Articles

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A centrality analysis of the Lightning Network
(2023) Zabka, Philipp; Förster, Klaus-T.; Decker, Christian; Schmid, Stefan
Blockchain technology has a huge impact on our digital society by enabling a more decentralized economy and policy making. This decentralization is also pivotal in payment Payment channel networks (PCNs), including the Lightning Network, have emerged as a promising solution to the scalability challenges that many blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, grapple with. These PCNs, while innovative, also inherit the rigorous dependability demands of the blockchain. A pivotal aspect of this dependability is the need for a high degree of decentralization, essential for mitigating liquidity bottlenecks and on-path attacks.
A Common Effort: New Divisions of Labor Between Journalism and OSINT Communities on Digital Platforms
(2024) Charlton, Timothy; Mayer, Anna-Theresa; Ohme, Jakob
This article explores the interactions between journalistic actors and emerging open-source intelligence and investigation (OSINT) communities. It employs qualitative content analysis of discourse from two OSINT communities surrounding three events following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which received substantial coverage in news media. OSINT practices are rapidly becoming a mainstay of the contemporary political process by allowing ordinary citizens to verify information shared through digital platforms, which is traditionally the societal task assigned to journalism. In doing so, they provide a timely factual baseline for opinion formation and political decision-making. This research explores the role constellations resulting from this shift in verification duties from journalistic actors to amateur online communities on digital platforms and maps the fundamental dynamics involved in OSINT. We analyze how information is received and processed in OSINT communities, how digital platforms facilitate the fact-checking process, and how journalism and OSINT interact. Based on our findings, we develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes between the input, throughput, and output phases of OSINT. Our model contributes to a baseline understanding of the crucial and novel partnership between citizens and journalists on digital platforms.
A Democratic Approach to Digital Rights: Comparing Perspectives on Digital Sovereignty on the City Level
(2023) Pierri, Paola; Calderón Lüning, Elizabeth
This article will be drawing on two cases to reflect on the impact of different ways of practicing civic engagement in urban digitalization policy. Both cases reflect on the importance of cities playing an active role in the promotion of digital rights, obligation of public participation in digital policy making, and need for political digital education to enable democratic conversations on digital transformation. From a democratic theory point of view, the shifts happening through the digitalization of societies raise interesting questions regarding what modes of governance should be implemented for improving digital sovereignty, which could be in line with “locally” grounded politics. Theoretically, the article will frame these issues of governance and civic participation within the literature on “digital sovereignty,” understood as going beyond national territory toward issues of independence, democratic control, and autonomy over digital infrastructures, technologies, and content.
A multidimensional and analytical perspective on Open Educational Practices in the 21st century
(2022) Brandenburger, Bonny
Participatory approaches to teaching and learning are experiencing a new lease on life in the 21st century as a result of the rapid technology development. Knowledge, practices, and tools can be shared across spatial and temporal boundaries in higher education by means of Open Educational Resources, Massive Open Online Courses, and open-source technologies. In this context, the Open Education Movement calls for new didactic approaches that encourage greater learner participation in formal higher education. Based on a representative literature review and focus group research, in this study an analytical framework was developed that enables researchers and practitioners to assess the form of participation in formal, collaborative teaching and learning practices. The analytical framework is focused on the micro-level of higher education, in particular on the interaction between students and lecturers when organizing the curriculum. For this purpose, the research reflects anew on the concept of participation, taking into account existing stage models for participation in the educational context. These are then brought together with the dimensions of teaching and learning processes, such as methods, objectives and content, etc. This paper aims to make a valuable contribution to the opening up of learning and teaching, and expands the discourse around possibilities for interpreting Open Educational Practices.
