The Internet, Political Science and Public Policy: Re-examining Collective Action, Governance and Citizen-Government Interactions in the Digital Era
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Internet Institute
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Helen Margetts (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Andrew Ryder (Author)
(2012)
Where in the World are You? Geolocation and Language Identification in Twitter
Bright J
(2013)
The Life and Death of Political News Measuring the Impact of the Audience Agenda Using Online Data
in Social Science Computer Review
Bright J
(2016)
Big Data and Public Policy: Can It Succeed Where E-Participation Has Failed?
in Policy & Internet
Clarke, A
(2014)
Governments and Citizens Getting to Know Each Other? Open, Closed, and Big Data in Public Management Reform.
in Policy & Internet,
Graham M
(2013)
Featured Graphic. Mapping the Geoweb: A Geography of Twitter
in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
Graham M
(2012)
Featured Graphic: Digital Divide: The Geography of Internet Access
in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
Graham, M.
(2011)
Geographies of the World's Knowledge
| Description | This research fellowship had two areas of investigation - political participation and governance - and four research objectives, achieved as follows: 1. To contribute to knowledge and understanding of the impact of the Internet on political behaviour and governance models We have explored the ways in which the Internet and social media are causing political mobilization to become more turbulent and chaotic. We show how social media alter the costs and benefits of political action and enable 'tiny acts' of political participation, which may seem insignificant-but can scale up to large-scale mobilization. Many-indeed most-of these mobilizations fail within hours. But we find that those that succeed do so rapidly, attaining critical mass and tipping over into large-scale participation. We have explored experimentally two key forms of social influence acting on individuals considering whether to contribute these micro-donations of time and effort to political causes; social information about the participation of others and visibility. We find visibility to be a stronger influence in terms of maximising contributions, while social information is more efficient in delivering public goods. We identify personality as a predictor of contributions; of willingness to 'start' a mobilization and of susceptibility to these forms of influence. We show how success of collective action is dependent on the distribution of individual thresholds for action, extending work by Schelling and Granovetter on threshold models. This new ecology of mobilization, with a large number of failures, a small number of extreme events, and heterogeneous behaviour within social groups brings an unstable, unpredictable, and turbulent form of politics. Turbulent politics pose a challenge to models of governance. Disruptive, unpredictable and often unsustainable political movements can disrupt and even destroy regimes, but fail to supply the organizational framework to rebuild them. Understanding the relationship between social media and political participation, using the kind of methods used here-experimental and the modelling of fine-grained big data-can help to inform governmental responses. An understanding of patterns of communication or interaction in data generated from social media could provide early warning signals for turbulent politics while experiments can be used to develop policies that nudge citizens' behaviours towards socially optimal outcomes 2. To develop new theories and conceptual frameworks to study citizens and governments online For collective action we have developed a model of democracy to accommodate the changing nature of turbulent politics. A pluralist pattern is emerging, but far more disorganized and 'bottom up' than envisaged by the early architects of pluralist political systems. We call this model chaotic pluralism, building on scientific models of chaos theory in natural systems. Chaotic systems (of which turbulence is just one example) are dynamical systems characterised by non-linearity and a high degree of interconnectivity, with unpredictable behaviour in the long-term although their governing rules are known and deterministic. The embedding of daily life into a super connected world of online social media with very low (tending to zero) participation costs could have brought political systems to a chaotic state, where small perturbations or micro-contributions can eventually lead to large social phenomena. At the same time, social media and digital transactional trails can be of help in modelling the real current state of the system more precisely, helping to understand the long term behaviour of the system. We have developed a model of governance for the age of social media and big data-Essentially Digital Governance-based on nine principles. Five 'Do' principles provide a design framework: • Deliver public services for free • Use already existing digital information • Do it once • Grow scalable services in competition • Isocratic (DIY) administration Four 'Choice' principles offer a normative framework: • Value equality of outcome over process • Provide formal rights and real redress • 'Keep the state nodal' obligation • Experiential learning For each principle, the model draws out their cultural origins from the world of information theory and science that has grown up around information systems and the Internet; highlights exemplars of best and worst practice; and illustrates the counterfactual - the dangers of not pursuing them. The model provides a framework for their synthesis in a 'whole of government' approach. 3. To develop new ways of using the Internet to generate real-time data about citizen behaviour online We have pioneered the generation of large-scale data sources (so called 'big data') of political participation. These include a complete data set of all signatures to petitions to petitions platforms in the UK and US over a three-year period, and a complete digital trace of all these petitions in social media. For government, we have produced complete web crawls for several governments, which will be visualized and available online. We have also worked with the Internet Archive and British Library to secure access to historic crawls of both the UK and US governments, although the varying completeness of these crawls makes empirical investigations difficult. 4. To develop methodologies for studying online political behaviour We have pioneered the use of big data and multi-disciplinary data science approaches based on large-scale real-time transactional data (the original application was prescient in proposing the use of big data before the term was coined) to the study of political behavior, modeling data using a 'socio-physics' approach to understand the rise and fall of collective attention. We have developed the experimental method for understanding online political behaviour, including a natural experiment provided by a sudden change to a petition platform (showing the potential for the Internet itself to be used as a laboratory); an experiment conducted remotely to show how custom-built interfaces can take the laboratory into the field; and a public goods game laboratory experiment showing how online simulated environments can overcome some of the external validity problems associated with laboratory experiments. These findings (with relationship to political behaviour) have been published in Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action (Princeton University Press, 2015) and Essentially Digital Government: Designing the Information State (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) as well as the outputs available on Researchfish. |
| Exploitation Route | For political participation and collective action, the book Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action is an important addition to current thinking on the relationship between collective action and the internet. The research has led to a range of outputs as described elsewhere in Research Fish which have added empirical data, methodological innovation and a theoretical framework for the study of collective action online which are brought together in the book. It has been reviewed in Science, Political Studies and the Times Higher Education Supplement, as well as being presented at the Hay Festival, the Oxford Literatary Festival, at Harvard, MIT and ETH Zurich and to a number of policy-making audiences (including the Ministry of Defence), as well as being featured on the BBC Radio 4 flagship discussion programme Start the Week. The fellowship has pioneered the use of 'big data' and data science approaches and the use of multi-disciplinary teams in political science research, and Helen Margetts has raised the profile of this kind of research through numerous speaking engagements in both academic and practioner contexts - research groups across the world are now putting some of these approaches into practice. In 2018 the book won the Political Studies Association award for the best politics book in 2017. For government, the forthcoming book Essentially Digital Governance provides a design and normative framework for government in the digital era. We have had much interest from both academics and policy-makers in this work, stimulated by Helen Margetts' presentations to (for example) civil servants in the UK, US, Ireland, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and the World Economic Forum (in Davos and Dubai) and other outputs described on Researchfish. All three anonymous reviewers of the original proposal to Oxford University Press cited how valuable this book will be to policy-making and practitioner communities, as well as providing a fresh new approach to academic thinking on digital government. The insights generated by this fellowship are now being taken forward by policy-makers across the UK government through the public policy programme at the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. The programme, which looks for ways in which the latest generation of digital-intensive technologies can be used to improve policy-making and service provision and foster government innovation, was set up and is directed by Helen Margetts and inspired by the research carried out for the fellowship. The impacts which are starting to derive from this programme are described in Professor Margetts' Turing fellowship, detailed elsewhere on Researchfish. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | http://politicalturbulence.org/ |
