ABSTRACT
Now that so much of collective action takes place online, web-generated data can further understanding of the mechanics of Internet-based mobilisation. This trace data offers social science researchers the potential for new forms of analysis, using real-time transactional data based on entire populations, rather than sample-based surveys of what people think they did or might do. This paper uses a 'big data' approach to track the growth of over 8,000 petitions to the UK Government on the No. 10 Downing Street website for two years, analysing the rate of growth per day and testing the hypothesis that the distribution of daily change will be leptokurtic (rather than normal) as previous research on agenda setting would suggest. This hypothesis is confirmed, suggesting that Internet-based mobilisation is characterized by tipping points (or punctuated equilibria) and explaining some of the volatility in online collective action. We find also that most successful petitions grow quickly and that the number of signatures a petition receives on its first day is a significant factor in explaining the overall number of signatures a petition receives during its lifetime. These findings have implications for the strategies of those initiating petitions and the design of web sites with the aim of maximising citizen engagement with policy issues.
- Ackland, R., and Gibson, R. Hyperlinks and horizontal political communication on the www: The untold story of parties online. Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (2006).Google Scholar
- Aral, S., and Walker, D. Creating social contagion through viral product design: A randomized trial of peer influence in networks. Management Science 57, 9 (September 2011), 1623--1639. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Baumgartner, F., and Jones, B. Agendas and instability in American politics. University Of Chicago Press, 1993.Google Scholar
- Bennett, W. L., and Segerberg, A. Digital media and the personalization of collective action. Information, Communication & Society 14, 6 (2011), 770--799.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bimber, B. Information and American democracy: Technology in the evolution of political power. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bøg, M., Harmgart, H., Huck, S., and Jeffers, A. M. Fundraising on the Internet. Kyklos 65, 1 (2012), 18--30.Google Scholar
- Chakravarti, I. M., Laha, R. G., and Roy, J. Handbook of methods of applied statistics, vol. 1. John Wiley & Sons, 1967.Google Scholar
- Conte, R., Gilbert, N., Bonelli, G., Cioffi-Revilla, C., Deffuant, G., Kertesz, J., Loreto, V., Moat, S., Nadal, J.-P., Sanchez, A., Nowak, A., Flache, A., San Miguel, M., and Helbing, D. Manifesto of computational social science. The European Physical Journal Special Topics 214 (2012), 325--346.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Etling, B., Kelly, J., Faris, R., and Palfrey, J. Mapping the Arabic blogosphere: Politics and dissent online. New Media & Society 12, 8 (2010), 1225--1243.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Frey, B. S., and Meier, S. Social comparisons and pro-social behavior: Testing "conditional cooperation" in a field experiment. American Economic Review 94, 5 (December 2004), 1717--1722.Google ScholarCross Ref
- González-Bailón, S., Borge-Holthoefer, J., Rivero, A., and Moreno, Y. The dynamics of protest recruitment through an online network. Scientific reports 1 (2011).Google Scholar
- Hindman, M. The myth of digital democracy. Princeton University Press, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- John, P., and Margetts, H. Policy punctuations in the UK: Fluctuations and equilibria in central government expenditure since 1951. Public Administration 81, 3 (2003), 411--432.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jones, B. D., and Baumgartner, F. R. The politics of attention: How government prioritizes problems. University of Chicago Press, 2005.Google Scholar
- Lazer, D., Pentland, A., Adamic, L., Aral, S., Barabsi, A.-L., Brewer, D., Christakis, N., Contractor, N., Fowler, J., Gutmann, M., Jebara, T., King, G., Macy, M., Roy, D., and Van Alstyne, M. Computational social science. Science 323, 5915 (2009), 721--723.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lupia, A., and Sin, G. Which public goods are endangered?: How evolving communication technologies affect the logic of collective action. Public Choice 117 (2003), 315--331. 10.1023/B:PUCH.0000003735.07840.c7.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Margetts, H., John, P., Escher, T., and Reissfelder, S. Social information and political participation on the internet: an experiment. European Political Science Review 3 (8 2011), 321--344.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Margetts, H. Z., John, P., Reissfelder, S., and Hale, S. A. Social influence and collective action: An experiment investigating the effects of visibility and social information moderated by personality. Under review, available on SSRN, 2012.Google Scholar
- Shang, J., and Croson, R. A field experiment in charitable contribution: The impact of social information on the voluntary provision of public goods. The Economic Journal 119, 540 (2009), 1422--1439.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shapiro, S. S., and Wilk, M. B. An analysis of variance test for normality (complete samples). Biometrika 52, 3/4 (1965), 591--611.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Whyte, A., Renton, A., and Macintosh, A. E-petitioning in kingston and bristol: Evaluation of e-petitioning in the local e-democracy national project. 2005.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Petition growth and success rates on the UK No. 10 Downing Street website
Recommendations
E-petition Information Diffusion in Online Social Networks
dg.o '16: Proceedings of the 17th International Digital Government Research Conference on Digital Government ResearchElectronic petitions are a ubiquitous form of online political action directed at governments. Using a wide range of electronic petitioning platforms, individuals can request specific actions of their own government or governments of other countries, ...
e-democracy and inclusion: the role for government agencies in mobilizing participation
ICEGOV '09: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Theory and practice of electronic governanceThis paper introduces a conceptual framework in order to assess the opportunities that the use of Internet may provide for political inclusion by pushing changes in citizen attitudes and public knowledge. A typology for participation limits in public ...
Internet Use and Political Participation: Reflections on the Mobilization/Normalization Controversy
Web-based and theoretical studies often claim that Internet use can mobilize political participation, while survey-based studies generally conclude that Internet use will normalize political participation. This article aims to offer some reflections on ...
Comments