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From policy debates to election campaigns: digital communication of political parties

Our everyday communication has become radically digitalised during the COVID-19 pandemic. Naturally, political parties and their members have also had to reorganise themselves: Entire party conferences were held virtually at times, and debates and decision-making also had to succeed with digital tools, which are now being retained and continue to supplement face-to-face dialogue. But even beyond the exceptional situation of a pandemic, parties are experimenting with opening up new opportunities for collaboration as part of modernisation measures. Attempts are being made to reach voters on social media, but above all to improve the inner organisation of the party through digitalisation. How the political parties in Germany are approaching their own digital transformation, what their priorities are and what their respective prerequisites are, of course, varies greatly: the number of members, budgets and different political guiding principles all play a role.

Isabelle Borucki is Professor for Methodology and Philosophy in digital transformation at Philipps-Universität Marburg and researches political organisations in particular. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert describes her observations from studies and surveys that provide insights into the current digitisation processes of political parties. She explains the similarities and differences between the parties and contextualises them in terms of their respective characteristics and framework conditions. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Borucki discusses how digitisation can make participation in political processes easier but also more complex, how members and established structures react to digitisation processes, what challenges social media poses for PR departments – and how parties have responded to the technical possibilities for digital election campaigns.

Episode 44 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Isabelle Borucki of Philipps-Universität Marburg, 21 November 2023
Further informationen:

To the “Campaign Watch” project of the NRW School of Governance: https://www.campaign-watch.de

To Isabelle Borucki’s website: https://isabelleborucki.de

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Digitality and the Democratic Mandate of Public-Service Broadcasting

In the age of the internet, television and radio have lost their status as monopoly mass media. However, the public broadcasters have retained their important role for democracy and their constitutional tasks: Primarily financed by the broadcasting fees of the citizens, they are supposed to inform, entertain, reflect diversity of opinion and different realities of life and be relevant to as many people as possible with a high-quality and diverse programme. For a long time, they have therefore also been present in the social media and on online platforms, with content elaborately adapted to special target groups and their media usage habits. However, the public function is not limited to programming, relevance and reach: the archiving of broadcasts as historical documents of current events is also part of this responsibility, as is the provision and maintenance of media infrastructure. The latter is not only used by the broadcasters themselves, but also by private media professionals – and is of central importance for disaster control. It is clear that the internet and digitalisation are creating pressure for transformation in many areas. What is working well, what still needs to be done – and what is at stake?

Florian Hager is the director of Hessischer Rundfunk, one of Germany’s nine regional public-service broadcasters. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, he describes the urgent questions and challenges the broadcaster is facing. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Hager discusses the significance of the public broadcasters’ mandate in the face of digitality, where the course needs to be set, where the commitment of politics and society is required – and what role transmission masts and FM radios still play in 2023.

Episode 43 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Florian Hager of Hessischer Rundfunk, 31 October 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the hr-Act on the website of Hessischer Rundfunk: https://www.hr.de/unternehmen/rechtliche-grundlagen/das-hr-gesetz-v1,hr-gesetz-100.html
Link to the website of the German Broadcasting Archive:
https://www.dra.de/de/

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Critical Data for Science: Why a Research Data Act?

Public authority data, i.e. data that accumulates in the course of administrative acts or is specifically collected by public authorities for precisely defined purposes, is subject to special protection – for good reasons: personal data reveals a great deal aof personal information, and data on companies might be used to deduce their business secrets. Economic and social research however, is not concerned with individual cases. It looks for large social or economic contexts and therefore looks into government data as a whole. Individuals and companies become an anonymous data point in their statistics. The results of this research can inform political decisions, objectify public debates with provable figures and bring hidden developments to light – if researchers are given access to these data and have permission to link them with other date. Here, the current legal situation in Germany does not present a uniform picture. Practical hurdles in data access are also criticised by representatives of independent research. A negotiation process is taking place between those who produce and share data, those who want to conduct research on this data and the data protection authorities, who must ensure that information about individuals remains safe with the authorities.

Prof. Stefan Bender heads the Research Data and Service Centre of the Deutsche Bundesbank, which he also represents in the German Data Forum (RatSWD). The economist is an expert on data access, big data, linking data and data quality. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, he explains what exactly makes government data particularly interesting for research, how data access is regulated today and where it needs to be improved. Bender discusses with hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring which perspectives clash in the discussion about data access for research, where exciting new questions arise – and what a well-designed research data act (“Forschungsdatengesetz”) can improve.

