Papers by Francisco Seoane Pérez
Global Disinformation Index, 2021
Los sitios web de noticias tienen incentivos económicos para difundir
desinformación, con el fin... more Los sitios web de noticias tienen incentivos económicos para difundir
desinformación, con el fin de aumentar su tráfico web y, en última instancia, sus ingresos publicitarios. Mientras tanto, la difusión de desinformación tiene consecuencias disruptivas e impactantes. La pandemia de COVID-19 ofrece un ejemplo reciente. Al interrumpir el sentido compartido de la sociedad sobre los hechos aceptados, estas narrativas socavan la salud pública, la seguridad y las respuestas del gobierno.
Para combatir la desinformación, debemos encontrar formas de transformar el sistema y su financiación. El Índice Global de Desinformación (GDI por sus siglas en inglés) se ha centrado en desarrollar una estrategia en esta dirección.
International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 2016
Political magazines offer a vantage point for evaluating the present and future of in-depth journ... more Political magazines offer a vantage point for evaluating the present and future of in-depth journalism in the digital age. The death spiral of newsweeklies overshadows the increasing influence of political magazines in the national and global debates. Publications like The Atlantic or The Nation keep on advancing policy solutions and inoculating debates on other more mainstream media as they have done for more than a hundred years, but they are also being reshaped by the new digital environment: their online readers are more numerous but less loyal than their print subscribers, and their publics have become more international, with one-third of their audiences coming from outside their home country. This article reports on the views of journalists and editors from American political magazines regarding three issues: the role of their publications in the public sphere (inter-media agenda setting, prospective policy solutions), the differences between their print and digital versions (in terms of audience and content), and their economic sustainability (reflecting on the ethical conundrums of native advertising and sponsored events). Cases studied include The Atlantic, The Economist, The Nation, Bloomberg Businessweek and The New Republic.
Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 2017
Social movements of a political nature have innovated in the field of international political com... more Social movements of a political nature have innovated in the field of international political communication. Non-state actors have occupied the sphere of public diplomacy, previously limited to the nation state. The study is based on the analysis of the social media campaigns, actors, messages, and political activities of Catalan and Scottish pro-independence movements in relation to the referendum. The Catalan pro-independence movement has based its results on the defence of the Catalan identity and the epistemic community. Scottish movements that promote the creation of a new state oriented their strategy of protest to parliamentary politics. The article examines mobilising diplomacy, as well as the use of social networks in the international promotion of political messages and the reinforcement of a nation's language and culture. Conclusions. Mobilising diplomacy is still in an expansive phase. More actors are incorporated into the international arena through the production and dissemination of messages in social networks.
This chapter suggests a novel interpretation of Eurocynicism through the lenses of controversial ... more This chapter suggests a novel interpretation of Eurocynicism through the lenses of controversial political theorist Carl Schmitt. Instead of attributing the popular unease with the European Union to a problem of communication (putting the blame on journalistic coverage and the lack of pedagogical commitment on the part of national elites in explaining the workings of the EU), this paper draws from Schmitt to diagnose Europe's malaise as a twin problem of failed domestication (Europe is always 'out there', even in the most pro-EU countries) and politicisation (technocracy, diplomacy and corporatism subdue political debate, replacing antagonism not with agonism but with depoliticisation). This regime of a distant and apolitical Europe has worked well in times of fair economic weather but the post-2008 global crisis has revealed that interstate solidarity needs the backing of popular legitimacy, and such legitimacy relies on identity. Hence the reluctance of 'hard-working' Northerners to rescue the 'lazy' Southerners, and the sense of foreign rule among the latter. A Schmittian look at the post-crisis Eurocynicism explains the resurgence of Germany as the primordial decision-maker in the continent. The true sovereign, Schmitt argues, is that person who decides in times of exception.