A Pandemic of Prediction. On the Circulation of Contagion Models between Public Health and Public Safety
(2021) Heimstädt, Maximilian; Egbert, Simon; Esposito, Elena
Digital prediction tools increasingly complement or replace other practices of coping with an uncertain future. The current COVID-19 pandemic, it seems, is further accelerating the spread of prediction. The prediction of the pandemic yields a pandemic of prediction. In this paper, we explore this dynamic, focusing on contagion models and their transmission back and forth between two domains of society: public health and public safety. We connect this movement with a fundamental duality in the prevention of contagion risk concerning the two sides of being-at-risk and being-a-risk. Both in the spread of a disease and in the spread of criminal behavior, a person at risk can be a risk to others and vice versa. Based on key examples, from this perspective we observe and interpret a circular movement in three phases. In the past, contagion models have moved from public health to public safety, as in the case of the Strategic Subject List used in the policing activity of the Chicago Police Department. In the present COVID-19 pandemic, the analytic tools of policing wander to the domain of public health – exemplary of this movement is the cooperation between the data infrastructure firm Palantir and the UK government’s public health system NHS. The expectation that in the future the predictive capacities of digital contact tracing apps might spill over from public health to policing is currently shaping the development and use of tools such as the Corona-Warn-App in Germany. In all these cases, the challenge of pandemic governance lies in managing the connections and the exchanges between the two areas of public health and public safety while at the same time keeping the autonomy of each.
A Pragmatic Way to Open Management Research and Education: Playfulness, Ambiguity, and Deterritorialization
(2022) de Vaujany, François-Xavier; Heimstädt, Maximilian
The open science movement has reached management research and education. Around the world, management scholars discuss, probe, and evaluate ways to make their work practices less ‘closed’ and more ‘open.’ However, how exactly such new work practices change management knowledge and teaching depends, to a large extent, on practitioners’ philosophical interpretation of ‘openness.’ Today, openness in management research and education is mainly interpreted as a feature of the input to or output from knowledge work. These interpretations conceive of research and education as relatively stable entities which can be opened at some clearly defined points. Our study aims to unsettle this conception and propose a new and more radical interpretation of openness. We propose to reconsider openness via the processual approach of American Pragmatism and thereby in a sense that dispenses with requiring the predisposition of research and education as stable entities. Via this interpretation of openness, management research and education can be transformed into a co-productive democratic movement which can bring about knowledge commons interwoven with true managerial and societal problems. To offer a first description of openness as a process that can transform management research and education, we analyze ethnographic material from two types of pragmatist experiments, which the first author facilitated between 2016 and 2021. We identify three key dimensions in the process of opening research and education: playfulness, ambiguity, and deterritorialization. Our study advances debates on the question of how management research can be more immediately helpful to management practitioners and students’ concerns.
A review of technologies for collaborative online information seeking. On the contribution of collaborative argumentation
(2021) Mayweg-Paus, Elisabeth; Zimmermann, Maria; Le, Nguyen-Thinh; Pinkwart, Niels
In everyday life, people seek, evaluate, and use online sources to underpin opinions and make decisions. While education must promote the skills people need to critically question the sourcing of online information, it is important, more generally, to understand how to successfully promote the acquisition of any skills related to seeking online information. This review outlines technologies that aim to support users when they collaboratively seek online information. Upon integrating psychological–pedagogical approaches on trust in and the sourcing of online information, argumentation, and computer-supported collaborative learning, we reviewed the literature (N= 95 journal articles) on technologies for collaborative online information seeking. The technologies we identified either addressed collaborative online information seeking as an exclusive process for searching for online information or, alternatively, addressed online information seeking within the context of a more complex learning process. Our review was driven by three main research questions: We aimed to understand whether and how the studies considered 1) the role of trust and critical questioning in the sourcing of online information, 2) the learning processes at play when information seekers engage in collaborative argumentation, and 3) what affordances are offered by technologies that support users’ collaborative seeking of online information. The reviewed articles that focused exclusively on technologies for seeking online information primarily addressed aspects of cooperation (e.g., task management), whereas articles that focused on technologies for integrating the processes of information seeking into the entire learning processes instead highlighted aspects of collaborative argumentation (e.g., exchange of multiple perspectives and critical questioning in argumentation). Seven of the articles referred to trust as an aspect of seekers’ sourcing strategies. We emphasize how researchers’, users’, and technology developers’ consideration of collaborative argumentation could expand the benefits of technological support for seeking online information.
