1. The case of 3000 Old and new media, politics and public engagement in life of a village
Alena Macková / Jakub Macek / Štěpán Žádník
Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University

2. Our recent research:
Qualitative research of the role of old and new media in public and political participation
Study of municipal online activism – case study of “Žít Brno” movement (Macková – Macek 2014)
Study “Participation or New Media Use First? Reconsidering the Role of New Media in Civic Practices in the Czech Republic” – focusing on differences in participation and media use in rural and urban contexts (Macek – Macková – Kotišová 2015)
Study “Social Media and Diffused Participation” – dealing with the role of new media in everyday participatory practices (Macek 2015)
Quantitative research:
Representative survey of the Czech 18+ population focusing on participatory practices and uses of old and new media (Macková – Macek 2015a)
Survey of participants of local anti-nazi blockade focusing on the role of f2f interactions, mass media and new media in organization of the counter-demonstration (Macková – Macek 2015b)

3. What did we learn?
When studying the role of old and new media in participatory practices, it is worth to focus on participation:
Uses of new media are not at the center of the story: NM are used specifically for certain communicative practices and their uses stand among other communicative practices (f2f, mass media, pin boards…).
Politics matters:
Peoples’ attitudes towards participatory practices and public-oriented use of media are structured by the way they perceive public and political sphere.
And most importantly: contexts matters.
To understand more plausibly the motivations for particular participatory and communication practices requires to understand the particular contexts of

4. And the contexts – specifically the cotexts of local relationships and contexts of everyday lives – are usually the problem: mostly we study isolated individuals building upon only limited indicators of their contextualities. Therefore we always know just a small part of their contextual story.

5. Project 3000
The opening decision: to make a longitudinal, detailed case study of a small village with ca 3000 inhabitants.
Why? We need to be able to understand fully contexts of
Local politics, public institutions and civic organizations
Social relationships – both strong and weak ties
Group identities – related both the local community and imagined communities (nation, class etc.)
The goal: to study communicative practices (including old and new media) and political and civic practices and their changes over the ime with the full respect to the dense immediate contexts.

6. The idea itself…

7. …includes an actual village. Without a dome.

8. South Moravia, Czech Republic Rural and catholic area Strong folklore traditions 3000 inhabitants Distant from regional centers

9. Indeed, inspired by Paul F. Lazarsfeld
…and his studies of Marienthal (1932) and Decatur, Illinois (1940s). In contrast to Lazarsfeld, we intend to cover the village in a longitudinal perspective.

10. Formal and political structures of the municipality
Municipal communication channels
Local and regional mass media (both public service and commercial media) and their relations with municipality and local politicians
Structure of local politics (political parties, elected representatives, institutionalized opposition, non-institutionalized oppositional voices)
Local civic, cultural, sport and church organizations (voluntary firemen, football team, local parish, folklore groups etc.), their relations with municipality and other stakeholders and their role on the local community
Local public organizations (public library, kindergarten and primary school) and their role in local community

11. Community life and identities
Informal relationships forming the local community
Spatial structure of the village: crucial places within the local space and their role on the community life
Temporal structure and ritualization of the community life: festivals etc.
Local identities and their reproduction in the community life: “us” vs. “them”, “locals” vs. “outsiders”

12. Media-related and communicative practices
Focus on the everyday media-related practices of the respondents
Mass media and new media used for reception of news and popular content
New media used for interaction within community and with people outside of the community
Traditional (physical) media used for spread and reception of local information: pin boards, public announcement system, leaflets etc.
Focus on the role of f2f communication for the community and its position towards the mediated communication

13. Research done so far The initial data collection: March–June 2015
Document analysis:
Data on municipal elections and statutory documents
Media landscape analysis and content review:
Mapping existing municipal, local and regional media channels (print, radio, TV, web, SNS) and their coverage of topics related to the village
24 unstructured / semi-structured interviews with:
The municipal politicians = the mayor and several other elected politicians (both from coalition and opposition)
People from the public institutions (the library, the school, the parish)
Local and regional journalist
“Common” members of the local community

14. What do we know already about the village?
The strong mayor and depolitization of the municipality:
The municipal politics are reduced to and personalized by the figure of the mayor
The agonistic political and civic opposition is minimalized; the antagonistic voices are only individual and rejected from the sphere of local politics
Media:
The village itself is mostly represented in media by the mayor and by the ritual cultural events
Municipal media channels are mostly depoliticized and do not construct any obvious political debate or conflict
Online media and SNS are produced mostly by the municipality

15. What do we know already about the village?
Vital civic and cultural participation:
Numerous local groups and organizations performing cultural and civic events, mostly connected with reproduction of the local community
Not interfering or conflicting with local politics: in contrary, the municipality supplies the groups and organizations with financial and technical support
Significant ritualization of local time and space
The cultural and civic events are mostly (specifically in case of folklore vents) linked with temporal ritualization of the community life
They serve as source of confirmation / re-creation of local identity: they often recall the famous local agricultural history

16. Project 3000: Research plans
Reservoir of inductive impulses for theory:
The village could hardly serve as representative for the general population
Rather we conceive it as a “laboratory” platform enabling us to study particular phenomena in more or less controlled and yet complex environment
Presuming that Project 3000 would serve as a platform for inductive (theory-building) research
Contextually rich research platform for particular studies in:
Media and audience studies: parental mediations, reception of news and popular content
Sociology of rural / community space
Political and media psychology
Civic and political engagement / participation
Political and electoral behavior
Longitudinal overall design:
The plan is to cover the village minimally until the next municipal and parliamentary elections and study the pre-election periods both in terms of media practices and political agency

17. Thank you. Literature: Alena Macková, aja.mackova@gmail.com
Macek, J. – Macková, A. – Kotišová, J “Participation or New Media Use First? Reconsidering the Role of New Media in Civic Practices in the Czech Republic.” Pp in Medijske studie, 6(11).
Macek, J “Social Media and Diffused Participation.” Pp in Lorentz, P.et al. (eds.) Living in the digital age: Self- presentation, networking, playing, and participating in politics. Brno: MUNI Press.
Macková, A. – Macek J. 2015a. Old and New Media and Participation in Czech Society (Research Report). Brno: Masaryk University.
Macková, A. – Macek J. 2015b. Výzkum účastníků brněnské májové blokády (výzkumná zpráva). Brno: Masaryk University.
Macková, A. – Macek J “‘Žít Brno’: Czech online political activism from jokes and tactics to politics and strategies.” In Cyberpsychology: Journal of psychosocial research on cyberspace, 8(3).
Alena Macková,
Jakub Macek,
Štěpán Žádník,