Results of the Social networks experiment of TIFDI would be presented on academic Conference
During last year 4 groups of students of TIFDI Institute of the online course Political Campaigns on the Internet participated in a unique study which aimed to test the significance of the Social Networks and Video portals (as YouTube and Google Video) on the impact the political information provided by the networks has on the voters during the time. The groups started the experiment by opening 2 fans groups and gathering supporters. The supporters had been selected from different countries and from different age/professional/gender groups so to minimize initial convergence of intergroup dynamics.
The students had been asked to update the fun groups recently and email the members of the groups to bear some administrative tasks as moderation, composing posts and applying to other people to join the group. The experiment showed that while the initial rate of joining the group was relatively high (18% of all invitations sent), the discussion and passive participation of the fans of each group deteriorated steadily after first month and their willingness to bear the administrative tasks decreased within 3 months. After a year of experiment each group contained of 7 active members out of 200 members at the beginning of the project.
For more results on Social networks and participation visit our webinar on Political Campaigns on the Internet on 6th of March. For more details and the reservations send an email to admin@tifdi.com.
