Energiewende’s Lone Warriors: A Hyperlink Network Analysis of the German Energy Transition Discourse

Abstract

This paper explores the integration of different social fields within the German Energy Transition (Energiewende) discourse in the election year 2013 by analysing the hyperlink structures online. Energiewende describes the fundamental transition from non-renewable energy to sustainable sources. This goal is both ambitious and controversial. Numerous stakeholders try to make their voices and interests heard and as such politics has to both disseminate and collect information in order to include all relevant groups from different social fields in the political process. This discourse is also visible online. By analysing the hyperlink structures we are able to see the attention distribution of different actor groups in the network. This study shows that most actors tend to link within their own social field and do not aim for a more integrated public sphere. Especially political actors appear to be lone warriors who neither look left or right and mostly link within their own party and ignore other actors. Whereas social field as the media or public administration are relevant within the network we find that scientific actors are ignored by all fields, except for their own.

Alliance of antagonism: Counterpublics and polarization in online climate change communication

“…skeptical), or undefined/unclear in its position on climate change) and who the content creators behind the sites are (e.g. Kaiser et al, 2016). This was done to contextualize the network with additional metadata that help us understand the communities and their connections to each other.…”

“…However, the climate blogosphere in Germany is quite lively, with actors from all different kinds of societal fields contributing to the discussion (e.g. science, civil society, journalism, and economy; for example, Kaiser, Rhomberg, Maireder, & Schlögl, 2016; Krauss, 2012; Lörcher & Taddicken, 2015). And several authors were able to show that blogs can be used to counter the mainstream debate by users from counterpublics who are using blogs to communicate, discuss or network, and, occasionally, sway public opinion (Benkler et al, 2015; Nuernbergk, 2013).…”

Homophily and prestige: An assessment of their relative strength to explain link formation in the online climate change debate

“…For example, previous work has shown higher linking activity between actors belonging to the same actor type (1a). Rogers and Marres (2000) demonstrate that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tend to link to other NGOs, while Kaiser et al (2016) and Elgin (2015) only find this mechanism at work between political actors. Beside the actor type, the (political) position also has an influence on linking behavior (1b): Several studies on political blogs show that conservative bloggers are much more likely to link to other conservative blogs and liberal bloggers to other liberal blogs (Ackland, 2005;Adamic & Glance, 2005;Hargittai et al, 2008).…”

“…We chose the online discussion about climate change induced by US actors to answer our research question. This case is especially suitable, as the discourse about climate change includes various highly active actor types online (Elgesem et al, 2015;Elgin, 2015;Kaiser et al, 2016). Additionally, climate change-especially in the US-includes two opposing positions, with "advocates" who believe that man-made global warming exists and perceive it as problematic on the one side, and climate "skeptics" who neglect the occurrence or the human contribution to the changing climate on the other side (e.g., Dunlap & McCright, 2011).…”

Discourses about energy transition in Austrian climate and energy model regions: Turning awareness into action

“…It also maps alternative energy policy pathways based on transparency around stakeholder assumptions, value judgments, and uncertainties. Also Kaiser et al 25 analyzed the discourses around energy transition in Germany, which were carried out on social media. They discovered that the majority of stakeholders tend to link to the discourse within their own social field, and do not explore a wider and more integrated discourse that introduces controversial opinions.…”