| Description | This professorial fellowship has had impact in three main areas: (1) Growing and shaping the field of social data science in the UK, through capacity building, training and the creation of new data sources. By focusing on large-scale digitally generated data on citizen behaviour, the Fellowship proposal laid out the concept of big data before the term existed and allowed Helen Margetts as professorial fellow to be an early mover in shaping the nascent field of 'social data science'. The fellowship research has developed new ways of generating and analyzing large-scale social data and new 'data science' methodologies for using this real-time transactional data to understand political behaviour, developed and showcased in the book Political Turbulence published with Princeton University Press. Over the course of the research programme, the research has built capacity in data science, particularly with the appointment of Scott Hale (in 2011), Taha Yasseri (in 2012) and the DPhil studentship of Tom Nicholls, all of whom have gone on to develop careers in the field and continue to further the aims of the research programme. The research attracted other faculty to the Oxford Internet Institute including Dr Jonathan Bright (in 2013) who has joined the core research team in various collaborations. The research has also led to the provision of various data driven courses (including digital social research; visualization; and coding with Python to gather social data from the Internet) to the OII MSc in the Social Science of the Internet, which is now being developed to include a data science track. The statistics core of the MSc degree has also been reworked to use R, a core tool in the field of data science. Largely as a result of developing social data science at OII, Helen Margetts is one of the three Oxford leads for the new Alan Turing Institute for Data Science, a government-funded initiative being established in London (the other partners are Cambridge, UCL, Warwick and Edinburgh) and has played a pivotal role in ensuring that social data science is on the ATI's research agenda. As part of the nascent scientific programme of the ATI, she is convening the workshop on 'The Foundations of Social Data Science'; these workshops are expected to lead to a programme of research in the future, thereby ensuring that social data science is an enduring core theme of the ATI. She is also convening an EPSRC-funded Summit on 'Data Science for Policy and Government' to take place in London in February 2015, which will draw in policy-makers and practitioners from across government with an interest in data science, to ensure that ATI research informs and benefits government and public policy as well as other sectors. The research has opened up new data sources for political science research, including a complete dataset of all signatures to all petitions on the US and UK government petition sites; the network of hyperlinks between pages in the .uk domain from 1996 to 2010 based on data from the Internet Archive; and a huge variety of social media data (as detailed under 'Research Databases and Models). The fellowship enabled the collection of a complete dataset of tweets and public facebook posts for the UK general election in 2015, including all mentions of all candidates and all their own activity on Twitter. These data were initially analysed for an election blog http://elections.oii.ox.ac.uk/ and the research team are now liaising with the British Election Study team (Rachel Gibson and Jane Green) to work out how this data might be linked with the relevant BES data and used by other electoral researchers. (2) Raising awareness of and demonstrating the potential of 'big data' and data science for government, policy-making and service design, with specific examples where methods have been used directly. Social data science has distinctive potential for the public sector - yet government lags behind the corporate world in obtaining benefits from 'big data' or data science methods. As detailed in the outputs of the fellowship, Helen Margetts has highlighted the challenge and opportunities of big data and data science for government to policy-makers across the world, including in London, Washington DC, Singapore, Brussels, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Cabinet Office have also sought access to this work, visiting the research team in Oxford and recruiting Helen Margetts to the Data Science Working Group of the Cabinet Office, which shares examples of best practice. Scott Hale is the first external member to attend and present at the newly established Government Social Research Working Group for Social Media Research, a cross-department Government initiative to promote the use of social media research for research and policy, which has also led to his advisory role with the Food Standards Agency in this area. More specifically, the research has fed directly into the design of the UK government petitions platform though working with the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons; staff from the Government Digital Service; and the House of Commons Procedure Committee (as listed on ResearchFish), informing design of the new petitions platform introduced after the election in 2015. This work has highlighted the importance of platform design for civic participation and developed new methodologies (including a natural experiment) for researching those impacts (John et al, 2014). Similar data and methods have now been used by other departments to inform service delivery design. The research team carried out a feasibility study for the UK Department of Work and Pensions on how social media may be mined to understand how citizens experience government services and policy-making, and to inform future design, which was published by the Department (see Bright et al, 2014) and presented by both Jonathan Bright and Helen Margetts to DWP analysts. This report has attracted attention in other departments and governments and was presented to civil servants in the Netherlands (2012), Cambridge (2015), and Brussels (2015). Helen Margetts is now working (through her role on the Universal Credit Evaluation Group Advisory Panel) on designing experiments to test the impact of alternative benefits calculators on employment outcomes under Universal Credit as it is rolled out. (3) Raising the profile of digital technologies in government and putting forward a new model of digital governance Finally, work on a new model of 'Essentially Digital Governance' which lays out four 'choice' principles and five 'do principles has attracted widespread interest from policy-makers across the world, including from the Ministry of Defence (presented to over 300 senior army personnel in Tidworth in 2015); Hong Kong; Dublin and Singapore. This work has been imported into the UK government through Helen Margetts' role as a Digital Adviser to the UK government and more specifically through a series of Digital Masterclasses on the Digital Landscape that she has given to civil servants (Grade 7 and above) in 2014 and 2015, which have highlighted the possibilities of using social big data and put forward the new model for digital government (93% of participants at these sessions have said they would be more effective at work as a result). Use by policy-makers across the world has been facilitated through her appointment to the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Government, including attending WEF Global Agenda Summit in Dubai (2014) and Abu Dhabi (2015) has further raised profile of the model in the international policy-making community. This work will be published as a book entitled 'Designing Essentially Digital Governance' (with Patrick Dunleavy, under contract to Oxford University Press), the proposal for which received excellent reviews, one of which (by a policy-maker) highly recommended the book for publication because of its potential value to policy-makers, particularly its global comparative reach. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Established a Policy Innovation Unit in the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science, to work out innovative new ways that data science can be used to improve government and policy-making |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| URL | https://www.turing.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Expert Witness to House of Commons Procedure Committee on Government Petitions |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/procedure-committee/news/... |
| Description | Expert Witness to House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee on Statistics and Open Data |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-sel... |
| Description | Invited to become member of Chatham House Commission on Democracy and Technology in Europe |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| URL | https://www.chathamhouse.org/about/structure/europe-programme/commission-democracy-and-technology-eu... |
| Description | Invited to join the Government's Digital Economy Council |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | The Digital Economy Council brings government and the tech community together to implement the UK Digital Strategy, with the government's ambition to develop a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone in mind. The aim of the Council is to drive progress on the implementation of the Strategy in the areas where the expertise and reach of members can have the greatest impact. The Council also plays an important role in bringing government and industry together to develop a Digital Charter that will ensure the UK is the best place to start and grow a digital business, and the safest place to be online. It identifies opportunities, sets strategic priorities and leads work streams to take this work forward. |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/digital-economy-council-and-digital-economy-advisory-group |
| Description | Invited to join the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on Agile Government |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | The Global Future Council on Agile Governance will develop an agile governance toolkit, to enable leaders to put agile governance into practice. |