Episode 42 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Stefan Bender of Deutsche Bundesbank, 10 October 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the website of the German Data Forum (RatSWD): https://www.konsortswd.de/en/about/ratswd/

Link to the website of the Consortium for the Social, Behavioural, Educational and Economic Sciences (KonsortSWD): https://www.konsortswd.de/en/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Modelling, Simulation, Optimization – the Digitalization of our Energy Supply Network

Our everyday life is built on the certainty that electricity will be reliably available at all times. Fluctuations or even failures are not foreseen. When we are not dealing with disaster prevention or imagining doomsday scenarios, we rarely think about how vulnerable we are in our dependence on energy supply. Especially gas grids are not only huge and complex, but they change and require permanent readjustment and stabilisation. Further developing and optimising the energy grid with a view to new energy sources and changing priorities, monitoring its function and making it resilient to a multitude of risks is a highly complex task: we not only want to understand how different energy sources interact, but we also need to make reliable predictions and must be able to react immediately if something unexpected happens. This requires physical models, mathematical methods and data analysis – also in real time. Simulations and calculations take into account developments on the global energy market, the weather and the condition of the pipelines as well as the quality of energy sources or the consumption of industry and private households. How do you make this multi-dimensional system manageable?

Prof. Dr Alexander Martin is a mathematician. He heads the ADA Lovelace Center for Analytics, Data and Applications at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and is founding vice president of the Technische Universität Nürnberg. In his work, he deals with modelling and simulation in optimisation issues and brings “Artificial Intelligence” into application. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert explains how our energy network is structured and what considerations underlie the models and methods with which he and his colleagues work. He describes the benefits of digitalisation, what data is needed and where AI can come into play. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring Martin discusses which objectives and political debates influence the development of the gas network – and which economic and ecological costs are associated with the collection, storage and use of data.

Folge 41: Digitalgespräch feat. Alexander Martin of Technische Universität Nürnberg, 19 September 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the profile of Alexander Martin on the webseite of the Technische Universität Nürnberg: To the profile of Alexander Martin on the website of the Nuremberg University of Technology: https://www.utn.de/person/prof-alexander-martin/

Link to the website of the ADA Lovelace Center for Analytics, Data and Applications at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS: https://www.scs.fraunhofer.de/en/focus-projects/ada-center.html

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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1.1. The Digital Euro – Our second Cash?

The following diagnosis is undisputed: in Germany, but especially in other European countries, the use of cash is declining. Cashless payment, on the other hand, is on the rise. Would a  central bank digital currency, in our case the digital euro, be a good policy response in this situation? Only a few countries around the world have already introduced so-called “CBDCs” (central bank digital currency), but hardly any central bank is not discussing or planning it. The European Central Bank has been considering the introduction of a digital euro since Ovtober 2021, and the European Commission recently presented a legislative proposal to that effect. However, it is by no means generally accepted yet that the digital euro is needed at all.

 

In this episode, eFin & Democracy takes a closer look at the digital euro’s promise to be “digital cash”. We first clarify what cash is, what it can do, and how exactly its advantages could be replicated in a “digital” euro. In our everyday dealings, we are hardly aware of it: What distinguishes cash as public, state-guaranteed money in the first place, what are its qualities? Should the decline in cash use bother us? And what is driving the declining use of cash in the first place? 

 

The podcast sets out to answer those questions, explains the role of commercial banks and payment service providers in analog and digital payments, and sheds light on the anonymity and participation that cash promises. The big question remains how such qualities can be translated into the digital space.

Season Digital Euro – Episode 1 | 27 July 2023

Guests

Claudio Zeitz-Brandmeyer is consultant on payments and digitization at the vzbv – Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband» (Federation of German Consumer Organisations). He is a member of the Payment Systems Market Expert Group of the EU Commission and a representative in the Payment Transactions Forum of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Previously, he worked as a research assistant for members of the German parliament on financial policy and studied economics and public policy.

The Finance Team of the vzbv: https://www.vzbv.de/experten/finanzmarkt

Cederic Meier is a researcher at the Department of “State Theory, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law” at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and conducts in-depth research on constitutional and monetary law issues related to digitalization. Under the working title “Constitutional Issues of the Digital Euro” he is working on his PhD with Prof. Dr. Florian Meinel.
> See also his contribution on the eFin-Blog (German only): Quo vadis digitaler Euro?»