A systematic review of echo chamber research: comparative analysis of conceptualizations, operationalizations, and varying outcomes
(2025) Hartmann, David; Wang, Sonja Mei; Pohlmann, Lena; Berendt, Bettina
This systematic review synthesizes research on echo chambers and filter bubbles to explore the reasons behind dissent regarding their existence, antecedents, and effects. It provides a taxonomy of conceptualizations and operationalizations, analyzing how measurement approaches and contextual factors influence outcomes. The review of 129 studies identifies variations in measurement approaches, as well as regional, political, cultural, and platform-specific biases, as key factors contributing to the lack of consensus. Studies based on homophily and computational social science methods often support the echo chamber hypothesis, while research on content exposure and broader media environments, such as surveys, tends to challenge it. Group behavior, cultural influences, instant messaging platforms, and short video platforms remain underexplored. The strong geographic focus on the United States further highlights the need for studies in multi-party systems and regions beyond the Global North. Future research should prioritize cross-platform studies, continuous algorithmic audits, and investigations into the causal links between polarization, fragmentation, and echo chambers to advance the field. This review also provides recommendations for using the EU’s Digital Services Act to enhance research in this area and conduct studies outside the US in multi-party systems. By addressing these gaps, this review contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of echo chambers, their measurement, and their societal impacts.
A Translation Service for Open Data Portals
(2022) Urbanek, Sebastian; Schimmler, Sonja
There exists a huge variety of Open Data portals, some of them providing just a handful, and others tens of thousands of datasets. The datasets they provide are expected to be supplied with metadata describing them. However, this metadata is typically available in one or two languages only, and, if translations exist, they are usually added manually. To build an inclusive data infrastructure, metadata should be available in as many languages as possible. The paper presents an approach for automatic translation of metadata within Open Data portals, based on Semantic Web technologies and using the metadata standard DCAT-AP. Based on this approach, new functionalities are possible, such as enabling users to search for datasets in their native language. The approach was implemented for and tested within a practical application in a production environment.
Active Social Media Use and Its Impact on Well-being: An Experimental Study on the Effects of Posting Pictures on Instagram
(2023) Krause, Hannes-Vincent; große Deters, Fenne; Baumann, Annika; Krasnova, Hanna
Active use of social networking sites (SNSs) has long been assumed to benefit users’ well-being. However, this established hypothesis is increasingly being challenged, with scholars criticizing its lack of empirical support and the imprecise conceptualization of active use. Nevertheless, with considerable heterogeneity among existing studies on the hypothesis and causal evidence still limited, a final verdict on its robustness is still pending. To contribute to this ongoing debate, we conducted a week-long randomized control trial with N = 381 adult Instagram users recruited via Prolific. Specifically, we tested how active SNS use, operationalized as picture postings on Instagram, affects different dimensions of well-being. The results depicted a positive effect on users’ positive affect but null findings for other well-being outcomes. The findings broadly align with the recent criticism against the active use hypothesis and support the call for a more nuanced view on the impact of SNSs.
