While the research interests comprise more general issues and fields, the DIID-based projects are in the process of being implemented. They are funded research projects or serve to prepare longer-term initiatives, deal with sub-questions or are continuations of existing projects of DIID researchers.
At least since the so-called “refugee crisis” two years ago, there has been intense debate about how German society deals with refugee movements, how to combat the causes of flight and how to integrate migrants. Media coverage in particular influences which opinions prevail in society on the subject of flight, migration and integration.
The “Wahl-O-Mat” of the Federal Agency for Political Education has become an established and popular online tool in the run-up to elections in Germany. The aims of the Wahl-O-Mat are to inform about political issues and differences between the parties running for elections, to encourage follow-up communication about politics and ultimately to motivate people to vote. Tools like the Wahl-O-Mat are called “Voting Advice Applications” (VAAs).
In today’s society, the promise and reality of public online debates increasingly diverge. Political online communication often fails to be utilized for a fruitful and respectful exchange of opinion. Rather, political discussions in the online environment are characterized by inflammatory, vulgar and defamatory communication behavior.
There is an intense discussion in politics, economy and science about chances and risks of media fragmentation and segmentation of the audience. Other than in the US there are only few empirical studies for the German case regarding media fragmentation online. The aim of our project is to show the development of media and audience fragmentation online in Germany, to find determinants of fragmentation online, and to analyse chances and risks of media fragmentation for democracies.
User comments are a popular form of online participation, for example when citizens publicly discuss political news on social media platforms such as Facebook or in the comment sections of news media. Such discussions contain some democratic potential. However, it is not that potential that characterizes the public discussion currently, but rather hate speech, fake news, and insults.
The goal of the project, which has been funded by the DFG since 2017, is the systematic investigation of ‘Distances in Elections’. Within the framework of the project, which is located in theoretical computer science and funded with a total of 285,000 euros (two-year funding period), distances in elections are to be investigated in three ways. First, distances in elections of individual candidates will be investigated.
YOUniversity is an online participation project that has been running at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf since the 2015/16 winter semester. Using an online platform, students can help shape the content of their seminars and propose their own topics. In the past two project rounds, more than 200 students from different faculties have participated in the project, contributing their own ideas to the seminar design and shaping seminars discursively.
The Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID) is conducting an online participation process within the state association together with the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V. (BUND NRW e.V.). The regional and district executive committees of BUND NRW, the respective executive committees of the BUND NRW Youth as well as the spokespersons of the regional working groups are involved.
Since the German Federal Election in 2002, the “Wahl-O-Mat” has been used as an interactive online information tool by the Federal Agency for Political Education. The aims of the Wahl-O-Mat are to inform users about political issues and the differences between the parties running for elections, to encourage follow-up communication about politics and ultimately to motivate people to vote.
With the rise of the Internet, we now have a basic infrastructure which makes participation easier for everyone independent of space and time. Online participation offers many possibilities for users as well as operators, it has an impact on political and administrative decisions. Additionally, it has the potential to strengthen their acceptance and quality.
In recent years, citizen participation has become an important issue for municipalities. Several forms of citizen participation are possible to involve citizens in political-administrative decisions (e.g., noise-action planning or participatory budgeting). For this purpose, some municipalities increasingly use the internet.
The research project focuses on empirical research into the effects of municipal online participation procedures and the identification of relevant influencing factors. For this purpose, online participation processes on the topic of “Improvement options in bicycle traffic” were carried out in September and October 2017 as part of a comparative case study in the cities of Bonn and Moers as well as in the Cologne district of Ehrenfeld.