Messaging apps as civic infrastructure

This project investigates the role of messaging apps in civic engagement and their mediation between the public, civil society, media, and political actors. From the theoretical point, I am  interested in the phenomenon of "meso-space", between public and private domains of civic life, where people engage in civic activity within everyday routines and with the use of "mundane" technology. I have discussed this issue in more detail in my commentary to the special issue on "meso news spaces" in Digital Journalism edited by Dr. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik and Dr. Ori Tenenboim. 

This project started with several surveys in Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel, in an effort to gather unique data about instant messaging use, map the field, and understand the differences and similarities between the local messaging infrastructures. The German nationally representative survey project, in cooperation with Dr. Emilija Gagrčin and Prof. Teresa Naab (U Mannheim), has concluded the data collection and cleaning phase. We are currently testing the relationship between civic engagement and messaging use and will present the results shortly. The Netherlands door-to-door pilot survey project, in cooperation with Dr. Eedan Amit-Danhi (U Groningen) aimed to study messaging apps use in two Groningen neighborhoods. We have finished data collection and presented preliminary results at the Jantina Tammes School network lecture series in Groningen. The Israeli nationally representative survey project is currently at the launch phase. 

In addition to the surveys, together with the international team of colleagues, I am trying to tackle the questions about messaging apps' civic use with mixed methodologies. This is no simple matter, considering multiple ethical challenges when it comes to semi-private environment of instant messaging. One possible way to collect the encrypted data is user donation, which we have discussed at the Weizenbaum Institute Methods Lab workshop. Another way is to scrape public chats from the openly available Telegram logs, which we did together with Dr. Kilian Bühling (U Tübingen/Weizenbaum Institute) and Dr. Emilija Gagrčin. This paper is currently under review. Finally, it is possible to ask people about what they do in chat groups, if the groups are impossible to access from ethical or technical reasons. Together with Dr. Emilija Gagrčin, we have conducted an interview study with German and Israeli residential chat groups members. One paper from this study is currently under review, and another is in preparation for publication.