Adapting to the heat of the moment: A mobile experience sampling study on the dynamics of heat stress, appraisals, affect, and behaviour
(2026-02-01) Glunz, Elisabeth; Heidenreich, Anna; Gerhold, Lars
Among the pressing challenges of climate adaptation is understanding and addressing perceptions and behaviour related to heat stress. Protective behaviour theories suggest that exposure to heat shapes perceptions, which can influence behaviour and, in turn, lead to changes in heat-related situational characteristics (e.g., moving to a cooler place). This mobile experience sampling study aims to identify the dynamic interplay between situational variations in exogenous heat stress, appraisals, affect, and behaviour. Firstly, we hypothesised that people adjust their threat appraisal to situational heat exposure, warnings, and protective activity and place characteristics (sensitivity hypothesis). Secondly, we expected that increased negative affect, threat appraisal, and coping appraisal precede protective behavioural changes (motivational hypothesis). Additionally, we explored whether reappraisals and affective alterations follow behavioural change (reappraisal hypothesis). By integrating meteorological and intensive longitudinal survey data, we collected a final sample of 4387 observations from 134 participants. We used dynamic multilevel models on determinants of within-person changes in appraisal and behavioural characteristics. The results largely support our sensitivity hypothesis, as changes in threat appraisal are associated with situational heat stress, warnings, and protective characteristics. Whereas we found no evidence that appraisals or affect had a motivating effect preceding behavioural change, people reappraised temperatures as less threatening, less negative, and perceived themselves as better able to adjust after making protective behavioural changes. These findings suggest that situational factors are essential for explaining threat appraisal and thus underline the importance of longitudinal monitoring in research and heat action plans. While our findings do not support the notion that appraisals and affect motivate short-term heat-protective behavioural changes, we discuss the relevance of context-sensitive and flexible capacity-building, which can be influenced, for example, by warnings and urban planning measures.
Agenda formation and prediction of voting tendencies for European parliament election using textual, social and network features
(Springer, 2024) Shahi, Gautam Kishore; Basyurt, Ali Sercan; Stieglitz, Stefan; Neuberger, Christoph
As per agenda-setting theory, political agenda is concerned with the government’s agenda, including politicians and political parties. Political actors utilize various channels to set their political agenda, including social media platforms such as Twitter (now X). Political agenda-setting can be influenced by anonymous user-generated content following the Bright Internet. This is why speech acts, experts, users with affiliations and parties through annotated Tweets were analyzed in this study. In doing so, the agenda formation during the 2019 European Parliament Election in Germany based on the agenda-setting theory as our theoretical framework, was analyzed. A prediction model was trained to predict users’ voting tendencies based on three feature categories: social, network, and text. By combining features from all categories logistical regression leads to the best predictions matching the election results. The contribution to theory is an approach to identify agenda formation based on our novel variables. For practice, a novel approach is presented to forecast the winner of events.
Algorithm dependency in platformized news use
(2023) Schaetz, Nadja; Gagrčin, Emilija; Toth, Roland; Emmer, Martin
Previous research has highlighted the ambiguous experience of algorithmic news curation whereby people are simultaneously comfortable with algorithms, but also concerned about the underlying data collection practices. The present article builds on media dependency theory and news-finds-me (NFM) perceptions to explore this tension. Empirically, we analyze original survey data from six European countries (Germany, Sweden, France, Greece, Poland, and Italy, n = 2,899) to investigate how young Europeans’ privacy concerns and attitudes toward algorithms affect NFM. We find that a more positive attitude toward algorithms and more privacy concerns are related to stronger NFM. The study highlights power asymmetries in platformized news use and suggests that the ambivalent experiences might be a result of algorithm dependency, whereby individuals rely on algorithms in platformized news use to meet their information needs, despite accompanying risks and concerns.
Algorithmen der Alterität - Alterität der Algorithmen. Überlegungen zu einem komplexen Verhältnis
(2023) Berg, Sebastian; Koster, Ann-Kathrin; Matzner, Tobias; Maschewski, Felix; Nosthoff, Anna-Verena
Algorithmic Governance
(2019) Katzenbach, Christian; Ulbricht, Lena
Algorithmic governance as a key concept in controversies around the emerging digital society highlights the idea that digital technologies produce social ordering in a specific way. Starting with the origins of the concept, this paper portrays different perspectives and objects of inquiry where algorithmic governance has gained prominence ranging from the public sector to labour management and ordering digital communication. Recurrent controversies across all sectors such as datafication and surveillance, bias, agency and transparency indicate that the concept of algorithmic governance allows to bring objects of inquiry and research fields that had not been related before into a joint conversation. Short case studies on predictive policy and automated content moderation show that algorithmic governance is multiple, contingent and contested. It takes different forms in different contexts and jurisdictions, and it is shaped by interests, power, and resistance.
Algorithmic Literacy: A Compass to Successfully Navigate the Algorithm-Driven World?
