Weizenbaum Discussion Paper

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Auflistung Weizenbaum Discussion Paper nach Erscheinungsdatum

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    The Selective Catalyst: Internet use as a mediator of citizenship norms' effects on political participation
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2019) Leißner, Laura; Valentim, Antonio; Porten-Cheé, Pablo; Emmer, Martin
    We test the mediating effect of media use on the effects of citizenship norms - shared ideas of what a good citizen is - on political participation. We do so by comparing France and Finland, two countries with distinct media trust levels. Results support the notion that Internet use works as a selective catalyst of political participation, as it is enhanced merely by engaged citizenship norms but not by dutiful citizenship norms. Within the nexus of citizenship norms, media use, and political participation, this article contributes to a better understanding of the normative premises for the Internet use to promote political engagement within differing media contexts.
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    How Right-Wing Alternative News Sites in the U.S. Depict Antifa
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Knüpfer, Curd
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    Resilience of Public Spheres in a Global Health Crisis
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Trenz, Hans-Jörg; Heft, Annett; Vaughan, Michael; Pfetsch, Barbara
    The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted “normal” modes of public sphere functioning and activated an experimental mode of coping, reinventing forms of publicness and communicative exchanges. We conceptualize the social responses triggered by the crisis as particular forms of public sphere resilience and assess the role of digitalisation and digital spaces in the emergence of distinct modes and dynamics of resilience. Four areas of enhanced public sphere experimentation are the basis of our conceptualisation: political consumerism, digital modes of solidarity, political protest mobilisation, and news consumption. We discuss overarching features of public sphere resilience across societal sub-spheres and highlight the dynamics and hybridities which structure the emerging public spaces. Resilience practices are accompanied by dynamics of politicisation and depoliticisation coupled with shifting boundaries of publicness and privateness. Our observations likewise reveal the dynamic interplay between resilience and resistance.
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    Varieties of platform work. Platforms and social inequality in Germany and the United States
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Krzywdzinski, Martin; Gerber, Christine
    The platform economy has been criticized for exacerbating social inequalities in various ways. This study draws on these discussions and examines the extent to which social inequalities are being reproduced, reduced, or even increased within platform work. The first central question is that of the precariousness of this form of work and the vulnerability of the platform workers as a group. This is followed by a second question about the role of classical dimensions of inequality of education and gender within the group of platform workers. The study focuses on inequalities related to income, workload, and the subjective perception of platform work. It follows a comparative approach, building on institutionalist analyses developed in labor market and inequality research. The empirical analysis is based on case studies of 15 crowdwork platforms in the United States and Germany and on an online survey of crowdworkers in both countries. While platforms represent a global organizational model, they are embedded in different models of capitalism. The study shows that existing labor market segmentation and social welfare systems determine who works on platforms and to what extent. The weaker the social safety net, the more likely platform work is to be both a curse and a blessing: It offers a much needed and flexible source of income, albeit under extremely precarious conditions. The stronger the social safety net, on the other hand, the greater the market power of workers vis-à-vis the platforms.
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    Conditions to Strengthen Future Cross-Border Journalism
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Heft, Annett
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    Information seeking and communication during forced migration
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Emmer, Martin; Kunst, Marlene; Richter, Carola
    The recent refugee movements to Europe occur in the digital age. While there is a common perception that 'every refugee carries a smartphone', research on this new phenomenon is limited. To fill this academic gap, we have conducted a representative survey of more than 400 refugees living in Berlin which provides insight into the use of digital media in preparation for and during forced migration. We also asked whether digital media shaped images of and expectations about the refugees' target country Germany. The data confirm that digital media are important tools for refugees but also show that refugees are not a homogenous group and that usage patterns depend on regional origins. Moreover, we found that refugees who frequently accessed the Internet before they fled were better informed than others. Whereas Internet use also contributed to a positively-biased perception of Germany, the respective effect of traditional media use was stronger.
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    "Digital Taylorism"? Data Practices and Governance in the Enterprise Software Salesforce
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Nyckel, Eva-Maria
    This paper provides an investigation of the economy of the enterprise software Salesforce. The investigation looks at epistemologically distinct practices inscribed in enterprise software and challenges the notion of “digital Taylorism” by looking closer at current as well as historical practices of process management. While Taylor’s systematic approach involved a combination of distributed practices, Salesforce is an enterprise software platform that connects these practices digitally. Rather than examining the role of workers, the paper focuses particularly on the media techniques of Taylorism and the technologies in contemporary working environments that render organizational structures and courses of action available for algorithmic governance. Thereby, the paper seeks to contribute an additional theorization for organization studies and media theory. The mediated practices are conceptualized in four categories that allow for a contrast of Taylor’s approach with contemporary process management practices. In addition to an analysis of Taylor’s original texts and a document analysis of Salesforce whitepapers, this paper also presents empirical insights. The paper aims to shed light on the relation between techniques involved in Taylorist process management and governing modes of the enterprise software Salesforce.
