This case study highlights the potentials and limits of big-data analyses of media sources compared to conventional, quantitative content analysis. In an FFG-funded multidisciplinary project in Austria (based on the KIRAS security research program), the software tool WebLyzard was used for an automated analysis of online news and social media sources (comments on articles, Facebook postings, and Twitter statements) in order to analyze the media representation of pressing societal issues and citizens’ perceptions of security. Frequency and sentiment analyses were carried out by two independent observers in parallel to the automated WebLyzard results. Specific articles on selected key topics like technology or Muslims in two major online newspapers in Austria (Der Standard and Kronen Zeitung) were counted, as were user comments, and both were evaluated according to different sentiment categories. The results indicate various weaknesses of the software leading to misinterpretations, and the automated analyses yield substantially different results compared to the sentiment analysis carried out by the two raters, especially for cynical or irrelevant statements. From a social-sciences methodological perspective, the results clearly show that methodology in our discipline should promote theory-based research, should counteract the attraction of superficial analyses of complex social issues, and should emphasize not only the potentials but also the dangers and risks associated with big data.

The idea of habitus refers to modes of thinking and feeling that are more unaware and spontaneous. This includes unacknowledged and unreflected we-feelings towards political entities like nations. In contrast, national identity politics differs from habitus-types of we-feelings. Identity politics stresses reflection and deliberate boundary-drawing. In this sense, the article suggests to distinguish habitus from “identity.” Thus, there will be the suggestion to differ modes of nationalism, too: culturally “filled” nationalism and culturally “empty” nationalism. According to the first mode, “culture” is regarded a central issue of identity politics. According to “empty” nationalism, the ideal of being “better” or more “successful” than others gains importance. These theoretical considerations will be discussed against the background of the empirical case study focusing on nationalistic gymnastic movements in Germany and in Austria. This paper stresses the questions of how these nationalistic movements had coped with the growing popularity of modern sports in the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century and how their nationalism is related to the process of state-formation in Germany and Austria. This paper also tries to develop a clear understanding of the differences between the kind of nationalism represented by these gymnastic associations and the type of nationalism that can be observed in the context of modern sport-events.

The phenomenon of big data does not only deeply affect current societies but also poses crucial challenges to social research. This article argues for moving towards a sociology of social research in order to characterize the new qualities of big data and its deficiencies. We draw on the neopragmatist approach of economics of convention (EC) as a conceptual basis for such a sociological perspective. This framework suggests investigating processes of quantification in their interplay with orders of justifications and logics of evaluation. Methodological issues such as the question of the “quality of big data” must accordingly be discussed in their deep entanglement with epistemic values, institutional forms, and historical contexts and as necessarily implying political issues such as who controls and has access to data infrastructures. On this conceptual basis, the article uses the example of health to discuss the challenges of big data analysis for social research. Phenomena such as the rise of new and massive privately owned data infrastructures, the economic valuation of huge amounts of connected data, or the movement of “quantified self” are presented as indications of a profound transformation compared to established forms of doing social research. Methodological and epistemological, but also institutional and political, strategies are presented to face the risk of being “outperformed” and “replaced” by big data analysis as they are already done in big US American and Chinese Internet enterprises. In conclusion, we argue that the sketched developments have important implications both for research practices and methods teaching in the era of big data.

This paper examines how Impact Investment (II) becomes part and transforms structured accumulation regimes and circuits, with a particular emphasis on South Africa's agricultural sector. Through the joint implementation of a macro study of the South African II circuits, and a micro study of a particular II fund's practices and impacts, the paper develops an in-depth political economy assessment of II circuits in order to historicize these circuits, to map the South African II community, and to characterize the power balances presently structuring it. Rather than highlighting ruptures, it draws the attention to the historical continuities and path-dependencies as II related tools are rooted into older financial practices, shaping today's II development and practice - hence questioning II as a tool for empowerment.