The national elections held in November 2011 in Spain were a good opportunity to see how the indi... more The national elections held in November 2011 in Spain were a good opportunity to see how the indignados movement made its mark on representative politics. With youth unemployment above 40% at that time, and with the echoes of the occupation of central urban spaces like the Puerta del Sol in Madrid in May that year still resounding, the social wave of the ‘outraged’ had its first chance to affect institutional change. This study reports on an online survey about media consumption habits and Internet use for political purposes conducted among a representative sample of university students in Castilla-La Mancha, a region stricken by the burst of the building bubble that had brought much artificial prosperity to Spain. The series of public political protests that followed those held on the now famous May 15th, 2011, had reportedly been organized through the Internet. This survey aimed at finding the connections between media consumption habits and online political participation among Spanish university students. Left-leaning voters and the supporters of insurgent parties were found to be more likely to use the Internet for politics, whereas TV consumption seems to be a depressor of online political engagement. Frequent users of Twitter (a social network deemed to be crucial for social mobilization of the youth) were more likely to be male, and surprisingly, with less education and family income than other, less intensive Twitter users.
Los asuntos europeos han dejado de ser meramente técnicos o sectoriales para convertirse, en virt... more Los asuntos europeos han dejado de ser meramente técnicos o sectoriales para convertirse, en virtud de la crisis de deuda soberana de 2010, en parte de la vida cotidiana del ciudadano medio. Para informar sobre Europa es necesario conocer antes las características del sistema político de la Unión Europea. No estamos ante un estado nación tradicional, sino ante una confederación con aspiraciones de federación. Un ejecutivo técnico con poderes quasi-judiciales, la Comisión Europea, tiene de iure la iniciativa legislativa europea. Pero de facto son los gobiernos de los estados, a través del Consejo Europeo, los que marcan la agenda de prioridades para la Unión. El Parlamento Europeo, el único de los tres actores que tiene una legitimidad popular directa, y que ha adquirido un poder legislativo equiparable al del Consejo de Ministros nacionales, ve impotente cómo las cifras de participación electoral caen en correlación directa al incremento de sus poderes. Dado que la legislación europea es transpuesta a las legislaciones nacionales, y son los estados nación los que hacen Europa real en sus respectivos territorios, es importante para los periodistas conocer el carácter multi-nivel de la Unión: los ministros de cualquier Estado se reúnen con frecuencia con sus homólogos europeos y los gobiernos regionales administran los Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional y del Fondo Social Europeo, en la mayoría de los casos sin apenas debate parlamentario al respecto. En Bruselas a menudo pasan desapercibidas las representaciones de los estados ante la UE (REPER), donde los embajadores nacionales trabajan en la sombra para defender el interés de su estado.
The patent disconnection between the institutions of the European Union and the citizens of Europ... more The patent disconnection between the institutions of the European Union and the citizens of Europe has been widely attributed by political leaders and scholars to a 'communications gap', that is, to the way EU affairs are mediated by the media, and to the apparent lack of interest by national elites in conveying the importance of Europe. This book challenges this 'mediation theory' and suggests instead a cultural and systemic explanation for the distant and bureaucratic character of the European Union. Apportioning the blame for the communication gap to the media and national politicians neglects two real deficits which prevent Europe from enjoying a vibrant public sphere: a deficit of domesticisation, a popular disconnection with the idea of the EU, and a deficit of politicisation with European politics, it being difficult to categorise as through traditional methods of 'left vs. right'. This book suggests that popular disengagement with the EU is a consequence of the fact that Europe as a cultural community is an interdependent continent rather than a nation and that, as an political institution, the EU is a pseudo-confederation full of anti-publicity bias, elite-driven integration, corporatism and diplomacy. The result is a book that is an essential read for students and scholars of political communication and of the European Union.