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    Die Regulierung Künstlicher Intelligenz - Neuer Rechtsrahmen für Algorithmische Entscheidungssysteme?
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Müller, Ferdinand; Schüßler, Martin; Kirchner, Elsa
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    Das Öffnen und Teilen von Daten qualitativer Forschung
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Steinhardt, Isabel; Fischer, Caroline; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Hirsbrunner, Simon David; İkiz-Akıncı, Dilek; Kressin, Lisa; Kretzer, Susanne; Möllenkamp, Andreas; Porzelt, Maike; Rahal, Rima-Maria; Schimmler, Sonja; Wilke, René; Wünsche, Hannes
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    The Digital Constellation
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Berg, Sebastian; Rakowski, Niklas; Thiel, Thorsten
    The emergence of the digital society has become one of the most pressing research topics in social science. So far, political science has been at the margins of the debate because it has been restricted by a rather narrow focus on networked communications. The paper attempts to change this by presenting a more encompassing way to address digitalisation from within political science. After briefly criticising the development of the research in political science the paper reconstructs at length some of the most popular conceptualisations in neighbouring disciplines. While we highlight the commonalities and strengths of those approaches in theorising digitalisation, we criticise their rather derivative understanding of democratic practices and the political as such. We go on to propose a modified understanding - which we term the "digital constellation" - that looks at the changing shape of democracy by developing a much more nuanced understanding of the interplay between societies and technologies. Finally, we illustrate the argument in an exemplary analysis of the changes occurring in political representation in the context of digitalisation.
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    Automation, Digitalization, and Changes in Occupational Structures in the Automobile Industry in Germany, the United States, and Japan. A Brief History from the Early 1990s Until 2018
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2020) Krzywdzinski, Martin
    In the current public discussion, it is considered certain that we are living in a time of rapidly advancing automation, which is driven in particular by the use of robots. Accordingly, many academic publications use robot density as the central indicator of automation. The present study challenges this perspective. It examines two central questions: First, what approaches to automation and digitalization have been pursued in the automotive industry in Germany, Japan and the USA? Second, how have employment and its occupational composition in the automotive industry developed in the three countries? The first part of the study focuses on the development of automation and digitalization approaches in the automotive industry from the early 1990s until today. It combines a qualitative analysis of press articles and a quantitative evaluation of the development of the stock of industrial robots from 1993 to 2018 based on the statistics of the International Federation of Robotics. The second part of the study focuses on the change in employment structures using occupational statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA), the Federal Employment Agency (Germany) and the Statistics Bureau of Japan. The study questions the perception of an automation-related threat to employment and especially to production employment. At the same time, it discusses developments in Germany, Japan and the USA in comparison and highlights differences in automation and digitalization approaches as well as different paths of change in employment structures.
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    Digitalisierung der Arbeitswelt in und nach der COVID-19-Krise: Thesen und Handlungsempfehlungen
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Butollo, Florian; Flemming, Jana; Wandjo, David; Gerber, Christine; Krzywdzinski, Martin
    Es gibt Anhaltspunkte dafür, dass die durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Krise zu strukturellen Veränderungen der Arbeitswelt geführt hat, die in engem Zusammenhang mit Digitalisierungsprozessen stehen. Einige Veränderungen sind in industriellen Produktionsprozessen, der mobilen Arbeit und auch der Plattformarbeit zu erwarten. Damit solche Veränderungen sich positiv auf die Arbeitswelt auswirken ist politische Gestaltung gefragt. Beobachtbar ist, dass einige Unternehmen ihre Digitalstrategien überdenken, teils forcieren und vermehrt mit neuen Möglichkeiten experimentieren. Hier ist es notwendig, Betriebsrät_innen und Beschäftigte frühzeitig in die Gestaltung neuer Ansätze einzubinden. Am offensichtlichsten hat sich die Arbeitswelt in der Krise durch die digitale Kommunikation im virtuellen Raum verändert. Menschen die bereits im Homeoffice arbeiten, sind jedoch verschiedenen Schwierigkeiten ausgesetzt. Virulent sind Fragen der Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, die Vermischung von beruflichem und privaten, sowie die Ausstattung des häuslichen Arbeitsplatzes. Aufgrund der Erschütterung der regulären Arbeitsmärkte nahm auch über digitale Plattformen vermittelte Arbeit zu. Die prekären Arbeitsbedingungen der Plattformarbeiter_innen haben sich während der Pandemie noch zugespitzt, gleichzeitig ist international aber eine politische Regulierung der Plattformarbeit in Sicht, die inzwischen auch in Deutschland in Ansätzen stattfindet.
