Power to the People?! The Influence of Social Media on (Educational) Policy Processes

• In Event: 64.057 - Using Social Analysis Methods to Understand Education Interest Group Political Activity

Abstract

Objectives. Social media now offer multiple parties inside and outside politics (e.g. teachers) the opportunity to start bottom-up initiatives and to use their online acquired social capital to exert real influence on policy processes. A recent study of the national discussion on Twitter about the introduction of the Common Core in the United States provides a first insight into this phenomenon (Supovitz, Daly, & del Fresno, 2015). This development has multiple implications, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to steer the information and design of (educational) policy processes in traditional ways. Previously defined roles and control mechanisms are disputed scholars have stipulated that the government should re-consider their roles, moving more towards a “networked government”, or “networked governance” (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Hajer, Van Tatenhove, & Laurent, 2004). As a result, stakeholders are increasingly involved in influencing and steering (educational) policy processes.

Data. In November 2014, the Dutch State Secretary Sander Dekker initiated a national dialogue, called onderwijs2032 (‘education2032’), on the future curriculum for primary and secondary in various social media. The paper investigates the nature of this dialogue on social media, in particular the way in which actors seek to influence this policy development.

Methods. This research builds on social capital theory and employs a multi-method approach. First, we use social network analyses to identify underlying activity patterns (Bruns & Stieglitz, 2013). Moreover, we developed a new social brokerage index (SBI), which allows us to identify (groups of) individuals that could be viewed as having prominent roles in the conversation (Burt, 2009). The index also allows us to investigate whether a role is actively pursued, or individuals have been assigned this role by others. Second, we use natural language processing techniques, such as topic modeling (Blei & Lafferty, 2009), to investigate what teachers and educational professionals were talking about, as well as whether individuals’ network position influenced what was shared and how it spread throughout the network. Finally, we used semi-structured interviews, in order to investigate the motivations and strategies of individuals from the different social brokerage index categories.

Results & Implications. The results of our study provide valuable contributions to understanding how (educational) policy processes can be influenced by individuals and/or interest groups. First, we are able to show that participants within social media discussions accumulate social capital. Moreover, our newly developed SBI allowed us to acquire a more refined picture of who is actively or passively influencing the (educational) policy debate. Third, combining the results from the SBI with topic modeling, we were able to show how brokerage position might have been used to possibly steer the debate into certain topical directions. Finally, using the SBI to identify representatives from the different categories, we were able to collect qualitative data on why individuals joined the debate, as well as whether and how they strived to possibly shape the (educational) policy process.

Authors

• Martin Rehm, University of Education Weingarten

• Frank Cornelissen, University of Amsterdam