This paper draws on Carl Schmitt"s conceptions of democracy and "the political" to explain the se... more This paper draws on Carl Schmitt"s conceptions of democracy and "the political" to explain the seemingly apolitical and distant character of the European Union. Schmitt conceived democracy as a regime of identity between the government and the governed, and "the political" as "friend versus enemy" relationship. When a political regime is domesticised, that is, when identification between representatives and represented exists, the "antagonistic" politicisation between enemies would be replaced by the "agonistic" politicisation between the members of a polity, that is, by an ideological, rather than inimical, left-versus-right contest. We test this intimate relationship between positive domesticisation and agonistic politicisation by interviewing the networks of EU-related political and social actors in two contrasting regions in Europe, Yorkshire in the UK (the paradigm of British euroscepticism) and Galicia in Spain (where the EU has been supported by most political elites), and by content-analysing the news that link the EU to these regions in their respective benchmark newspapers (The Yorkshire Post and La Voz de Galicia). In Yorkshire the predictions of the theory hold true (lack of identification leads to a friend-versus-enemy relationship), but in Galicia a positive domesticisation does not lead to an agonistic or left-versus-right politicisation. We explain our findings by resorting to an explanation based on three components: The way the EU has been integrated (through a neofunctionalist avoidance of popular participation), the way the EU is governed (diplomacy and corporatism are intrinsically against the publicity of procedures), and the absence of a cohesive European identity that would allow for redistributive political decisions at a pan-European scale. The workings of the proverbial "communications gap", by which the lack of political engagement with the EU would be attributed to the role of the news media, find little support in our study. A positive regard of the EU in Galicia by the political elites and the mainstream media has not made the EU popular there. Paradoxically, the EU is more "political" in Yorkshire (in an antagonistic sense), with the EU embodying the enemy.
The Internet and Higher …, Jan 1, 2008
The aim of this study is to explore, based on a nationally representative sample, U.S. college st... more The aim of this study is to explore, based on a nationally representative sample, U.S. college students' uses of the Internet in their studies and their perceptions of academic life online, and changes in both perception and use since a 2002 report on the topic. Findings show that overall Internet use for academic purposes has increased. Students report generally positive opinions about the Internet's utility for academic work, but satisfaction with it for academic interactions may be on the decline.
First Monday, Jan 1, 2009
The goal of this study was to learn about how college students are using the Internet and to comp... more The goal of this study was to learn about how college students are using the Internet and to compare their use of it to that of college students as reported in 2002 by replicating and extending previous research. A survey of college students at 40 US higher education institutions was ...
Journal of Computer‐ …, Jan 1, 2009
The goal of this study was to learn about whether race and gender make a difference in Internet u... more The goal of this study was to learn about whether race and gender make a difference in Internet use among U.S. college students. A survey of college students at 40 U.S. higher education institutions was conducted, along with observations and interviews at several Midwestern U.S. universities. For comparison to the general U.S. population a nationwide telephone survey was undertaken. The study presents new data on Internet use among male and female college students, as well as trends in use across racial lines. Data on non-White Hispanic college student users of the Internet provides insight into Internet use among a group that appears to be underrepresented in the literature on college students and Internet use. The data analysis presents a complex picture of differential Internet use along gender lines, one that is generally consistent with the existing scholarly literature. Differential use based on race is a bit more complex. Stronger points of contrast emerge amongst White non-Hispanic, Hispanic, and Black non-Hispanic college students than they do when the respondents are grouped by gender.
Yearbook of the …, Jan 1, 2007
The International Journal of Press …, Jan 1, 2008
stevejones.me
Note: This article was published in Spanish as part of a collection of essays on social movements... more Note: This article was published in Spanish as part of a collection of essays on social movements and digital culture edited by Igor Sábada and Ángel J. Gordo: F. Seoane y S. Jones. 2008. "Activismo político en la era digital: El empleo de internet para el compromiso político de asistentes a convocatorias" In Igor Sádaba and Ángel J. Gordo (Coords.) Cultura digital y movimientos sociales. Madrid: Catarata, pp. 222-240.