Jana Magin ist Ökonomin und promoviert an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf am Lehrstuhl für Monetäre Ökonomik bei Prof. Dr. Ulrike Neyer» zur Geldpolitik der EZB und insbesondere den konkreten Auswirkungen, das die Einführung digitalen Zentralbankgeldes auf Privathaushalte hätte.

Further Information:

Video Recording of the Panel Discussion: The Digital Euro – Pro and Con» , 18. Juli 2022, closing event of the Citizen Lecture Series ” Do you understand Krypto” at the Technische Universität Darmstadt with
Katharina Paust-Bokrezion , Head of Payments Policy, Political Affairs, Deutsche Bank, and Marcus Härtel, Market Infrastructure Expert, European Central Bank.

Studies of the Deutsche Bundesbank (in English):
Deutsche Bundesbank, Monthly Report January 2023, pp.93-106: Access to Cash in Germany»
Deutsche Bundesbank, Monthly Report January 2023, pp. 75-91: Mobile Payment Usage in Germany»

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Precision Farming – the Example of Fruit Growing

Agriculture shapes rural areas like few other industries, and it secures our food supply. It is in all our interests that farmers and their employees can do their work in a good way. What this means in detail is, of course, controversial. Time and again, farmers are criticised because jobs on their farms are unpopular and food production, storage and distribution are associated with environmental and climate impacts. Of course we want ecologically and socially sustainable food for all people – and a well-functioning agriculture too. Digitalisation promises relief in the conflict between environmental goals with our demand for socially just production and availability of produce: efficient and networked farming has already arrived on many farms, as has fast access to knowledge and digital planning aids. Those involved as well as politician are convicted that agriculture must become more digital in order to become more sustainable. But is digitalisation alone sufficient to solve existing problems?

Dr Christine Rösch heads the research group “Sustainable Bioeconomics” at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, ITAS at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The agricultural biologist and expert on transformation processes in rural areas explains in this episode of Digitalgespräch which objectives and necessities determine the digital transformation of agriculture, and why fruit-growing is a good example for understanding these processes. She describes which technologies are already widely used, in which innovations many hopes are placed and how well the implementation of modernisation measures is succeeding. Together with the hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Rösch discusses what opportunities digitalisation holds for a more sustainable agriculture, how organic and conventional farms use it, what far-reaching consequences and risks are indicated – and whether there is also a generation conflict to be overcome in the digital transformation of the job description “farmer”.

Episode 40 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Christiane Rösch of Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), 8 August 2023
Further informationen:

Link to Christine Rösch’s profile at ITAS: https://www.itas.kit.edu/kollegium_roesch_christine.php
Link to the DESIRA project discussed in this episode: https://desira2020.agr.unipi.it/
Link to informationen on the EU strategy Farm2Fork: https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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How computers manage to deal with language independently

Powerful language models have become available to the broad world public, making the success of computational linguistics evident: Computer architectures have been developed there that are capable of processing intuitive human language. The behaviour shown by these systems is hardly comprehensible in detail, but the results they deliver are all the more impressive: Assistance systems equipped with these language models can be controlled and generate output as if they actually mastered language themselves – and their potential applications go far beyond the sensational chat bots that dominate public debates. However, GPT and related systems have by no means emerged suddenly. They are the result of a persistent learning process: first attempts to map language into algorithms failed in the mid-twentieth century not only because of a lack of resources or because crucial machine learning methods had not yet been developed, but also because the theories on how to abstractly grasp and systematise the meaning level of human language were insufficient. So what do developers of modern systems do differently from the pioneers of computational linguistics?

Chris Biemann is Professor of Language Technology at the University of Hamburg, where he heads the Language Technology Group and the House of Computing and Data Science. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert provides deep insights into the way modern language models are created and how they work, explaining linguistic theories that come into play. He makes comprehensible why the systems deliver such impressive results and describes what they can be used for in scientific contexts. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Biemann discusses what resources go into the development of such systems, what happens when language models are trained on nearly the entire internet – and what tasks computational linguists face now that they seem to have achieved their great goal.

