive
factors on contact rates allowed the hierarchical structure of human social
groups to be delimited.These findings suggest that there may be
cognitive constraints on network size.”

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 Evidence
Research Question #2

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 Five impact areas of social networks in
US politics

 Branding
 Voter registration
 Fund raising
 Volunteering
 Voter Turnout
Source: Chris Kelly (2007)

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 Can we say they work? Yes, we can!

This graph taken from Marcelo et al. (2008)

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 Evidence
Research Question #3

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 A European Way to Social Networking?
The IDEAL-EU SNP
http://www.ideal-debate.eu

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 The IDEAL-EU SNP Figures
July-December 2008 January-December 2009

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 The IDEAL-EU SNP Traffic

Google Stats

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 Five characters of successful social
networks in EU/US politics

a)  Specialist / rather than generalist like in the US (e.g.

electoral Facebook groups)
b)  Top down (by Government initiative) / rather than
bottom up (Party campaign)
c)  Dealing with policy issues / rather than electoral aims
d)  The presence of lively debates increases reputation and
attractiveness, thus Google driven traffic (only EU)
e)  They can induce mass imitation and multiplicative effects
(both – but at different action levels presumably)

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 “Vote Rush” Vs. “Bar Chat”
The US Way The EU Way

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 Recommendation for EU PA
  Build an ICT infrastructure (better if Open
Source) for social networking whenever the
topics under discussion are limited in scope, but wide
in potential implications.
  This can justify moving forward from “one-shot”
and “ad-hoc” participation experiments, towards
permanent coverage of Public Administration’s
mission critical functions.

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 Disclaimer
  The underlying research was made possible in part by a co-
financement of the European Commission to the IDEAL-EU
Project, a Preparatory Action in the area of eParticipation.
However, the opinions expressed in this paper are solely of
the authors and do not involve any of the EU institutions.

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 References
  R.A. Hill and R.I.M. Dunbar (2003): “Social Network Size in
Humans”. In Human Nature, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 53–72.
  K.B. Marcelo, M.H. Lopez, C. Kennedy and K. Barr (2008):
Young Voter Registration and Turnout Trends. CIRCLE/Rock the
Vote, online: http://www.civicyouth.org
  Morgan Stanley Research (2009): “Economy + Internet Trends.
March 20, 2009”, online: http://www.slideshare.net/tcrock08/
techtrends032009final
  Nielsenwire (2010): “Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent
on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year”. http://
blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/led-by-facebook-twitter-
global-time-spent-on-social-media-sites-up-82-year-over-year/

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 Contacts
  Corresponding author:
Francesco Molinari, mail@francescomolinari.it

Erika Porquier, e.porquier@consorzioctts.it

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