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Social Media

The “Social Media” POSTGEN Component

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A dedicated POSTGEN “Social Media” work package will collect and analyze observational data from online social networks to investigate generational patterns of de-ideologization. It will assess – in generation-aware terms:

  1. “who leads and who follows” in terms of agenda setting power by political and non-political influencers as well as traditional media actors (in terms of introducing and framing topics and issues in the public debate);
  2. to what extent the attention devoted to specific issues (both by influencers and ordinary social media users) spreads across multiple issues (issue breadth) and presents consistency patterns revealing a possible ideological structure.

The WP will feature:

  1. The construction of lists of influencers and ordinary social media users, along with generational classifications based on inference models.
  2. Collection and time-aware classification of tweets (according to issue and frame) for each group of actors, to analyze first-level and second-level agenda setting.
  3. Assessment of issue breadth (issue mentions and attention across different domains) and their ideological structuring for different users and groups thereof, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.
  4. A replication of the ICCP design to assess the issue breadth and ideological structuring of party campaigns at election time.

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In-depth interviews

The “In-Depth Interviews” POSTGEN Component

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A dedicated “In-Depth Interviews” POSTGEN work package will produce in-depth interviews with young people to explore the meanings they attribute to their political reference points (in particular left and right, progressive and conservative).

An innovative trait of the WP will be in tracing back young people’s beliefs to their political biography, with special attention to political socialization (Zuckerman/Dasovic/Fitzgerald 2007). This requires participants to have had the possibility of acquiring some political experience, resulting in a target population between 25 and 35.

The WP will use semi-structured interviews, combining a predetermined set of open questions with a focus on specific themes.

A tentative list of topics ranges from political socialization to participative profile (in formal and non-formal political environments), electoral career (party choice and non-voting motivations), structure of political attitudes, conceptualization of the political space, meanings and relevance of ideological references, representation of political and social conflicts, perception of adult society, generational relationships and prevailing rhetoric on young people’s role in the public domain.

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Schools

The “Schools” POSTGEN Component

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A dedicated “Schools” POSTGEN work package will feature interviews with students in secondary school. This WP aims at observing the initial attribution of content to political concepts and the definition of political meanings, through several studies in secondary schools.

The core of this WP will be the administration of a questionnaire through electronic devices, supplied by researchers to a whole class of students. The questionnaire will explore attitudes and values of pupils around their first voting experience, mapping their positions on salient issues and reconstructing any presence of ideological organization.

The study will cover approximately 20 secondary schools (including “licei”, technical and professional high schools), with more than one class involved (ideally three classes per school, either fourth or fifth year) for a total of approx. 60 classes and 1200 students. This will provide a wealth of information on attitudes, opinions, political and civic engagement of students not yet fully socialized to the democratic process.

The project will also explore the possibility of having an innovative questionnaire, deviating from a standard public opinion survey, by adopting communication registers common to youngsters. Framed in a gamified fashion, such potential development could provide students with feedback on aspects such as location in a political space, closeness to parties, candidates or ideologies.

Information will not be directive and only intended to help understand basic concepts of political debate. In addition, the project will take advantage of the opportunity for discussion of specific issues with students, with presentations and discussions before and after questionnaire administration. This will also offer the possibility to define a quasi-experimental setting.

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Public Opinion

The “Public Opinion” POSTGEN Component

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A dedicated “Public Opinion” POSTGEN work package will use public opinion surveys to collect information about political attitudes and behaviour in representative samples of the Italian voting-age population. Following the ICCP scheme, this WP will gather standardized, issue-rich (approx. 30 issues), quantitative-oriented information about intergenerational differences in the structure of both the party and attitude space.

The sample strategy will cover the Italian population aged 18 or older, with an oversampling of respondents aged 18-34 (overall N=4000 approx.). Data will be collected through a survey with a panel design, including two waves, taking place in proximity of general and European elections (in 2022 and 2024), so as to explore the relevance of major national and international political events in attitude formation.

The panel will feature CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) interviews, ensuring efficiency and flexibility, and allowing the adoption of survey experiments for item validation. Issue selection will be synchronized across the CAWI and the social media component to allow cross-dataset analysis of issue opportunities and party strategy. We also plan to contextualize generational differences in a longer-term context using data from past surveys on Italy (ITANES, World Value Survey, European Values Study).

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General

POSTGEN hiring! Two post-doctoral positions open at Luiss Rome

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A call is open from Apr 29, 2022 to May 30, 2022 (14:00 CEST) for two three-year post-doctoral positions at the POSTGEN Luiss unit (see the POSTGEN project description and the people involved in the project):

  1. Profile description for CALL #67 – Theory and management

The selected postdoctoral researcher will be in charge for specific tasks related to the project work package dedicated to the elaboration of the theoretical framework, as well as for tasks related to overall project management (project scheduling, coordination across project units and WPs, organization of events, etc.).

The ideal candidate has:

  • a background in empirical social research with a quantitative approach;
  • at least some familiarity with classic and recent literature in the fields of: political attitudes and behavior; party competition; the effects of (mainstream and social) media on political attitudes and behavior; generational dynamics;
  • at least some familiarity with quantitative analysis of social science data at various levels (individuals, parties, media);
  • at least some familiarity with common data analysis software/programming languages (Stata, R);
  • some record of scientific publications;
  • some previous participation to international research projects.
  • teamwork experience;
  • some experience in the organization of events;
  • some experience in organizational activities related to a research group.

The selected researcher will actively cooperate with the project team, and will be offered the possibility of a fully-fledged research experience within the POSTGEN project, including full participation to research activities and to the dissemination of the project, ranging from participation to international conferences to significant opportunities for scientific publications on international journals.

2. Profile description for CALL #66 – Social Media

The selected postdoctoral researcher will be in charge for specific tasks related to the project work package dedicated to social media, in terms of both data collection and quantitative analysis.

The ideal candidate has:

  • a background in empirical social research with a quantitative approach;
  • familiarity with manual and automated collection of social media data (including access to social media APIs);
  • familiarity with quantitative analysis of social media data, both with human coding and with algorithmic (supervised and unsupervised) approaches;
  • familiarity with common data analysis software/programming languages (Stata, R, Python);
  • some record of scientific publications;
  • some previous participation to international research projects.

The selected researcher will actively cooperate with the project team, and will be offered the possibility of a fully-fledged research experience within the POSTGEN project, including full participation to research activities and to the dissemination of the project, ranging from participation to international conferences to significant opportunities for scientific publications on international journals.

APPLY NOW!

CALL #67 – Theory and management

CALL #66 – Social Media