| Description | Keynote Speech at Command and Control in the Information Age Symposium, MOD, Tidworth |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53bad224e4b013a11d687e40/t/54be9fbce4b0ab9f360ccf41/1421778876... |
| Description | National Audit Office Expert Group |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Raised Awareness of the Digital Landscape |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | On 11th June 2014 I gave a three hour digital masterclass to 40 reasonably senior civil servants (grade 7 and above) on 'The Digital Landscape'. This was initiated by the Government Digital Service (see research collaborations under this Award) and organised by Civil Service Learning. The idea was to educate civil servants whose primary role was not necessarily related to the digital function of the importance of digital technologies for public service design and delivery, and in particular the potential importance of 'big data' and data science approaches for government (one of the key themes of the Award). The Masterclass generated an extremely rich discussion and the feedback was very good indeed, with 100 per cent of respondents to the evaluation forms (most of the Masterclass) saying that the learning experience was engaging and that they felt able to participate - and 93.4 per cent saying 'I will be more effective at work as a result of this event'. |
| Description | Redesigning the Government Petitions Platform |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/procedure/2014-15/petition-signing-in-the-UK.p... |
| Description | Universal Credit Evaluation Group and DWP use of research for understanding citizens |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Alan Turing Institute for Data Science seed funding programme |
| Amount | £42,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | Volatility in the Policy Landscape |
| Organisation | Alan Turing Institute |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2018 |
| End | 01/2019 |
| Description | Big Data: Demonstrating the Value of the UK Web Domain Dataset for Social Science Research |
| Amount | £79,129 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Jisc |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2012 |
| End | 02/2013 |
| Description | Interactive visualisations for teaching, research, and dissemination (Jisc Elevator) |
| Amount | £10,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Jisc |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2012 |
| End | 10/2012 |
| Description | John Fell Oxford University Press (OUP) Research Fund. |
| Amount | £7,032 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 133/047 |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | John Fell Fund |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2014 |
| End | 01/2015 |
| Description | OII-Google research funding, internal research competition |
| Amount | £65,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 04/2014 |
| End | 04/2015 |
| Description | Wiener-Anspach Foundation |
| Amount | £52,197 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Wiener-Anspach Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 09/2014 |
| End | 08/2016 |
| Title | 10 Downing Street UK petitioning website |
| Description | Number of signatures to 8328 petitions over time (daily resolution) along with petition metadata (title, category, time of creation), directly crawled from the website. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The online petitioning systems have been studied at large scale through this dataset for the first time, leading to publication of 1 research paper and a book chapter. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851587 |
| Title | Collection of tweets mentioning the UK petitions |
| Description | This dataset includes entire tweets including a link to a petition on the UK government petitioning website. The data is collected via the Twitter public API. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The data indicated the significant role of social media in dissemination of the petitions and conducting the traffic to the petitioning websites. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851633 |
| Title | Collection of tweets mentioning the US petitions |
| Description | This dataset includes entire tweets including a link to a petition on the US whitehouse petitioning website; We the People. The data is collected via the Twitter public API. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | N/A. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851634 |
| Title | Full population .gov.uk web crawl dataset |
| Description | A snapshot of the web presence of UK government entities, collected between March and October 2014. The dataset contains HTML, text and graphics for all websites hosted in .gov.uk; some large-scale databases such as council library catalogues and the UK statute law database are excluded. The data are useful for both network analysis of links between UK government bodies and out to external organisations, and also for full-text analysis of government web activity. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The dataset has supported a cross-authority analysis of local government in the UK, and updates the findings on website centrality and connectivity from previous work. The dataset will be publicly released on the completion of the associated DPhil project. |
| Title | Government websites hyperlink networks; multiple countries |
| Description | The dataset includes the hyperlink network structure of the government websites in different countries. This version of the dataset includes data from Canada, Japan, and Spain. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Differences in government organisation systems in various countries have been studied using these data. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851635 |
| Title | Online Campaigns Tweets: Malala, Save the Bees, Women on Banknotes |
| Description | This dataset includes entire tweets including keywords related to the three social campaigns: Malala, Save the Bees, Women on Banknotes. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | N/A. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851624 |
| Title | Petitions: gov.uk petitioning website |
| Description | Number of signatures to 19,621 petitions over time (hourly resolution) along with petition metadata (title, category, time of creation), directly crawled from the website. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The data has been analysed extensively and the results have been communicated to the House of Commons and the Government Digital Services. Two research papers have been written based on the data. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851614 |
| Title | UK financial companies related tweets |
| Description | A collection of tweets id's of all the records on Twitter from December 2013 to December 2014, which include keywords or handles of different UK based financial companies. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | N/A. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851623 |
| Title | UK government related tweets |
| Description | A collection of tweets id's of all the records on Twitter from May 2013 to December 2014, which include keywords or handles of different UK government departments. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The data is being collected on a regular basis, allowing historical analysis to be performed retrospectively. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851622 |
| Title | We the People; the US petitioning website |
| Description | Number of signatures to 1769 petitions over time (hourly resolution) along with petition metadata (title, category, time of creation), directly crawled from the website. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | A cross comparison between these data and the UK petitioning web-site has been performed, showing the similarity in the general trends, despite the differences in design of the two platforms and socio-political features of the two countries. |
| URL | http://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/id/eprint/851616 |
| Description | Australian Government on the Web |
| Organisation | University of Queensland |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We have conducted discussions with Paul Henman at the University of Queensland since the inception of the professorial fellowship and he made a successful application to the Australian Research Council for this project on Government on the Web, with Helen Margetts as Partner Investigator. Henman and Rob Ackland (from ANU) have used similar methodologies on this project to (a) conduct web crawls and (b) conduct an experiment to look at how people seek and find government-related information. We collaboratively defined the scope of the web crawls and discussed the findings in-depth. We are currently preparing publications of these. The experiment was carried out by Paul Henman in Oxford in July 2014, with the assistance of Scott Hale and the OxLab subject pool. Scott Hale is further providing analysis expertise as Paul's team analyses the results of the experiment. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We are able to compare our webcrawl of the governments also crawled as part of the Australian project with the Australian team's results, thereby enabling us to understand and therefore control for any differences brought about by the different methodologies used. We also have full access to the data from the Australian team's experiment, giving us the findings from those questions which we contributed to the post-experiment survey instrument, which are highly relevant to the digital government element of the professorial fellowship award. The Australian team were also able to help us set the scope/seeds for our web crawl of Australian government and provide local insight into the results of the crawl. |
| Impact | None yet. |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Collaboration: Government Digital Service |
| Organisation | Government Digital Service |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The Government Digital Service (GDS) is a new team within Cabinet Office tasked with transforming government digital services. We have established a collaboration with this team to see if any of the knowledge and experienced gained through research in the project can be applied to further enhance the work and impact of GDS. |
