Electoral Dioramas: On the Problem of Representation in Voting Advice Applications

Fossen, Thomas; Brink, Bert van den

doi:10.1080/00344893.2015.1090473

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(33 reference statements)

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“…The heterogeneity of VAA users should be indicative that their preferred ways to use VAAs are likely different, for instance politically sophisticated users might want to explore VAA results in greater detail. Increasing interactivity could also serve as a useful reminder that VAAs are subjective tools instead of objective images of political reality (Fossen and van den Brink 2015).…”

Section: Problems In Finnish Vaasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, user participation would have other positive consequences. Firstly, increasing user interactivity could serve as a reminder that VAAs are inherently subjective devices (Fossen and van den Brink 2015), as there are no objective criteria for statement selection (i.e., no normative high ground exists which would determine what politics should be about). Secondly, not all VAA users want the same experience from the VAAs, as it is known that VAA users are a heterogeneous group of voters with differing interests (van de Pol et al…”

Section: Allow Users To Become Designersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving candidate-based voting advice application design

Isotalo¹

2021

INF

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Voting advice applications (VAAs) seek to strengthen democracy by assisting voters in voting-related decision-making. VAAs have become popular tools across many European democracies and their usage has been linked to real life electoral consequences. As VAA usage has become more prominent, this has also sparked research interest toward VAA design. However, most of the VAA design research has been conducted on party-based VAAs, whereas candidate-based VAAs that are in use in countries such as Finland, Denmark and Switzerland have been largely ignored. Moreover, research on overall VAA designs, in comparison to individual VAA design elements, is non-existent. This article discusses interdependencies of VAA design choices and proposes overall VAA designs that can improve existing Finnish candidate-based VAA designs, encouraging Finnish VAA developers to update their designs. Future research should develop and test the suggested designs, as more research on the topic is needed, especially regarding VAA user experiences.

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Section: Problems In Finnish Vaasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Allow Users To Become Designersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving candidate-based voting advice application design

Isotalo¹

2021

INF

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“…In every VAA, developers must unavoidably take some decisions that affect the agreement coefficient [Fossen and van den Brink, 2015]. First, they decide the set of policy issues considered to provide the agreement coefficient.…”

Section: Basic Operation Of Vaasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In previous papers, it has been argued that VAAs' notion of political competence assumes an arguable conception of democracy and that the decisions of the developers affect substantively to how the information is structured [Fossen and van den Brink, 2015]. However, the discussion on the methodology of VAAs have always focused on particular aspects of the application, such as whether the policy issues and the positions of the parties are correctly selected [Gemenis, 2012, Gemenis, 2013, the statement of the questions are neutral and understandable [Walgrave et al, 2009, Kamoen andHolleman, 2017] and the way of comparing preferences is adapted to a previous issue-voting theory [Mendez, 2012, Mendez, 2017.…”

Section: Basic Operation Of Vaasmentioning

confidence: 99%

A normative set of criteria to increase political competence through voting advice applications

Padilla

Ramos

Romero³

et al. 2021

IJEG

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Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have proliferated in the last years in many European countries, and their effects have been extensively discussed. One of their main objectives is to increase voter's political competence by notifying users of their closest political party according to their own preferences. In order to do this, VAAs compare and aggregate users' and political parties' preferences on a set of policy issues. The main goal of this paper is to argue that current VAAs do not fulfill their stated aims. First, we discuss the notion of political competence advanced by VAAs. Second, we define four normative criteria to evaluate whether their methods of recommendation are likely to increase voters' political competence: informativeness, respect for users' way of comparing and aggregating policy issues, reliability, and transparency. Third, we argue that current VAAs compare and aggregate users' and parties' policy preferences following a weak method. It fails to respect sufficiently the users' way of comparing and aggregating policy issues and is not reliable. To prove it, we analyze the methodology of currents VAAs and use the outcomes from the EU-Vox 2014 in several countries. Fourth, we discuss the two possibilities by which VAAs could improve these problems: 1) by using ex-ante survey data to fill their gaps 2) by creating a learning algorithm to adapt the VAA to users' preferences. We found that some changes need to be made if VAAs aim to have an impact on users' political competence.

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“…A large share of the literature turns on the question of the effects of VAAs on the political actors who are involved in making and using them. While only recently have we witnessed the emergence of research on the effects of VAAs on parties and individual candidates (Garzia, Trechsel, Vassil, & Dinas, ), the media (Krouwel, Vitiello, & Wall, ) as well as “democracy” itself (Anderson & Fossen, ; Cedroni, ; Fossen & Anderson, ; Fossen & van den Brink, ; Garzia & Marschall, ), much more attention has been paid to the effects of VAAs on the micro‐level of the individual voters. This should not come as a surprise given it was the original idea of these tools to inform and mobilize individual voters (Marschall, ).…”

Section: The Proliferation Of Vaa Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Voting Advice Applications: State of the Art and Future Directions

Garzia¹,

Marschall²

2016

Policy &Amp; Internet

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Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have experienced a great deal of success over the past decade, and are now used in many countries around the world. This editorial introduces a Special Issue resulting from a section of the 2015 European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference in Montreal, organized by the ECPR's official VAA Research Network. It discusses the global spread and the popularity of these tools, addresses the history and different branches of VAA research, the current state of the art, and the remaining puzzles in the field. It also focuses attention on the wealth of research that is examining the effects of VAAs on political parties, candidates, and voters, as well as how VAA design choices affect the advice given to voters and their subsequent voting behavior. We hope this Special Issue will also highlight the potential of VAA-generated data for studying party positioning over time and across countries, allowing for comparative analyses of the characteristics and development of parties and party systems.KEY WORDS: Voting Advice Applications, VAA, voting, democracy, voting behavior Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have experienced a great deal of success over the past decade. They are now used in many countries around the world, and previously isolated VAA research efforts and projects have recently been pooled in an effort to establish a research community focusing on the idea, design, and implications of these tools. This Special Issue of Policy & Internet gathers together articles first presented at a section of the 2015 European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference in Montreal, 1 organized by the ECPR's official VAA Research Network. By bringing together these articles we hope this Special Issue will help focus attention on the wealth of research that is examining the effects of VAAs on parties, candidates, and voters, and how VAA design choices affect the voter advice given and subsequent voter behavior. We also hope the issue will highlight the potential in VAA-generated data for studying party positioning over time and across countries, allowing for comparative analyses of the characteristics and development of parties and party systems.

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Electoral Dioramas: On the Problem of Representation in Voting Advice Applications

Cited by 8 publications

References 29 publications

Improving candidate-based voting advice application design

Improving candidate-based voting advice application design

A normative set of criteria to increase political competence through voting advice applications

Research on Voting Advice Applications: State of the Art and Future Directions

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