(2026-01-12) Heimbach, Irina; Abramova, Olga; Baumann, Annika; Krasnova, Hanna; Jussupow, Ekaterina; Legner, Christine; Meythaler, Antonia; Müller, Oliver; Pinski, Marc
Algorithmic Management: Bright and Dark Sides, Practical Implications, and Research Opportunities
(2022) Benlian, Alexander; Wiener, Martin; Cram, Alec; Krasnova, Hanna; Mädche, Alexander; Möhlmann, Mareike; Recker, Jan; Remus, Ulrich
Algorithmic media use and algorithm literacy: An integrative literature review
(2024) Gagrčin, Emilija; Naab, Teresa K.; Grub, Maria F.
Algorithms profoundly shape user experiences on digital platforms, raising concerns about their negative impacts and highlighting the importance of algorithm literacy. Research on individuals’ understanding of algorithms and their effects is expanding rapidly but lacks a cohesive framework. We conducted a systematic integrative literature review across social sciences and humanities (n = 169), addressing algorithm literacy in terms of its key conceptualizations and the endogenous, exogenous, and personal factors that influence it. We argue that existing research can be framed in terms of experiential learning cycles and outline how this approach can be beneficial for acquiring algorithm literacy. Finally, we propose a future research agenda that includes defining core competencies relevant to algorithm literacy, standardization of measures, integrating subjective and factual aspects of algorithm literacy, and task- and domain-specific approaches.
Algorithmic regulation. A maturing concept for investigating regulation of and through algorithms
(2022) Ulbricht, Lena; Yeung, Karen
This paper offers a critical synthesis of the articles in this Special Issue with a view to assessing the concept of “algorithmic regulation” as a mode of social coordination and control articulated by Yeung in 2017. We highlight significant changes in public debate about the role of algorithms in society occurring in the last five years. We also highlight prominent themes that emerge from the contributions, illuminating what is distinctive about the concept of algorithmic regulation, reflecting upon some of its strengths, limitations, and its relationship with the broader research field. In closing, we argue that the core concept is valuable and maturing. It has evolved into an analytical bridge that fosters cross-disciplinary development and analysis in ways that enrich its early “skeletal” form, thereby enabling careful and context-sensitive analysis of algorithmic regulation in concrete settings while facilitating critical reflection concerning the legitimacy of existing and proposed regulatory regimes.
Algorithmically Curated Lies: How Search Engines Handle Misinformation about US Biolabs in Ukraine
(2024) Kuznetsova, Elizaveta; Makhortykh, Mykola; Sydorova, Maryna; Urman, Aleksandra; Vitulano, Ilaria; Stolze, Martha
The growing volume of online content prompts the need for adopting algorithmic systems of information curation. These systems range from web search engines to recommender systems and are integral for helping users stay informed about important societal developments. However, unlike journalistic editing the algorithmic information curation systems (AICSs) are known to be subject to different forms of malperformance which make them vulnerable to possible manipulation. The risk of manipulation is particularly prominent in the case when AICSs have to deal with information about false claims that underpin propaganda campaigns of authoritarian regimes. Using as a case study of the Russian disinformation campaign concerning the US biolabs in Ukraine, we investigate how one of the most commonly used forms of AICSs - i.e. web search engines - curate misinformation-related content. For this aim, we conduct virtual agent-based algorithm audits of Google, Bing, and Yandex search outputs in June 2022. Our findings highlight the troubling performance of search engines. Even though some search engines, like Google, were less likely to return misinformation results, across all languages and locations, the three search engines still mentioned or promoted a considerable share of false content (33% on Google; 44% on Bing, and 70% on Yandex). We also find significant disparities in misinformation exposure based on the language of search, with all search engines presenting a higher number of false stories in Russian. Location matters as well with users from Germany being more likely to be exposed to search results promoting false information. These observations stress the possibility of AICSs being vulnerable to manipulation, in particular in the case of the unfolding propaganda campaigns, and underline the importance of monitoring performance of these systems to prevent it.