| Collaborator Contribution | In particular, we have worked with the team in GDS running the petitions platform, sharing with them the results of our analysis of petitions data. In return, they have shared with us the Google analytics data for the petitions platform, which has enriched our analysis and made it possible to determine the origin of visitors to the site. |
| Impact | This work has led to further engagement - we met with the Leader of the House of Commons and his team in 2014 to discuss the planned redesign of the petitions platform and its joint ownership with the House of Commons, after which Helen Margetts gave evidence to the House of Commons procedure committee (see policy influence), which was later published by the Committee. We continue to talk to the GDS team about the redesign. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | mySociety |
| Organisation | mySociety |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | mySociety build websites that give the public simple, tangible ways to connect with and improve their society. We have established a collaboration with mySociety to see if any of the knowledge and experience gained through research in the project can be applied to further enhance the work and impact of this UK Charity. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We have now applied for further funding through the ESRC programme: Civil Society Data Partnership Projects, in which mySociety will provide access to data, and we will jointly design experiments to test various hyotheses about the effect of different kinds of social information on people's willingness to undertake civic engagement. |
| Impact | We have now applied for further funding through the ESRC programme: Civil Society Data Partnership Projects, in which mySociety will provide access to data, and we will jointly design experiments to test various hyotheses about the effect of different kinds of social information on people's willingness to undertake civic engagement. This is multi-disciplinary, in that both political science and computer science expertise will be required to take the work forward. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Title | HTML5 Interactive Network Display |
| Description | To aid in public dissemination of our results, we developed a robust solution to display network graphs in any modern web browser using HTML5. Users of the visualizations can zoom, pan, and search and network as well as click on any node for further details. We packaged the tools together as a free plugin for Gephi, a common network visualization program. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2012 |
| Impact | The plugin we distributed is now one of the most downloaded plugins for Gephi, and our code has been used to display interactive networks on thousands of websites. The plugin has been used by many organizations including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the Wikimedia Foundation, Elsevier, and State Farm (a US insurance company). |
| URL | https://github.com/oxfordinternetinstitute/InteractiveVis/ |
| Title | Robust, easy-to-use code for Twitter data capture |
| Description | As part of our data collection program, we wrote code to collect data from many online sources. We released the code we use for Twitter data collection publicly under a free and open-source license. Along with the production-level data collection code, we also released a step-by-step guide to getting started, a simplified data collection script for beginners to more easily understand (less error code and heavily commented), and tools for data manipulation (e.g., converting raw data to CSV format) |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The code has been used for teaching as well as for research data collection. We do not know the total number of users, but have been in contact with over 50 people using the code. |
| URL | https://github.com/computermacgyver/twitter-python |
| Title | Warctika |
| Description | Warctika is a python library for processing WARC files through Apache Tika. The library is designed to handle web crawl data fetched using the Heritrix web crawler (or other tools producing WARC files), extract the plain text from structured formats and resave the data as WARC "conversion" records. The primary use for this tool is to extract text from webcrawl data sets for use in machine learning and supervised classification work. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The tool has made possible the use of large-scale supervised classification approaches based on full-text analysis, which was previously challenging when using archival web crawl data. It also substantially reduces the storage cost of the datasets processed. |
| URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12183 |
| Description | "Govtech Venture Day 2018" Roundtable |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | On 11 April 2018, Helen Margetts was invited to speak at "Govtech Venture Day 2018" roundtable entitled "Can new technologies save democracy/welfare state?". This event was organised by IE University's Center for the Government of Change. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ie.edu/cgc/news-events/events/gov-tech-venture-day/ |
| Description | 10th Memorial Lecture for Paul Hirst |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to give the 10th memorial lecture in honour of my late colleague at Birkbeck College, the social theorist Paul Hirst. The organizers of the event had heard about my work for the Award on the subject of 'Chaotic Pluralism' (the title of the book that lays out the findings of the Collective Action element of the research) and thought this would be an excellent subject for the 10th memorial lecture, as Paul Hirst was a reknowned neo-pluralist, particularly through his work on the concept of Associationalism and the book Associatative Democracy. This took place on the 11th February 2014. The talk was warmly received and further generated discussion on the subject of the book, and the theoretical development of the Award, informing the final stages of developing the manuscript and making deeper links between our work and that of the earlier pluralists (such as Paul Hirst), something the first reviewers of the book had urged us to consider. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | 2014 World Economic Forum Interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts explains that a tweet, Facebook like, or e-petition are tiny acts of political participation. But they can scale up into collective action and leave behind data that can transform political science. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYykObctoBE |
| Description | Annenberg-Renmin Summer Workshop on Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Dr Taha Yasseri was invited to deliver a talk at the summer school. The talk has been well received and further discussions followed up. Tentative plans for the next year workshop have been made. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | BBC feature: First day 'is crucial for success of e-petitions' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The reporter has been featured on the BBC Politics News section. The story is considered as high impact media coverage with massive audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23441223 |
| Description | Book launch for Political Turbulence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Book launch of Political Turbulence with co-authors Scott Hale and Taha Yasseri. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Book review: Political Turbulence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Book review. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/review-political-turbulence-helen-margetts-peter-john-sco... |
| Description | Chairing and speaking at the conference, 'Digital by Default: A Revolution in Public Sector Delivery' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Prof Helen Margetts chaired and spoke at the conference, 'Digital by Default: A Revolution in Public Sector Delivery' on 1st December 2011 at the Barbican, London which was attended by over 100 government and private sector delegates and filmed for the Public Service TV site; keynote speaker was Martha Lane Fox, UK digital champion. Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Citizens Engaging with the State: Understanding the Dynamics of Online Collective Action |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the Holberg Prize Conference to Professor Manuel Cstells. 5 June 2012, Norway, leading to questions, debate and discussion. Further discussion with some of the participants |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Computational Social Science Conference, Warwick |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The talk sparked very engaging discussion, followed up by visits and meeting with other research teams interested in the research data and methodology. The presentation led to a collaboration on preparing a grant proposal submitted to ESRC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Conference on the European State |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | With Prof Christopher Hood, I gave a presentation on Amnesia and Dementia: the future of the Western State, based on work on Nodality as a key tool of government, developed in the course of the Award. At this political science conference which included little other reference to digital technologies or the internet, it performed a valuable role in sparking debate and discussion in mainstream political science on this vital topic, a key objective of the research. The event led to further discussions on the topic of the internet and public policy with participants at the conference and further invitations to participate and speak at events. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Convened Internet, Politics and Policy Conference 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | workshop facilitator |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts (together with Jonathan Bright, another member of the research team) convened the third Internet, Politics and Policy conference, organized by the Oxford Internet Institute, on behalf of the journal Policy and Internet, to discuss a key trend in the relationship between the internet and public policy - the theme of the 2014 conference was Crowdsourcing. The conference attracted over 80 papers on topics highly related to the professorial fellowship programme of research, generating debate and discussion and future possibilities for collaboration. Various collaborative activities were discussed with both academic researchers and policy practitioners, for example Dieter Zinbauer of Transparency International, with whom the possibliity of an exeriment testing the effect of transparency on different types of participation was discussed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Convening workshop at ECPR General Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | paper presentation |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Amanda Clarke (DPhil student of Helen Margetts) and Helen Margetts convened a workshop on Digital Government at the ECPR general conference in Bordeaux in September 2013. Amanda Clarke presented their joint authored paper at the same workshop. The paper will shortly be published in Policy and Internet, and the workshop has led to an ongoing relationship with Tony Bovaird from Birmingham who acted as Discussant for the panel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Digital Leaders meeting - Sprint 13: The best of digital government |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts presented at this showcase event attended by all digital leaders in the UK Government. http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sprint-13/ http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sprint-13/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sprint-13/ |
| Description | Digital Present Article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts spoke to Hendrik Lehmann of Digital Present on the opportunities and risks for politics in the age of social media. The article is distributed throughout Germany. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://digitalpresent.tagesspiegel.de/fuer-eine-bessere-politik-muessen-wir-forderungen-an-facebook-... |
| Description | Digital by Default: Smarter Public Services |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts chaired the Public Service Events' second annual Digital by Default conference, where delegates heard from a programme of high profile speakers discussing the role of digital technologies in designing and delivering excellent, user-centred public services. http://www.publicserviceevents.co.uk/235/digital-by-default http://www.publicserviceevents.co.uk/235/digital-by-default |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Financial Times 'Techtonic' Podcast on Political Disruption |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was a Podcast produced by the Financial Times, in interview with Helen Margetts, talking to the FT's Madhumita Murgia about fake news, echo chambers, big data and why we need more research to be able to combat the "pathologies" of the internet. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| URL | https://www.ft.com/content/811c96d8-0953-45f7-85ee-e830be118fcb?utm_content=buffer3a3ba&utm_medium=s... |
| Description | Guest lecture at Technical University of Munich on Political Turbulence and the Democratic Landscape |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited to give lecture at Technical University of Munich on Political Turbulence and the Democratic Landscape (3 December 2018). This talk was in advance of receiving the Friedrich Schiedel Prize. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Helen Margetts 'In Conversation' with Ethan Zuckerman at MIT Media Lab |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk MIT Media Lab on 3 May in conversation with Ethan Zukerkman. The discussion was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. She also met with Sandy Pentland and discussed possibilties for collaboration in the area of social media, collective action and data science. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.media.mit.edu/events/2016/05/03/mltalks-series-helen-margetts-conversation-ethan-zuckerm... |
| Description | Imagine 2027 Lecture |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Gave "How social media (and other platforms) can promote equality in 2027" lecture at Imagine 2027 event which is an initiative of The Cambridge Commons, a group focused on raising awareness of inequality in Cambridge. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Interview on BBC Radio 4 about her new book 'Political Turbulence' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts talks about the tiny acts of online political participation which feature in 'Political turbulence' a new book which she co-authored. Sometimes these acts can scale up to mobilise change but most fail. (54.25 on the clock) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ycwqt |
| Description | Invitation to Facebook two-day working session |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited by Facebook to their two-day working session which brought together a dozen academics and experts to discuss community governance issues, including some specific proposals based on commissioned papers, with their product and content leadership. Discussions helped to guide Facebook's thinking on how they can do more to improve how they operate as well as improve understanding and legitimacy of decisions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited Guest Lecture at Geschwister Scholl Institute, Munich |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Professor Helen Margetts was invited to Geschwister Scholl Institute, Munich to give a guest lecture, entitled: "Political Turbulence in the Digital Age". (27 April 2018) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/1_termine_gsi/dynapower/lecture_series/index.html |
| Description | Invited guest at Facebook Amsterdam Social Science One initiative brainstorm event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to Facebook Amsterdam on 7 September 2018 to join a meeting of the European Advisory Group and invited guests, within the Social Science One Facebook initiative. The initiative focuses on the effect of social media on democracy and elections, with access to Facebook data. It will study the impact of social media on democracy and elections, generate insights to inform policy at the intersection of media, technology, and democracy, and advance new avenues for future research. The initiative seeks to study these processes in an independent, transparent, and ethical way according to the highest standards of data privacy and academic research, to improve the lives of all citizens. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://socialscience.one/our-facebook-partnership |
| Description | Invited panellist at Hay Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to speak at Hay Festival Panel entitled, "In Creators and Consumers: What's our role in responsibly designing the future?" along with Matt Hancock and Timandra Harkness. ( 27 May 2018) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.hayfestival.com/p-13800-matt-hancock-helen-margetts-timandra-harkness.aspx |
| Description | Invited participant to Facebook roundtable event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Helen Margetts was invited by Facebook's public policy team to participate in a roundtable for a small group of academics and experts to provide an "under-the-hood" look at how they approach content moderation on their platform and to discuss other issues. (16 May 2018) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited to give Keynote at workshop on 'Exploring the Social and Economic Effects of Digital Hyperconnectivity' at Sheffiled University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to give a keynote lecture on 'Collective action in the social media age' (19 June 2018). The workshop was organised and hosted by the Institute for Economic Analysis of Decision-making (InstEAD), at the University of Sheffield and brought together a number of researchers with expertise in the area of digital connectivity, and its socio-economic impacts, to present papers. The lecture sparked lots of questions and discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://instead.group.shef.ac.uk/exploring-the-social-and-economic-effects-of-digital-hyperconnectiv... |
| Description | Invited to participate at the New Statesman and Leidos roundtable, entitled 'Data Stewards: The Relationship Between Government and the Technology Industry' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to a New Statesman and Leidos roundtable event, entitled 'Data Stewards: The Relationship Between Government and the Technology Industry' on 27 June 2018. The discussion focused on issues related to public perceptions of data stewarding in government and the corporate world, and explored the reasons why the public is often reluctant to share data with government agencies but is far more willing to part with large quantities of personal data handed over to privately owned, multinational tech firms. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited to present at the 6th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy: The Future of Well-being |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited to present at the 6th OECD World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy: The Future of Well-being on 'Providing trusted evidence in a post-truth world' (29 November 2018). The OECD World Forums on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy have been pushing forward the boundaries of well-being measurement and policy. This event brought together thousands of leaders, experts and practitioners from all sectors of society, the Forums have contributed to an ongoing paradigm shift that emphasises people's well-being and inclusive growth as the ultimate focus for policies and collective action. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.oecd.org/statistics/6WF-November-2018-programme.pdf |