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    Data Governance Act Proposal
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Neuberger, Christoph; Friesike, Sascha; Krzywdzinski, Martin; Eiermann, Karin-Irene; Stocker, Volker; Schawe, Nadine; Efroni, Zohar; von Hagen, Prisca; Völzmann, Lisa; Müller, Ferdinand
    This Position Paper contains statements drafted by several Research Groups at the Weizenbaum Institute concerning the Data Governance Act (DGA) Proposal. Each statement is followed by a short explanation. The purpose of this Paper is to highlight a number of important aspects of the DGA Proposal and stimulate the debate around it with a special emphasis on the part that concerns regulation of data sharing services (Chapter III, DGA Proposal). The Paper touches upon a number of selected matters without the ambition to cover all the important issues the DGA legislation raises. The statements address the potential risks in creating a centralized architecture for data intermediaries, the problem of imposing a duty on data sharing services to offer data on a non-discriminatory basis, the role and expertise supervision authorities will need to assume and exercise and questions regarding the interface between the anticipated DGA and existing data protection law in the EU. The Paper includes a number of specific recommendations regarding the formulation of several DGA provisions, specifically in connection with its intersection points with the GDPR.
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    Multidimensional Measurement of Mobile Media Use
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Toth, Roland
    Just like all types of media use, mobile media use is usually measured using retrospective, self-reported indications of quantity in the form of duration and frequency. This is not only problematic due to the fact that people misjudge their own use to a great extent, but also because theoretical approaches predominantly suggest that mere contact is not sufficient for the description of media use. This especially holds for mobile media use, as specific contact episodes are not easily distinguishable anymore due to their short duration and high frequency. Mobile media use is rather characterized by circumstances surrounding the contact itself - they are used for countless purposes, in a habitual manner, and in various situations. In this paper, I am proposing a renewed, multidimensional measure of mobile media use that takes into account these characteristics in addition to well-known measures of quantity and suggest methods for assessing its convergent and content validity.
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    The Internet has coped well with Covid-19, but problems remain: Evidence to House of Lords Committee exploring the impact of Covid-19
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Stocker, Volker; Whalley, Jason
    In this contribution to a 'call for evidence' by the House of Lords (UK), we investigate the pivotal role of the Internet during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Internet has enabled many to work from home, to shop and be educated online, and keep in touch with colleagues and friends. The swift move online of many activities raised concerns about the robustness and resilience of the Internet. Contrary to some concerns, expressed when national lockdowns were being imposed, the Internet did not collapse. However, while the Internet allowed many to work from home etc., not everyone has access to the Internet. Furthermore, there are many differences between those who do have access to the Internet - quite simply, some are able to access the Internet using connections that are a lot faster than others. This shapes what businesses and individuals can do online, with those with slower connections or connections shared between many users being disadvantaged compared to those whose connectivity is better. Finally, it is necessary to remember that not everything can move online. Some occupations, such as those with a greater knowledge content, are more amenable to the move online than those with a larger labour (physical) component.
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    The Structural Transformation of the Scientific Public Sphere: Constitution and consequences of the path towards Open Access
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Dobusch, Leonhard; Heimstädt, Maximilian
    We are currently witnessing a fundamental structural transformation of the scientific public sphere, characterized by processes of specialization, metrification, internationalization, platformization, and visibilization. In contrast to explanations of this structural transformation that invoke a technological determinism, we demonstrate its historical contingency by drawing on analytic concepts from organization theory and the case of the Open Access transformation in Germany. The digitization of academic journals has not broadened access to scientific output but narrowed it down even further in the course of the “serials crisis”. For a long time, research institutions were not able to convince large academic publishers to adopt less restrictive forms of access to academic journals. It was only through the emergence of new and in part illegal actors (shadow libraries and preprint servers) that the existing path could be broken, and an Open Access path constituted. Following this analysis, we discuss consequences of the Open Access transformation for the public spheres of science and democracy. We conclude that Open Access publishing can only help to transform both communicative spaces towards the normative ideal of a public sphere when complemented by systematic support for non-profit publication infrastructures.
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    Data and Digital Platforms in Industry: Implication for enterprises strategies and governance
    (Weizenbaum Institute, 2021) Butollo, Florian; Schneidemesser, Lea
    This article explores the position of industrial internet platforms (IIP) in manufacturing value chains. We develop an understanding of the role of data in global value chains (GVCs), referring to literature on intangible assets and theories on platform business models. We use data from a qualitative empirical study based on 45 interviews on platforms active on the German market to answer (1) whether there are tendencies of oligopolization that lead to an accumulation of power on the side of the platforms, and (2) whether it is the platforms that capture most of the gains derived from higher productivity or lower transaction costs. The analysis shows that platforms mainly act as service providers and/or intermediaries that support manufacturing companies in reaping benefits from data. While the relationship between platforms and manufacturers currently corresponds to a symbiosis, a stronger power imbalance could evolve in the future since processes of oligopolization are likely.