Episode 36 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Chris Biemann of Universität Hamburg, 16 May 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the textbook “Wissensrohstoff Text – eine Einführung in das Text Minig” by Chris Biemann, Gerhard Heyer and Uwe Quasthoff: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-35969-0
Link to the website of the House of Computing and Data Science: https://www.hcds.uni-hamburg.de/hcds.html

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Managing manifold data – the example of biodiversity research

Research on plant and animal biodiversity faces a technical challenge: data collections generated observing nature and in the environmental or life sciences are huge and constantly growing. However, data types and data sets differ greatly, depending on the research field and practical circumstances. For biodiversity research, however, heterogeneous knowledge must be consolidated and also shared – to solve ecological problems, one needs the large pictures. In concrete terms, the challenge can be described as: How to extract as much data as possible from countless spreadsheets, handwritten documentation, satellite images, living organisms or dried plants, so that researchers can access this resource conveniently via an online portal? One thing is clear: this is a mammoth task. And in addition to technical challenges, there are problems of data law and science policy to solve.

Dr Barbara Ebert is the managing director of the German Federation for Biological Data. She coordinates the development of a platform for research data on biodiversity research in the “NFDI4Biodiversity” project of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the biologist and data management expert explains the hurdles that have to be overcome and describes the sources from which data come together, what they are collected for and how they become usable for further research. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Ebert discusses where negotiation processes take place, which needs are prioritised and whose interests must be taken into account.

Episode 35 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Barbara Ebert of the German Federation for Biological Data, 4 April 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the data management portal of the German Federation for Biological Data: https://www.gfbio.org/

Link to the website of the “NFDI4Biodiversity” project of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI): https://www.nfdi4biodiversity.org/de/

Link to a presentation on the compilation of data for the Red List of fish species: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeO_PONc3oA

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.

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Machine learning in environmental monitoring

Rapidly advancing climate change has consequences for ecosystems and landscapes. Observing and understanding these changes is crucial for minimizing damage through smart action. Environmental monitoring that provides reliable data on the condition of forests, soils and peatlands – with as few gaps as possible – requires cooperative research which combines knowledge about ecological concepts with modern, computer-aided procedures, providing methods and technologies to extend specific date obtained from certain areas to larger scales: Machine learning techniques can be used to correlate data that foresters, landscape managers, and nature lovers find visible and measurable in the field with satellite and drone imagery of larger spatial areas. In theory, spatial and temporal gaps in the data could be closed using those methods – provided the mathematical models behind them are understood and the initial data with which the “artificial intelligence” learns actually matches the ecological question.

Hanna Meyer is Professor of Remote Sensing and Spatial Modeling at the Institute of Landscape Ecology at the University of Münster. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert explains how environmental computer scientists work and what typical tasks and questions are. She describes what data is needed to correlate satellite and drone imagery with real ecological systems and how machine learning helps to fill gaps in the data. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Meyer discusses what the limits of this mathematical extension of field data are – and the dangers of trusting the models too blindly.

Episode 34 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Hanna Meyer of Universität Münster, 14 March 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the article “Qualität globaler Umweltkarten auf dem Prüfstand” in wissen|leben (WWU Münster): https://www.uni-muenster.de/news/view.php?cmdid=12772

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What can small and large drones do? On the automation of airborne devices

Popular hobby or threatening combat device: the public perception of so-called “drones” seems to be shaped primarily by these two areas of application. As flying film and photo devices, they are operated mainly by amateur pilots for fun. However, in the lower air levels these inhabit, they are getting company: more and more drones are put to professional, civilian use. And the latter, sophisticated airborne machines differ not only in shape, size and weight, but also require new regulations and safety considerations. The civilian use of modern drones could be helpful for example in medicine, agriculture, environmental protection or for sea rescue. But in order to achieve this goal not only technical but above all regulatory and infrastructural challenges must be addressed. After all, all of these aircraft – including hobby drones – are part of civil air traffic.

Uwe Klingauf is Professor of Flight Systems and Automatic Control at the Technical University of Darmstadt and has been working in the field of aeronautical systems engineering for many years. In this episode of Digitalgespräch, the expert on automated flight systems talks about the state of the art, exciting current trends and challenges for research and development. He explains which safety considerations accompany the introduction of drones in urban areas, which processes have to take place in this and which applications are most promising. With hosts Marlene Görger and Petra Gehring, Klingauf discusses new use cases for automated aircraft, aspects that will determine which developments will prevail – and what has become of the hype surrounding parcel drones and flying taxis.

Episode 33 of Digitalgespräch, feat. Uwe Klingauf of Technische Universität Darmstadt, 21 February 2023
Further informationen:

Link to the information page “Drone Flight” of the German air traffic control Deutsche Flugsicherung: https://www.dfs.de/homepage/en/drone-flight/

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The podcast is in German. At the moment there is no English version or transcript available.