Replication Data for: The citizen-user and the crowd-mediated politics of the Five Star Movement

This thesis described the trajectory of the M5S (2005-2014) from the perspective of the citizens who, as Internet users, participated in in the political enterprise. Citizen-users, enabled and empowered by Internet and mobile technologies, sustained the evolution of the movement that ended up being the Five Star Movement (M5S) and shaped its identity. The case study selected for this research, the M5S, is somehow exceptional for the magnitude of its success but its features (Internet-centered and fluid ideology) are not uncommon anymore in political organisations of Western democracies. The goal of the thesis is dual: assessing the impact that the Internet can have on the political process by connecting, mobilising and organising, and characterising the shape of the political talk among users. The thesis applies quantitative methods, including network analysis and natural language processing, on 10 years of user-generated data collected mainly from the blog of the Movement's founder, the M5S official forum, Facebook and Meetup.com. I find that the online discussion fora fostered diversity without fragmentation and contributed in at least one occasion to shape the policy agenda of the M5S. Also, over the years, meetups of the Movement maintained their capacity to attract and mobilise users and their territorial distribution clearly correlate with the local electoral results of the M5S in two elections suggesting a positive electoral impact of Internet-enabled mobilisation. Finally, given the votes received in the general election, the political communication generated over the Internet might have offset the low attention dedicated by TV news broadcast to the Movement during the electoral campaign. Yet no stable community emerged from the online interactions of users but instead a crowd characterised by high volatility and low autonomy from leadership figures.

本研究以作为互联网用户参与政治实践的普通民众为视角，梳理了五星运动（Five Star Movement，简称M5S）2005-2014年的发展轨迹。借助互联网与移动技术赋能的公民用户，支撑了该运动的演进并塑造了其组织身份。本研究选取的案例M5S，其发展规模与成功程度具有一定特殊性，但它以互联网为核心、意识形态灵活多变的特征，在西方民主国家的政治组织中已不再罕见。本研究的核心目标兼具双重性：一是通过连接、动员与组织活动，评估互联网对政治进程的影响；二是刻画用户群体间政治话语的形态特征。本研究采用量化研究方法，包括网络分析与自然语言处理技术，对10年间采集的用户生成数据展开分析，这些数据主要来源于该运动创始人的博客、M5S官方论坛、Facebook及Meetup.com平台。研究结果表明，线上讨论论坛不仅促进了观点多样性且未引发群体分裂，还至少在一次事件中助力塑造了M5S的政策议程。此外，多年来该运动的线下聚会活动始终具备吸引与动员用户的能力，且其地域分布与两次选举中M5S的地方选举结果呈现显著相关性，这表明依托互联网的动员活动对选举产生了积极影响。最后，结合该运动在大选中获得的选票来看，互联网上产生的政治传播或许弥补了电视新闻在竞选期间对其报道不足的缺陷。不过，用户的线上互动并未催生出稳定的社群，反而形成了一个高度易变、且对领导层依附性较强的群体。