| Description | Invited to speak at Civil Service's High Potential Director's Scheme Digital and AI Capability Masterclass |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to contribute to Civil Service's interactive day to raise awareness of digital issues, particularly artificial intelligence, with participants from the Civil Service's 'High Potential Directors Scheme'. Each of the senior civil servants were responsible for significant portfolios and are expected to be our future permanent secretaries. It was noted how rare the opportunity arose to tackle such a pressing issue as AI with a group of this calibre at one time (13 June 2018). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited to speak at the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to speak at the 17th International Public Management Symposium at the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance on "public administration in the digital age" (6 June 2018). The panel description was: "Digital technologies are already transforming government, with working methods changing thanks to paperless procedures and telecommuting, as well as new public service offers and delivery methods, with government-sponsored start-ups, Etalab (the French agency in charge of public open data), and others. Streamlining of public services, in close connection with data pooling, is another key topic for this digital conversion of government action through many IT projects and innovations. What are the organisational issues underlying these government platform strategies?" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/files/directions_services/igpde-seminaires-conferences/RIGP/RIGP2... |
| Description | Keynote Presentation (Singapore Government, International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Symposium) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave a keynote speech and participated in the entire IRAHS Symposium, which was attended by government officials, policy-makers and business personnel. I had numerous bilateral discussions with government officials and policy-makers and discussed Singapore's use of data science and RCTs in government. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.rahs.gov.sg/public/www/Content.aspx?sid=3011 |
| Description | Keynote at ACM Web Science Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to be Keynote speaker at ACM WebScience, 19 April 2016. Her presentation "The Date Science of Politics: how social media shape collective action" sparked discussion and interest afterwards. The abstract was : Social media are now inextricably intertwined with the political behaviour of ordinary citizens. As people go about their daily lives on an ever-changing cast of web-based platforms, they are invited to make 'micro-donations' of time and effort to political causes: liking, sharing, tweeting, retweeting, following, uploading, downloading, signing petitions and so on, which extend the ladder of participation at the lower end and draw new people into politics, particularly in younger age groups. These 'tiny acts' of political participation can scale up to large mobilizations. The overwhelming majority fail, but some succeed rapidly and dramatically through a series of chain reactions and tipping points. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://politicalturbulence.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2016/04/websci16.pdf |
| Description | Keynote at the 3rd annual Computational Social Science Winter Symposium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give Keynote lecture at the 3rd annual Computational Social Science Winter Symposium on 30 November 2016. a talk at the Oxford Literary Festival, 3 April 201614. Her presentation "The Computational Social Science of Turbulent Politics" was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.gesis.org/css-wintersymposium/program/confirmed-invited-speakers/#c60952 |
| Description | Keynote on 'Political Turbulence and Collective Action' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited by Technical University of Munich to give a keynote lecture at Munich Politics Network event on 'Political Turbulence and Collective Action' (22 November 2018). This event focussed on the interdisciplinary study of disruptions, characterized by major sudden displacements of existing political, economic, societal or technological structures and its rapid substitution by new structures or emerging technologies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Knowledge Exchange Seminar: Quantitative Methods in Social Media Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Scott Hale presented on and facilitated discussion about best visualization practices at the 2nd Knowledge Exchange Seminar sponsored by the National Centre for Social Research and Sage Publications. Generated a lot of interest into how to undertake visualization |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Leadership without leaders? Starters and followers in on-line collective action |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the Nudging and Norms panel of the 5th ESRC Research Methods Festival. 2-5 July 2012, St Catherine's College, University of Oxford Discussions with notable experimentalists such as Don Green, also on the panel and extensive interest from the audience in the experiments carried out as part of the programme, with several requests for meeting and further discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Lecture at UCL on 'Political Turbulence' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited by the Institute of Advanced Studies to participate in a series of Distinguished Public Lectures at UCL. The lecture was on 'Political Turbulence' (10 October 2018). This series was made up of prominent public intellectuals whose work is widely admired and respected. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/events/2018/oct/ias-turbulence-helen-margetts-po... |
| Description | Life Events: How Citizens Interact with Online Government Services |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Scott Hale and Helen Margetts presented preliminary research findings to the Government Digital Service at a 'learning lunch' event on 25 April 2012. Generated discussion of how to use experiments in the design of digital services. Led to further discussions with the Government Digital Service, which in turn led to data sharing arrangement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Meeting with Government Digital Leaders |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts met with Digital Leaders from across the UK Government on 24 October 2012 at the Treasury. Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Methods talk to doctoral students attending the OII Summer Doctoral Programme |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Scott Hale presented on the methods involved with collecting and sampling social media data drawing examples and sharing knowledge from his work and experience in this grant and other research. The Summer Doctoral Programme brings together doctoral students from around the world for a fortnight of study with leading academics in a multi-disciplinary environment that aims to provide constructive advice and support for students' doctoral thesis research Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| Description | Named as one of Apolitical "100 Most Influential People in Digital Government for 2018" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The list is the first of its kind to show the full international spread of innovative work in the field, celebrating world-beating individuals from every continent. South America, East Asia and smaller European nations emerge among the most dynamic regions. Public servants from all levels of government appear alongside representatives of the private and third sectors and academia. Everyone included has exerted outsize influence on the transition to digital governments, whether through policymaking, research, advocacy or other means. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/helen-margetts-named-as-one-of-worlds-100-most-influential-people-in-d... |
| Description | Organise and Chair: Collective Action Online workshop at the European Consortium of Political Research joint sessions in Mainz (Germany) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | workshop facilitator |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Lance Bennett (University of Washington) and Helen Margetts (Oxford Internet Institute) convened a workshop on Collective Action Online at the Joint Sessions of the European Consortium of Political Research in Mainz, Germany, on 11-16 March 2013. The workshop brought together a group of scholars working on similar themes and research methods central the Helen Margetts' professorial fellowship, and to the work of both convenors. It generated cutting edge discussion on the theme of collective action and social media, and the sharing of results, methodological development and data sources. The workshop generated high level discussions that endured far beyond the week of the workshop, and fed directly into the work of Helen Margetts' professorial fellowship, particularly on the theme of Collective Action - the subject of her forthcoming book with Peter John, Scott Hale and Taha Yasseri. It also led to a number of bilateral relationships and collaborations, partiularly with Lance Bennett's group at the University of Washington. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://internetpoliticsecpr.eu/2013/03/09/jointsession2013/ |
| Description | Panel Member in Parliamentary Debate co-hosted PICTFOR/COADEC 'Mind the GaaP! Should Government provide a digital platform or should it be the platform?' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Led discussion as panel member, which led to lively discussion and debate from the floor (other panel members included Mke Bracken (Head of GDS) Mariana Mazzucato and Chi Onuwurah, Shadow Minister for Digital Government Led to further collaboration and discussion with other panel participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.pictfor.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/150304-GaaP-debate-Event-Report.pdf |
| Description | Panel discussion at Royal Statistical Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to be part of a panel on "Post-truth: what is it and what can we do about it?" on 7 February 2017. This panel was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards, including discussions of how the Oxford Internet Institute, Full Fact and 'Sense About Science' might work together. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.statslife.org.uk/events/eventdetail/832/-/post-truth-what-is-it-and-what-can-we-do-about... |
