Working the fields of big data: Using big-data-augmented online ethnography to study candidate–candidate interaction at election time

ABSTRACT

The paper proposes big-data-augmented ethnography as a novel mixed-methods approach to studying political discussions in a hybrid media system. Using such empirical setup, the authors examined candidate–candidate online interaction during election campaigning. Candidate–candidate interaction crossing party boundaries is scarce and occurs in the form of negative campaigning via social media, with the shaming of rival candidates and engaging in battles with them. The authors posit that ethnographic observations can be used to contextualize the computational analysis of large data sets, while computational analysis can be applied to validate and generalize the findings made through ethnography.

KEYWORDS:

• Big data
• computational social sciences
• data science
• elections
• ethnography
• interaction
• negative campaigning
• political discussion
• social media

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to research assistants Netta Karttunen, Paula Hyssy, and Sanna Luomanperä for assisting in the online ethnography. We also wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their extremely useful comments, commenters in The Empiricist’s Challenge: Asking Meaningful Questions in Political Science conference, University of Mannheim and SOMERI Social Media Research Symposium, University of Jyväskylä, and Asko Lehmuskallio and Salli Hakala for their feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (project Digivaalit 2015). Nelimarkka and Marttila also thank the Kone Foundation for funding their work (project Digital Humanities of Public Policy-making).

Notes

1. The word “mention” here extends also to practices of merely referencing other candidates’ names without using a technological function such as Twitter @mentions or Facebook tagging.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (project Digivaalit 2015). Nelimarkka and Marttila also thank the Kone Foundation for funding their work (project Digital Humanities of Public Policy-making).

Notes on contributors

Salla-Maaria Laaksonen

Salla-Maaria Laaksonen is a PhD candidate at the Communication Research Centre, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki. Her research interests are related to new communication technologies, organizations and organizing in new media, and online research methods.

Matti Nelimarkka

Matti Nelimarkka is a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki and a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) and Department of Computer Science, Aalto University and University of Helsinki. His research interests include computational social science, social computing, and technology-enabled politicians.

Mari Tuokko

Mari Tuokko is a graduate from University of Jyväskylä with an MA in Speech Communication. Her research interests are in technology-mediated interaction and political communication.

Mari Marttila

Mari Marttila is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki. Her research interests include politics in social media, political representation, and digital inequalities.

Arto Kekkonen

Arto Kekkonen is a graduate from the University of Helsinki with an M. Soc. Sci. in Media and Communication Studies, and an undergraduate student in computer science. His research interests include online advocacy and political participation, and computational social science.

Mikko Villi

Mikko Villi, PhD, is a professor of Journalism in the Department of Communication at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research is focused on media management and media work, concentrating on mobile, visual, and social media.