ics.leeds.ac.uk
This paper presents the results of a content analysis of 237 weblogs authored by college students... more This paper presents the results of a content analysis of 237 weblogs authored by college students from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) hosted at Xanga.com. The sample is statistically representative of the 650 online diaries that UIC students had registered in the named website at the time of the sample selection (April 2005). The coding protocol, adapted from the one used by Huffaker on his thesis on gender similarities and differences among teenage bloggers, looked at how the weblog authors introduce themselves, the kind of issues they discuss in their diaries, and the type of resources they use (images, videos, music, emoticons) to communicate. The feedback from the readers was also considered, as well as the integration of the individual weblogs into broader networks of weblogs ("blogrings") within the Xanga blogging community. The results
Yearbook of the …, Jan 1, 2007
There is little dispute that technology has transformed people's everyday lives. People ... more There is little dispute that technology has transformed people's everyday lives. People shop online, download news in their iPods, communicate via text and video, take digital photos, and conduct all manner of personal and professional business via the Internet. While these ...
ics.leeds.ac.uk
This paper offers a review of the role of the Internet in fostering political engagement. The inf... more This paper offers a review of the role of the Internet in fostering political engagement. The informational environment of those who become active in politics through the Internet is described, underscoring the fact that potential online activists are avid mainstream media consumers. Questioning well-established assumptions in the literature, this paper argues that the Internet can engage the unengaged, by being instrumental in the political involvement of informed-but-inactive citizens. The recent audiovisualisation of the Web with the arrival of YouTube politics brings to the fore the final question addressed in this paper: Are the 'active citizen' and 'broadcast news' oxymoronic terms? 1 Paper prepared for presentation at the 'Broadcast News and the Active Citizen' conference, University of Leeds,
Note: This article was published in Spanish as part of a collection of essays on social movements... more Note: This article was published in Spanish as part of a collection of essays on social movements and digital culture edited by Igor Sábada and Ángel J. Gordo: F. Seoane y S. Jones. 2008. "Activismo político en la era digital: El empleo de internet para el compromiso político de asistentes a convocatorias" In Igor Sádaba and Ángel J. Gordo (Coords.) Cultura digital y movimientos sociales. Madrid: Catarata, pp. 222-240.
Revista de Sociologia e Política, Jan 1, 2009
The 2008 general elections in Spain reproduced the common characteristics of Western democracies:... more The 2008 general elections in Spain reproduced the common characteristics of Western democracies: permanent campaigning, negativism and personalizing. Throughout the entire campaign, mainstream mass media employed a strategy of bi-partisan polarization that was encouraged by both social democrats and conservatives, resulting in a loss of power for small nationalist and leftist parties. Candidates' debates began to be televised again after a 15 year hiatus, but the moderating role of journalists was abolished by the two major political parties which instead made prior agreement regarding the topics to be debated. Candidates' use of new media technologies did not result in a "citizen's campaign" or "campaigning from below". Citizens' spontaneous participation was more feared than desired and the revolutionary resources provided by Web 2.0 were co-opted by political parties that incorporated them into their political marketing strategies.
Uploads
Papers by Francisco Seoane Pérez
desinformación, con el fin de aumentar su tráfico web y, en última instancia, sus ingresos publicitarios. Mientras tanto, la difusión de desinformación tiene consecuencias disruptivas e impactantes. La pandemia de COVID-19 ofrece un ejemplo reciente. Al interrumpir el sentido compartido de la sociedad sobre los hechos aceptados, estas narrativas socavan la salud pública, la seguridad y las respuestas del gobierno.
Para combatir la desinformación, debemos encontrar formas de transformar el sistema y su financiación. El Índice Global de Desinformación (GDI por sus siglas en inglés) se ha centrado en desarrollar una estrategia en esta dirección.
desinformación, con el fin de aumentar su tráfico web y, en última instancia, sus ingresos publicitarios. Mientras tanto, la difusión de desinformación tiene consecuencias disruptivas e impactantes. La pandemia de COVID-19 ofrece un ejemplo reciente. Al interrumpir el sentido compartido de la sociedad sobre los hechos aceptados, estas narrativas socavan la salud pública, la seguridad y las respuestas del gobierno.
Para combatir la desinformación, debemos encontrar formas de transformar el sistema y su financiación. El Índice Global de Desinformación (GDI por sus siglas en inglés) se ha centrado en desarrollar una estrategia en esta dirección.