| Description | Panellist at the CSaP Annual Conference 2018 on expertise, trust and public policy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts was invited to be a panellist at the CSaP Annual Conference 2018 on Expertise, trust and public policy organised by the University of Cambridge (28 June 2018). The conference brought together members to discuss some of the opportunities for policy makers at both local and national levels to draw on academic expertise in support of more effective public policy. This was attended by around 200 academics/policy makers/NGOs/third sector/industry and learned societies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/events/annual-conference/ |
| Description | Panellist on BBC Discussion Programme "The Big Questions" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to be a panellist on BBC's "The Big Questions" in a programme focused on 'Social Media and Democracy', which was aired on 15 January 2017 throughout the UK. The programme was recorded 'as if live' on 8th January, and the other panellists included Chi Onuwurah MP (Shadow Business Secretary) , Jamie Bartlett (Demos), Will Moy (Full Fact) and Owen Jones (author and the Guardian). The programme delved into many of the issues explored in the ESRC Fellowship programme of research, and provided an excellent platform to broadcast some of the arguments of the book Political Turbulence and other outputs from the programme to a really wide audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007zpll |
| Description | Participation in World Economic Forum Future of Government panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts participated in a panel on 'The Future of Government' - on 19th May 2014 at the Blavatnik School of Government. The other participants were Professor Joseph Nye (Harvard) and Espen Ban Elde, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum who sponspored the event. The forum discussion provoked an excellent discussion among the faculty and postgraduate students who were in the audience. The activity paved the way for Helen Margetts being invited to be a member of the WEF Global Agenda Council on the Futrue of Government, chaired by Professor Nye, and to attend the WEF Global Agenda Summit in Dubai in November 2014. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Partipation in Ditchley Foundation Conference on Managing the digital revolution: can governments keep up? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Ditchley conferences are designed to address the international policy issues of the day and to bring together some 40 experts from different professions to brainstorm on problems urgently needing new solutions. It is strictly invitation only, and participants spend two days and nights at Ditchley Park in intense discussion. Helen Margetts was invited to participate, along with an illustrious list (see url where all participants are listed) of participants which included David Willetts (Minister for Science and Universities). A number of discussions and activities resulted from the event leading to further involvement, particularly in terms of the future agenda for the use of big data and data science in government and the structure of the UK government's digital service. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.ditchley.co.uk/conferences/past-programme/2010-2019/2014/digital-revolution |
| Description | Policy and Internet Conference on Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | workshop facilitator |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was the Academic Convenor of the Policy and Internet Conference on Big Data, held 20-21 September 2012 at the University of Oxford. The conference brought together over 100 scholars (both academic faculty and postgraduate students) from universities all over the world, as well as policy practitioners to discuss how big data could be used to shape and improve policy-making and our understanding of policy and politics. The conference was convened by Helen Margetts as Editor in Chief of the journal Policy and Internet, in collaboration with the Internet and Politics Standing Group of the European Consortium of Political Science. It was organized by the Oxford Internet Institute. Keynote speakers were Nigel Shadbolt and Duncan Watts. The event led to numerous discussions and collaborations, including some of the outputs specified for this award, including two policy events on big data held in Boston in 2013 and Washington in 2014. It also led to publications - a special issue of the journal Policy and Internet, as well as numerous articles of key relevance to the project - all conference paper givers were invited to submit to the journal, and most did. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | http://ipp.oii.ox.ac.uk/2012 |
| Description | Political Turbulence podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to do a lecture and podcast with co-author Peter John at the Royal Statistical Society. Both were well received and sparked discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://politicalturbulence.org/e20161027/ |
| Description | Presentation about petitions project at BECS, Finland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Extensive discussions and brainstorming followed the presentation. Further requests for sharing the paper drafts have been made. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Presentation at Computational Social Science Conference (Warwick) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk to the Warwick Business School Computational Social Science Conference in Warwick, 11-12th June 2014. Her presentation Building Data Science into Policy Design? (one of the key developing themes of the Award research) was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. The conference brought together researchers across the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering to share perspectives and identify opportunities to gain new insights into human behaviour and decision making, again a key developing theme of the research programme. So discussion with other conference participants and speakers from disciplines well outside the normal scope of a social science conference has led to further possibilities for collaboration, for example with Felix Reed Tsochas, University of Oxford. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://seen.co/event/computational-social-science-conference-coventry-uk-2014-8712/search/helenmarge... |
| Description | Presentation at MIT Media Center: Design and multilingual users on Twitter and Wikipedia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk described our research to date, sparked questions, and discussion of possible collaborations We remain in frequent contact about several ways in which we might start a formal collaboration |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.slideshare.net/computermacgyver/design-and-multilingual-users-on-wikipedia-and-twitter |
| Description | Presentation to Policy-Makers in Dublin |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to give a presentation on digital govenrment at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin, 24th February 2014. The talk entitled Getting to Know Each Other? Digital Governments and Digital Citizens in the Era of Social Media and Big Data was attended by around 50 policy-makers and parliamentarians, academics and journalists and was recorded and shared with other institutions. The talk generated questions and a very interesting discussion. After the talk, I met with policy-makers from the Irish government and we discussed the development of digital government in Ireland, providing a useful additional case study for the digital government element of the Award research. Likewise, the civil servants appreciated the opportunity to hear about UK developments and compare experiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.iiea.com/events/re-examining-collective-action-governance-and-citizen-government-interact... |
| Description | Presented paper at ECPR General Conference 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Professor Margetts presented a paper on 'The Volatility of Politics in a Digital Age: Opinion Attention Trends Over Time in Britain and Germany' at the ECPR General Conference (23 August 2018). The conference brings together scholars from across all regional and national borders and all sub-disciplines of political science, providing a forum for rich discussion and the furtherment of research. Presenting a Paper provides the opportunity to present research to peers with common research interests and to benefit from the resultant discussion and debate. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://ecpr.eu/Events/PaperDetails.aspx?PaperID=42236&EventID=115 |
| Description | Presented paper at Reuters Institute of Journalism Transparency Conference, 1 Oct. 2012 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Prof Helen Margetts made a presentation entitled, "Data, Data Everywhere: Open Data versus Big Data in the Quest for Transparency" at the dinner of the Reuters Institute of Journalism Transparency Conference on 1 October 2012, attended by high profile US and UK journalists and academics. It was very well received and provoked lively debate over the role of data in politics - and several participants noted that they had changed their views after the dinner. It was ultimately published as a chapter in the book of the proceedings of the conference - Nigel Bowles and James Hamilton (eds>) Transparency in Politics and the Media: Accountability and Open Government (IB Taurus) Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
| URL | https://www.amazon.com/Transparency-Politics-Media-Accountability-Government/dp/1780766769 |
| Description | Presented/Participated at Working with Internet Archives for Research (WIRE 2014) Workshop at Harvard University: Ancient history of the UK Web |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | I presented in front of all attendees and participated in a break-out session about the technical challenges ahead in better extracting value from web archive data. We launched an active collaboration with the Internet Archive Foundation and gained access to their historical craws of US government websites (.gov). This historical data complements the historical data of .gov.uk we already have and opens exciting opportunities to compare the development of the UK and US governments' online presences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Princeton University Press Election 2016 Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts and co-authors Peter John, Scott Hale and Taha Yasseri wrote at blog on "Brexit, voting, and political turbulence" for Princeton University Press, published on 18 August 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2016/08/18/brexit-voting-and-political-turbulence/ |
| Description | Radio 4 Start the Week discussion with Tom Sutcliffe, Jonathan Franzen and Gillian Tett |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | This is Radio 4's flagship discussion programme, usually to discuss new and exciting books - this particular programme, presented by Tom Sutcliffe, involved authors whose work deals with social media and related technologies, and their implications for society, the economy and politics. The participants were the novelist Jonathan Franzen talking about his latest novel, Purity, the FT journalist Gillian Tett, talking about her book the Silo Effect, Tacita Dean talking about film, and Helen Margetts talking about Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action, the book arising from the ESRC Professorial Fellowship. The discussion was extremely interesting, provoking thoughts and ideas - and meant that the ideas of the book and ultimately the fellowship reached a very large general audience in the UK and beyond, via a podcast which was widely disseminated. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06fk9ph |
| Description | Seminar to Manchester University Institute of Social Change |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Prof Helen Margetts gave an invited lecture entitled "Understanding Digital Governments and Digital Citizens" at the "Institute for Social Change" at the University of Manchester on 26 February 2013. It generated discussion and questions. Generated some possibilities for future collaboration with Rachel Gibson and her research group, and other members of the audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Speaking at the London Cyberspace Conference organized by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Type Of Presentation | Keynote/Invited Speaker |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Prof Helen Margetts spoke at the London Cyberspace Conference organized by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1-2 November 2011, in a session on 'The Social Benefits of the Internet'. The session was chaired by Francis Maude and other speakers included Toomas Ilves, the President of Estonia and Neelie Kroes, the Vide President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Digital Agenda. The event led to a number of interactions with policy-makers, including an invitation to be a member of the advisory board of the Government Digital Service and media appearances. Section not completed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Speaking to the International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning Sypmosium in Singapore |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I spoke at the symposium in a plenary panel of experts, but also met with various policy-makers and civil servants throughout the two days, discussing various options for digital government, and the use of data science methods and experiments (RCTs) in government - Singapore is particularly innovative in this respect, but is also very interested in the UK agenda. I am using Singapore (specifically the data analytics team at the centre of government) as an example of best practice for the GAC Future of Govenrment work on Smarter Government. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Spring meeting of the German Physics Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The results of our work have been presented and discussed in a very active poster session, leading to further correspondence with the audience. A research team from the Max Planck institute of Complex Systems reached out and further collaboration has been set up. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www.dpg-verhandlungen.de/year/2013/conference/regensburg/static/soe25.pdf |
| Description | Talk at CRASSH, University of Cambridge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge on 26 April 2016. Her presentation "Social Media and Political Turbulence" sparked questions and discussion. The abstract was as follows: The last few years have seen increasingly frenzied speculation about the role of social media in political mobilisation. In an important recent book Helen Margetts and her colleagues report on research drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events to show how mobilisations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable and often unsustainable. To reach a better understanding of this unruly force in the political world, the researchers have used experiments that test how social media influence citizens when they are deciding whether or not to participate. They conclude that a new kind of "chaotic pluralism" is the model of democracy that is emerging in our networked environment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/26748 |
| Description | Talk at Center for Research on Computation and Society, Harvard University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at t Harvard University, 2 May 2016. Her presentation "Political Turbulence: how social media shape collective action" was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/event/crcs-seminar-3?type=month&month=2016-04 |
| Description | Talk at ETH Zurich |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at ETH Zurich on 1 November 2016. Her presentation "Political Turbulence: how social media shape collective action" was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.istp.ethz.ch/news-and-events/istp-news/2016.html |
| Description | Talk at Hay Festival 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at the Hay Festival, 27 May 2016, which was well received by a large-scale audience (>300) and sparked questions and discussion afterwards, as well as highlighting the research and arguments in the fellowship and the book Political Turbulence, with book signing afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.hayfestival.com/p-10680-helen-margetts.aspx |
| Description | Talk at OECD Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Her talk sparked discussion and interest afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Talk at Oxford Literary Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to give a talk at the Oxford Literary Festival, 3 April 201614. Her presentation "Political Turbulence: how social media shape collective action" was well received and attracted discussion and interest afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events/2016/april-03/political-turbulence-how-social-me... |
| Description | Talk at Pacific Neighborhood Consortium Annual Conference, PNC 2013 at Kyoto University, Japan: Cross-language activity in Okinawa on Wikipedia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk sparked questions, discussion, and email followups. Networking |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Talk at QS2: Understanding the patterns of success in online petitioning |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The presentation has been well received and further discussions were conducted during the event. Professional contacts have been made and further follow-up information exchange was requested by the participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://barabasilab.com/quantifyingsuccess/2014/program.html |
| Description | Talk at University of Notre Dame, Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science & Applications (iCeNSA): Cross-language information brokerage on Twitter and Wikipedia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Talk and related meetings sparked great discussion, and launched an active collaboration. We are actively collaborating on an area of mutual interest analysing the amount of human translation occurring in Wikipedia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | UK Big Data Mission to Japan Participation and Presenations |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Professor Helen Margetts and Research Assistant Scott Hale met with company executives at multiple Japanese companies and presented two of our research projects to a delegation of top Japanese researchers as part of the UK delegation. Professor Margetts further presented at a high-profile event attended by executives and policy makers. We have examined areas in which we might collaborate and are part of the group of institutions that will host a delegation of Japanese researchers visiting the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | University of Oxford Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was asked to contribute to the University of Oxford Blog. Her blog post "Don't Shoot the Messenger! What part did social media play in 2016 US election?" was published on 9 November 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://medium.com/@Oxford_University/us-election-2016-views-from-oxford-6e3c1387086c#.qkkpun7tc |
| Description | World Economic Forum Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Helen Margetts was invited to write a blog on "Of course social media is transforming politics. But it's not to blame for Brexit and Trump" for the World Economic Forum. This piece was shared across all of their social channels (Facebook: 2.5 million followers; Twitter: over 3 million followers across our two accounts) as well as their weekly newsletter that goes out to leaders across industry, government and civil society. The blog post has received a wide range of attention and has led to a number of requests for further blog posts and other media, and a request for involvement on social media and government in a Cabinet Office project (first discussed 13th March 2017) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/of-course-social-media-is-transforming-politics-but-it-s-not-... |
| Description | • Tutorial on Experiments with Crowd Sourced Subjects |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | New techniques of using crowd-sourcing in social research has been discussed and practiced in the workshop. Further collaborations with the Centre for Experimental Social Sciences have been set and an experiment has been conducted as a result of this collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |