YouTube Usage in Low-Visibility Political Campaigns

Abstract

Social networking platforms and video-sharing sites like YouTube generate hopes for a more participatory politics and stronger connections between citizens and representatives, particularly in the local level. This article examines these claims by analyzing the YouTube presence of candidates in municipal election campaigns, as well as public involvement in these campaigns.

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YouTube Usage in Low-Visibility Political Campaigns
Azi Lev-On a
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Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9:205–216, 2012
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1933-1681 print/1933-169X online
DOI: 10.1080/19331681.2011.645360
YouTube Usage in Low-Visibility Political Campaigns
Azi Lev-On
ABSTRACT. Social networking platforms and video-sharing sites like YouTube generate hopes for
a more participatory politics and stronger connections between citizens and representatives, particu-
larly at the local level. This article examines these trajectories by analyzing the YouTube presence of
candidates in municipal election campaigns, as well as public involvement in these campaigns.
KEYWORDS. Campaigning, Internet, political communication, social media, user-generated
content, video, Web 2.0, YouTube
CAMPAIGNING ONLINE
This article is one piece in a series of stud-
ies by the author that analyze Internet usage in
political campaigns, emphasizing the municipal
level (Lev-On, 2011, forthcoming). The arti-
cle analyzes the use of the video-sharing site
YouTube by candidates running for heads of
municipalities during the campaigns for elec-
tions held in November 2008.
The extensive penetration of the Internet and
its significant political applications make Israel
a promising research arena of online campaign-
ing. The penetration rates of the Internet in Israel
are high, and its general and political uses are
prevalent. According to the semi-annual TIM
survey, which measures exposure to the Internet
and online usage patterns (June 2008), it is used
Azi Lev-On is the chair of the School of Communication in Ariel University Center in Israel, and the
head of the Center for the Study of Internet, Politics and Society. Dr. Lev-On’s studies explore behaviors and
collective action in computer-mediated environments, employing a variety of methods such as link analysis,
surveys, and laboratory experiments. Recent research analyzes how and why computer-mediated communica-
tion impacts monetary transfers and trust, how people rank news stories online, Internet usage by candidates
in municipal elections, and by ultra-orthodox women who participate in closed forums online. For more
information, see http://www.azilevon.com.
Many thanks to Eliya David, Shilat Edri, Chen Sabag, and Keren Sereno for their assistance in data
collection and in preparing the manuscript for publication, and for the useful comments of the reviewers.
Address correspondence to: Azi Lev-On, School of Communication, Ariel University Center, Ariel, Israel
40700 (E-mail: azilevon@gmail.com).
by 74% of the population aged 13 and above.
Its primary uses are information search (96%),
news reading (89%), and also such activities
including watching videos (73%) and shopping
online (56%; Cohen, 2009). Social media sites,
including YouTube and Facebook, enjoy mas-
sive exposure. According to another TIM survey
from October 2008, YouTube exposure rates
were 39.7%, which ranks it as the fourth most
exposed site (right after Google and the leading
Israel news portals Walla! and Ynet). Facebook
was rated sixth with exposure rates of 29%
(Cohen, 2008).
It is appropriate to study Israel when exam-
ining trends in online campaigning due to the
extensive use of the Internet in Israeli national
political campaigns. The recognition of the
growing importance of the Internet as a medium
205
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206 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
for political marketing is accompanied by the
willingness to invest resources in parties’ and
candidates’ online presence. In the general elec-
tions of 2009, almost all political parties used
Web sites, and many were present on a vari-
ety of Internet platforms. However, there is still
a feeling of reluctance to involve the public in
campaigning, and sites most often function as
“bulletin boards,” transmitting information from
parties to the public without many possibilities
for engagement. Audiences visit parties’ Web
sites in small numbers (Caspi & Lev, 2009;
Lev-On, 2011).
Studying the political usage of the Internet
is especially interesting at the municipal level.
Municipalities handle many issues that are of
direct relevance to citizens’ everyday lives (e.g.,
education, welfare, local infrastructure), and it
is much more feasible (compared to national-
level politics) to use the Internet in order to reach
out to relevant population segments, consult
them, and weigh-in their priorities in munici-
pal decision-making processes. The campaign-
ing season is a particularly good time to use
the Internet in order to communicate with local
constituencies. Local elections involve a signifi-
cantly smaller number of voters than the general
elections. Hence, the likelihood that they are
decided on the basis of a small number of votes
significantly increases. In such elections, it is
likely that candidates use every tool at their
disposal to get voters to the polls.
However, some variables related to the can-
didate, the characteristics of the political races,
and the electorate may reduce the probabilities
of Internet use in local campaigns. The lack of
awareness of the benefits of Internet use as a
political tool or hesitation from interaction with
the public may lead candidates to prefer tra-
ditional forms of marketing. Some candidates
may feel that they are sufficiently known to the
public and that they are guaranteed success at
the ballot box without opening a new market-
ing channel online (Herrnson, 2004; Kamarck,
2003; Lev-On, 2011; Strachan, 2003). Lack of
Internet usage in an area or a specific sector
may also negatively impact candidates’ deci-
sions about establishing online campaign pres-
ence (Herrnson, Stokes-Brown, & Hindman,
2007; Lev-On, 2011, forthcoming).
In Israel, voting in municipal elections is
carried out under a two-ballot system: one for
a candidate who competes for the head of
the authority, the other for a party that runs
for the municipal assembly. If only one con-
tender submits his candidacy, he or she is
declared the winner without an election. If no
candidates reach 40% of the vote, a second
round is held two weeks after the first round.
The study discussed in this article looks at
social media usage by candidates for heads of
municipalities.
It seems that in the 2008 municipal elections,
the Internet, YouTube included, aroused great
interest, at least in major cities such as Tel Aviv-
Yafo. For instance, journalist Gal Mor wrote on
Ynet that “the Internet awakened the campaign
in Tel Aviv. Heated discussions on blogs and
talkbacks, videos on YouTube and Facebook,
Google bombs and whatnot . . .,” mainly due
to the extensive use of the Internet by the cam-
paign teams of contender for Mayor Dov Hanin
and of his opponent Ron Huldai, the re-elected
mayor (Mor, 2008). This study examines if and
how YouTube was used, and if it facilitated
citizen involvement and participation in local
campaigns.
How do parties and candidates use the online
tools at their disposal? With the rise of online
campaign activity as well as the research on
the subject, two main approaches concerning
the differences between online and “traditional”
political campaigning can be identified. Since
the pioneering study of Margolis and Resnick
(2000), numerous studies have supported their
claim that despite the promises of new media,
it brings “more of the same,” or as they put
it, reproduces patterns of “politics as usual.”
Indeed, studies have demonstrated that, with
very few exceptions, the online campaign expe-
rience quite resembles the experience of tra-
ditional campaigning, and the vast majority of
party or candidate campaign sites are character-
ized by top-down communication and very little
interaction. Sites tend to be active mostly during
the campaign season, and are otherwise “dor-
mant” or even do not exist. Moreover, it appears
that the parties do not shift a significant portion
of their activities to the Internet, and the goal of
their online activity is often to create an image of
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Lev-On 207
up-to-dateness and professionalism (for a recent
survey see Gibson & Ward, 2009).
However, with the rapid penetration of the
Internet to many new layers of the popula-
tion and the growth of the online “tool belt”
available to campaigners, scholars have updated
the “normalization” theory, claiming that indeed
the Internet can update the patterns of political
media campaigns, depending upon the envi-
ronment of the relevant campaigns (Foot &
Schneider, 2006; Xenos & Foot, 2005). It seems
that the Internet usage in Obama’s success-
ful U.S. presidential campaign may be a land-
mark outlining this trend (for recent accounts
see Pew Internet and American Life Project,
2009; Stallings-Carpenter, 2010; for accounts
of the “Americanization” of Israeli political
campaigns, see Caspi & Lev, 2009, and more
generally, Aronoff, 2000).
Gibson and Ward (2009) summarize the aca-
demic literature on online campaigns and argue
that they tend to be characterized along several
lines. Parties often do not want to “take risks”
when it comes to their activity online. Therefore,
they use their Web site mainly for information
distribution, and secondarily make use of mate-
rials produced for the offline campaign. As such,
they make a minimal and well-monitored use of
interactive tools (see also Ward, Owen, Davis,
& Taras, 2008). However, there is an awak-
ening of Internet usage to reach out to dif-
ferent audiences, using a variety of platforms
to tailor-deliver different messages to different
constituencies. The Internet is also increasingly
used for recruiting volunteers, members, and
resources.
YOUTUBE AS A POLITICAL
CAMPAIGNING ARENA
Why focus scholarly attention on political
campaigning on YouTube? After looking at the
following numbers, the answer to this ques-
tion may seem fairly straightforward. Each con-
tender to the U.S. presidential primaries in
2008 established a channel on YouTube, and
seven candidates even announced their candi-
dacy for the first time through this media chan-
nel (Grove, 2008; Gulati & Williams, 2010).
Their campaign crews uploaded thousands of
videos, which were viewed by tens of mil-
lions of users. In 2008 alone, YouTube users
spent no less than 14.5 billion hours watch-
ing official videos of the Barack Obama cam-
paign (see Gulati & Williams, 2010), and in
total, no less than 35% of Americans watched
online political videos that year (Smith &
Rainie, 2008). Special attention was drawn to
a limited number of homemade videos includ-
ing “Obama Girl,” which received millions of
views,1and to new inclusive online formats,
such as the debates organized collaboratively
between YouTube and CNN. A study by the
Center for Communication & Civic Engagement
called this election “the first YouTube elec-
tion” (Center for Communication and Civic
Engagement, 2009).
Even after the elections, the White House
YouTube channel has been updated frequently
with weekly presidential addresses, including
conducting a virtual “town meeting” in which
viewers uploaded videos with questions and the
president answered some of the most popular
ones (Sutter, 2009).
The vast use of YouTube during and after the
campaigns makes it a fascinating and impor-
tant arena for examining the political uses of
new technologies (Gueorguieva, 2008). Indeed,
a special issue of the Journal of Information
Technology & Politics was recently devoted to
the political uses of YouTube.
YouTube offers several significant benefits
for politicians and their campaign staff. The
site enables them to upload a practically unlim-
ited amount of filmed materials at no cost,
and without third-party mediation. Uploading
videos is easy, fast, and can be done instantly
in near-real time. Due to the enormous pop-
ularity of the site, its use may dramatically
increase the exposure of the candidate to the rel-
evant audiences, particularly to young voters.2
At the time of writing, videos on YouTube
interface well with search results in Google’s
search engine (Google owns YouTube), which
may further contribute to high rates of expo-
sure (Gueorguieva, 2008; Gulati & Williams,
2010; Klotz, 2010). All these benefits make
YouTube both an important marketing channel
and a significant study arena.
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208 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
Alongside the significant advantages of
YouTube as a campaigning channel, it is also
important to recognize the challenges it intro-
duces to campaigners. First and foremost, it is
a collaborative site that is open to everyone, and
anyone can open a channel and upload materials.
As a result, the tight control of campaigners over
the campaigns’ messages may loosen. While
each fan or supporter can upload a video, rate
it, or comment on it, these opportunities are
open to opponents as well, opening the door to
sabotage of a painstakingly orchestrated cam-
paign. In order to properly utilize this platform,
manpower may be needed not only to upload
the right materials at the right time, but also to
monitor audience reaction and promptly respond
(Gueorguieva, 2008).
A small number of studies have examined
the uses of YouTube in U.S. political cam-
paigns. A study that examined YouTube usage
on 2008 Senate elections found that 44% of
the popular videos were short campaign ads
(up to 30 seconds) prepared originally for TV.
Only a small percentage of the popular cam-
paign videos was created by citizens, while
the great majority was created by professional
teams (Klotz, 2010). The author concludes that
the 2008 campaigns introduced greater political
usage of YouTube than the 2006 campaigns and
also attracted more viewership. Still, accord-
ing to the author, “The 2008 Senate campaign
on YouTube provides little evidence to sup-
port the theory that democratized video edit-
ing, production, and distribution motivates new
formats and producers of political communi-
cation. Rather, YouTube has broadened access
to repurposed communication from campaign
participants” (Klotz, 2010, p. 121).
A similar conclusion is reached by Gulati
and Williams (2010), who analyzed the usage of
YouTube in the campaigns for the U.S. Senate
and the House of Representatives in 2008.
Although most candidates opened YouTube
channels, the popular clips were mostly pro-
fessionally produced for TV. Candidates with
strong financial backing were more likely to
open a channel on YouTube and upload more
clips. Competitive races increased the probabil-
ities of having a YouTube channel. Incumbents
have posted more videos than new candidates,
in many cases because their past public work
was documented and later used in the campaign
(Gulati & Williams, 2010).
In Israel, the venue of the current study, Caspi
and Lev (2009) were the first to study YouTube
usage in the general elections campaigns. The
authors found that 22 of the 33 parties that com-
peted for the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) had a
channel on YouTube. Parties have uploaded a
total of nearly one thousand videos, an average
of 47.1 videos per party, viewed approximately
120,000 times, or about 120 views per video.
The numbers of subscribers to parties’ channels
were in the double digits, except for the channels
of the two big parties, Likud (257) and Kadima
(151). The authors argue that there is an “imple-
mentation gap” of new media between parties
that rush to adopt them for campaigning, and the
public that makes little use of them.
Following up on the acceptance of new media
among different constituencies, a relevant aspect
for the current research is the gap between can-
didates competing for head of municipalities
in the Jewish sector and in the Arab sector.
According to Kaminski and Bar-Tal (1996), the
relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, in
the pre- as well as the post-state periods (after
1948), are best captured by the label “separa-
tion,” which is manifest (among other things) in
the near-complete geographic self-segregation
of members of both groups. The separation
to geographically distinct municipal authorities
enables a comparison of Internet usage in polit-
ical campaigns by candidates running for heads
of authorities with Jewish and Arab populations.
Note that some factors could have, in fact,
encouraged a significant usage of the Internet
in the Arab-Palestinian sector in the municipal
campaigns, over and above its potential usage
in the Jewish sector. The number of candidates
per municipality was slightly higher in the non-
Jewish municipalities vs. Jewish municipalities
(4 vs. 3.7 on average), i.e., increased competi-
tion. Also, the municipal elections in the non-
Jewish sector are characterized by significantly
higher voting rates than that of the Jewish sector
(Mustafa, 2005), i.e., heightened public inter-
est. In the current elections, turnout rates were
83.5% in the Arab population vs. 45.8% among
the Jewish population.
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Lev-On 209
But in spite of that, comparing Internet usage
among candidates competing in Jewish and
Arab municipalities shows a deep usage divide.
Among the 213 candidates competing in the
non-Jewish municipalities, only eight candi-
dates, less than five percent, had a Web site,
compared to 191 (50.1%) of the Jewish can-
didates. YouTube usage was similarly negligi-
ble. The absence of Internet use in the Arab-
Palestinian sector is an interesting phenomenon
that cannot be explained by access differences
alone. This phenomenon requires a separate
explanation, which may take into account vari-
ables such as the unique social structure in the
Arab-Palestinian sector in Israel as well negative
personal attitudes towards technology (see Lev-
On, forthcoming). Thus, the rest of the analysis
in this article refers to municipal races in author-
ities with Jewish populations, where Internet
and, in particular, YouTube usage were much
more evident.
This study is the first to examine YouTube
usage at the municipal level. The elections that
are held throughout the country in numerous
municipalities enable us to examine and analyze
Web campaigning at a “higher” resolution than
by studying campaigns for the general elections,
which take place in Israel in a single district (the
entire country). Studying municipal campaigns
also enables researchers to get a full picture
of YouTube political usage, which results from
a large number of “micro-decisions” by many
candidates, not just a small number of decisions
taken by the large parties’ image consultants.
As a result, researchers may discern differences
in the geographic, socio-economic, and cultural
landscapes that affect candidates’ decisions to
use the Internet.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND
HYPOTHESES
The study focuses on three main research
areas:
A. The extent of YouTube usage by candi-
dates
B. The difference in YouTube usage accord-
ing to strategic variables (associated with
particular races) and socio-demographic
variables of the population
C. Audience involvement in YouTube munic-
ipal campaigning
My hypotheses are as follows:
•H1: Candidates will make significant use
of YouTube. This hypothesis is based on
the 50% usage of Web sites in munici-
pal elections in a related study (Lev-On,
2011). YouTube is particularly valuable in
municipal elections, where contestants typ-
ically have meager resources. Due to the
low costs of production and distribution
of materials, YouTube could be an excel-
lent campaigning platform at the municipal
level.
•H2: Incumbents running for re-election
will make use of YouTube significantly
less than non-incumbents. This hypothe-
sis is based on the fact that incumbents
may be already familiar to the public, as
their details and portrait appear on munic-
ipal publications, billboards, the municipal
Web site, and more. In contrast, newcom-
ers are likely to be less known, and there-
fore will make greater use of YouTube
to reach potential voters (for findings in
this vein see Herrnson, 2004; Herrnson
et al., 2007; Kamarck, 2003, especially
pp. 87–88; Lev-On, 2011).3
•H3: The more competitive the elections,
the more candidates make use of YouTube.
This hypothesis is based upon the assump-
tion that the more competitive the elections
are, the more extensively YouTube will be
used due to the greater the incentives to use
every tool at contenders’ disposal to garner
voters to the polls (see Gulati & Williams,
2010; Herrnson, 2004; Herrnson et al.,
2007; Kamarck, 2003; Lev-On, 2011).
•H4: The higher the number of eligible
voters, the greater the usage of YouTube
will be by contenders. The hypothesis is
based on the assumption that as the vot-
ing population grows, more effort would
be required to reach eligible voters, and
in addition to more traditional methods,
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210 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
greater use would be made of YouTube
and other Internet tools to reach out to
constituencies (Lev-On, 2011).
•H5: YouTube will be used more in author-
ities with a young population, popula-
tions with high income and education, and
authorities located in the center of Israel,
compared to peripheral authorities, and
authorities with older, less affluent, and
less educated populations. This hypoth-
esis is based on studies that show that
education and income are positively corre-
lated with Internet access and usage, age
is negatively correlated, and residents of
municipalities in central geographic loca-
tions are more connected to the Internet
than residents of peripheral municipalities
(Lev-On & Lissitsa, 2010; Mizrahi, Bar,
Hezronov, & Oron, 2005). These envi-
ronmental characteristics may also impact
candidates’ decisions to upload videos to
YouTube.
•H6: YouTube audience involvement will be
negligible. This hypothesis is based on the
low involvement of the audience found in
studies of Web site and social media usage
in the general elections in Israel (Caspi &
Lev, 2009). It is hypothesized that audience
involvement in low-level elections will be
consistent with its involvement patterns in
the general elections. Still, as this is the
first study to analyze YouTube usage in
municipal campaigns, there are no further
studies to support this trajectory.
METHOD
Immediately after receiving the names of
candidates from the national supervisor of elec-
tions at the Ministry of Interior Affairs, searches
for candidates’ YouTube videos were con-
ducted numerous times during the campaigns.
Searches were conducted and taken from the
first 500 results of Google (using multiple vari-
ations of candidates’ names; for example, “Dov
Hanin,” “Hanin Dov,” “Hanin Tel-Aviv,” and the
like, for the candidate Dov Hanin who competed
in Tel-Aviv). In addition, searches were made
on YouTube’s internal search engine, and when
locating campaign videos, the channels that
uploaded them were inspected in order to learn
if there were additional campaigning materials.
We also looked to related videos that YouTube
suggested for further viewing. These searches
were made in parallel by four research assis-
tants. References to YouTube materials were
also sought on contenders’ Web sites, which
were analyzed in a parallel study (Lev-On,
2011).
For the purposes of this study, only videos
that were uploaded as a part of an organized
campaigning effort were included in the anal-
ysis. Clips of incumbent mayors’ actions unre-
lated to the campaign (for example, visits to
local hospitals and schools), past media appear-
ances of contestants (obvious cases were videos
that were uploaded long before the campaign
started), and interviews with candidates in local
news sites and debates between them sponsored
by local organizations and uploaded to YouTube
were all excluded from the analysis. To be
excluded from the analysis, agreement between
all four research assistants needed to be reached.
To study audience involvement, the following
parameters were examined: the number of views
a YouTube clip received, the number of rates,
and the number of comments.
Beyond checking the presence or absence of a
channel on YouTube and the number of videos,
this study analyzes which variables may predict
candidates’ YouTube presence. Thus, data were
gathered about the authorities in which elections
took place: how peripheral they were; the num-
ber of eligible voters; and the socio-economic
status, the age distribution, the education, and
the income of the population.
In terms of the electoral competition, it was
checked whether the candidate is an incumbent,
and if not, if the candidate was running against
an incumbent or a newcomer (where the current
head was not running for re-election and the seat
was open). Additional measures included the
number of candidates and the degree of compet-
itiveness of the elections, where the percentage
of the votes was gained by the winner, and the
gap between him and the runner-up, were used
as proxies.4
The study also used telephone interviews
with candidates or their contact persons, since
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Lev-On 211
sometimes videos could not be located as they
were not promoted well, or at all, in search
engines, and interviews may have been the only
way to learn about them. Phone calls were made
shortly after the elections, when the details were
still fresh in the interviewees’ memory; no calls
were made prior to the election, in order not to
affect candidates’ decisions for opening a chan-
nel on YouTube or uploading videos. Interviews
were conducted with 217 of the 381 candidates
(57%) or their contact persons. The interviews
did not ask about the content of the videos, and
were made only to double-check; the interviews
were made in addition to the searches conducted
through Google, YouTube, and candidates’ cam-
paign sites, and their place in the research design
was secondary.
FINDINGS
General Data
The municipal elections that took place in
November 2008 were held at 156 municipalities.
This study analyzes YouTube usage in the
103 elections that took place in the Jewish
authorities, involving 381 candidates. Of the
381 candidates (3.7 candidates per munici-
pality), 90 were incumbents, 243 were new
candidates who competed against incumbents,
and 48 were new candidates who competed at
13 localities where the incumbent candidate did
not run for re-election. Municipalities included
in the analysis below have about 4.3 million eli-
gible voters, and the percentage of valid votes
out of the total number of eligible voters was
1.97 million (45.8%).
Of the 90 incumbents, 72 (80%) were re-
elected. A second round of elections was held
at 13 authorities. The average percentage of
votes received by candidates was as follows:
incumbents – 53.2%, new candidates who com-
peted against incumbents – 17.3%, new candi-
dates who competed in open-seat races – 27.1%.
Of the 381 contenders, 63 (16.5%) uploaded
YouTube videos. A total of 226 campaign videos
were located—an average of 3.59 per candi-
date. Note (Figure 1) that the distribution of
campaign videos among candidates is highly
unequal; the three candidates with the highest
YouTube presence uploaded 70 videos, and the
top 14 candidates (22.2%) uploaded 148 videos
(65.5% of the videos) combined.
The relatively low presence of candidates
on YouTube clips refutes the first hypothe-
sis (H1). Note that candidates who had no
YouTube clips received 26.8% of the vote in
their municipalities, while candidates who had
some YouTube presence received 28% of the
vote. However, these differences were not sig-
nificant. Note also that 84% of candidates who
were on YouTube also had a Web site, while
only 43% who had no YouTube presence had a
site, so the presence in various Internet spaces
seems to be related.
Next, YouTube usage was compared between
incumbents (15.6% of whom uploaded videos),
contenders competing against incumbents
(16%), and new candidates competing in open-
seat races (20.8%). However, the differences
are not statistically significant. Therefore the
second hypothesis (H2) about differential usage
of YouTube by incumbents and new contenders
is also rejected.
FIGURE 1. The distribution of YouTube campaign videos among candidates.
50
39
19
12 98
654321
40
30
20
No. of Videos
10
0
Videons per Candidate (Left = Highest, Right = Lowest)
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212 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
The Impact of Strategic Factors on
YouTube Usage
Next, the impact of a number of variables
that were labeled “strategic,” i.e., the number
of eligible voters, number of candidates, the
gap between winner and runner-up, and the per-
centage of votes that the winner received (both
approximations of the competitiveness of the
elections), were examined. Table 1 compares
the mean values of strategic variables across
candidates with and without YouTube presence.
The differences between the strategic vari-
ables were significant, but generally small, with
the exception of the number of eligible voters.
Candidates with videos competed in authorities
with more eligible voters, (marginally) more
candidates, and greater competitiveness (lower
percentage of votes of winning, a smaller
gap between the winner and runner-up) than
candidates with no videos. These results lend a
qualified support for hypotheses H3 and H4.
The Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on
YouTube Usage
Next, candidates with and without Web sites
were compared on a cross-section of a num-
ber of socio-economic variables. According to
Table 2, candidates with a YouTube presence
typically run in municipalities where the per-
centage of residents ages 20–29 is slightly lower
(in contrast to the corresponding hypothesis,
H5; for similar findings regarding Web site
usage, see Lev-On, 2011), and percentage of
residents in ages 30–44 is slightly higher, than
the municipalities where candidates without a
YouTube presence compete. In addition, candi-
dates with a YouTube presence come from the
authorities that are less peripheral, with higher
TABLE 1. Means of Strategic Variables among Candidates with and without
YouTube Presence
Strategic variable
Candidates without YouTube
presence
Candidates with YouTube
presence
Eligible voters 38136∗∗ 90828∗∗
Number of candidates 4.2∗4.6∗
Vote share of winner 53.2∗49∗
Gap between winner and
runner-up
26.1∗20.7∗
∗p<.05; ∗∗p<.01.
TABLE 2. Means of Socio-Economic Variables among Candidates with and without
YouTube Presence
Socio-demographic variable
Candidates without
YouTube presence
Candidates with
YouTube presence
% of residents ages 20–29 in the population
(2006 data)
15.5∗14.6∗
% of residents ages 30–44 in the population
(2006 data)
19.3∗20.4∗
Socio-demographic cluster66.1 6.5
Peripherality level73.3∗3.8∗
Peripherality cluster 6.1∗∗ 6.9∗∗
Age median 28.9 29.9
% students (ages 20–29) 17.4∗20.4∗
% high-school graduates (ages 17–18) 56.4 59
Avg. income, in NIS 3285 3513
% population earning minimum wage 41.9 40
% population earning double the average wage 10.5∗12.5∗
∗p<.05; ∗∗p<.01.
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Lev-On 213
percentages of students and of residents earn-
ing double the average wage, than the authorities
where candidates without a YouTube presence
are contending. These findings provide limited
support to the relevant hypothesis (H5). Still,
note that not in all the criteria that were com-
pared were there significant differences between
candidates with and without a YouTube pres-
ence. Note also that the differences, even when
significant, are quite weak.
Public Involvement in YouTube Campaign
Videos
Last, public involvement in the campaigns
was measured. The average views per campaign
video were rather slim, approximately 350 until
Election Day. One video stood out: Called “It’s
Not My city,”5this was a video by celebrities
who supported Dov Hanin, the opposition can-
didate in Tel Aviv, that protested the lack of
parking and the building of high-rise buildings
all over the city (Hanin was also the candidate
with the largest number of video clips, 39, with
most uploaded by his supporters). Until Election
Day, this clip was watched about 16,000 times.
Note that if this video is excluded from analysis,
than the average number of views per video until
the election goes down to around 250. The vast
majority of clip views were in the low three-digit
number of hits (between 100–300), and some
were even in the double-digit zone.
Out of the 226 videos that were located,
130 were rated, and the average number of rat-
ings per clip was 3.7. Only 75 videos were
commented on; the average number of com-
ments per clip was 2.5. It seems that, as a whole,
these findings support H6, and demonstrate a
low involvement of the public in the YouTube
activities of candidates.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
With the extensive penetration and use of the
Internet as a political and marketing tool, it is
important to explore and document its use not
only in national politics, but at the municipal
level as well. Both the dynamics and granular-
ity of decision-making in the municipal context
presents an opportunity for new insights into the
use of online media such as YouTube in political
campaigning. The study’s narrow scope illumi-
nates a scholarship area that has not been fully
examined up until this point.
This article focuses on YouTube—one plat-
form for online campaigning that is unique for
its visibility and rich video experience, among
other things. While there are hopes that YouTube
and similar platforms will change the dynamics
of campaigning, reach audiences, and involve
them, data from its actual usage by candidates
and audiences at the municipal level suggest oth-
erwise and, at least for now, bring some fresh
skepticism on the ability to use YouTube as a
platform for a more participatory and interactive
local politics.
The municipal arena is an intriguing envi-
ronment in which to study online campaigning.
Local campaigns are not affluent with resources,
they address a relatively small number of vot-
ers concentrated in a relatively small geographic
area, and only thousands or tens of thousands of
people can vote per municipality. Due to the low
number of voters, there might well be a situation
where the margin between victory and defeat is
slim—a situation where any tool through which
voters can be reached and influenced may be
valuable. While door-to-door canvassing tech-
niques as well as parlor meetings are still impor-
tant in such settings, the Internet can be very
useful as well, and campaigning through Web
sites, social media platforms, and in particular
YouTube may very well be the differentiating
factor between success or defeat at the polls.
The article examines the actual scope and
character of YouTube usage in municipal cam-
paigns, and socio-economic and strategic vari-
ables that may predict YouTube usage, as well
as audience involvement. The main findings sig-
nify that candidates are not investing significant
effort in YouTube as a campaign channel, and
that there appears to be little audience involve-
ment. Only one-sixth of the contestants in the
Jewish sector established sites, and only a slim
number of the candidates uploaded ten videos or
more. Public involvement (views, ratings, com-
ments) was rather slim, and it seems that inter-
action between candidates and constituencies
through YouTube is still a remote vision.
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214 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
This article might be understood to revisit
the findings presented by Gulati and Williams
(2010), in a fresh context and at a different
scale of political action. The findings support
the well-developed academic skepticism of the
hype of social media in e-participation. It may
be the case that, in spite of their touted potential,
services such as YouTube nonetheless require
significant resources to be used successfully in
the context of a municipal campaign.
Significant differences were found among
candidates with and without a YouTube pres-
ence, in the cross-section of strategic variables.
Candidates with a presence on YouTube com-
peted in municipalities with more eligible vot-
ers, more candidates, and more intense compe-
tition (lower percentage of votes of winning, a
smaller gap between the winner and the runner-
up) than candidates without a YouTube pres-
ence. Significant, but rather weak, differences
were also found in the cross-sections among
candidates with and without a YouTube pres-
ence, including several socio-demographic vari-
ables, such as peripherality and some criteria of
age, education, and income of the constituency.
The picture that emerges from the study is
consistent with previous findings about the lack
of interactivity in political campaign websites,
MK (Member of the Knesset) parliamentary
sites (Haleva-Amir, 2011), and Web sites of
municipalities (Purian, 2011). The findings shed
a critical light on the possibilities of interactive
political usage of the Internet, and compre-
hensive public engagement online. It is during
election campaigns that candidates have clear
incentives, more so than after the elections, not
only to send messages to constituencies, but also
to hear back and possibly to adjust their platform
accordingly. The fact that this does not occur,
even when technology allows for it, demon-
strates that there is still a long way to go for the
full realization of more participatory and bidi-
rectional democracy through advanced online
platforms.
Still, although only a small percentage of
candidates uploaded videos, some candidates
used it quite extensively, albeit somewhat infre-
quently. While usage is low overall in municipal
elections, there were individual spikes of heavy
use and attention (notably the case of Dov
Hanin), which needs to be explained further.
Some early adopters demonstrate that social
media can be intensely used at the municipal
level as well, albeit in certain circumstances,
and possibly depending on variables such as
the environment of the authority or even the
personality of the contender.
Future studies should compare the findings
of this study with Internet usage, and particu-
larly social media usage in low-visibility polit-
ical campaigns. It will be interesting to see
if the broad penetration of social media plat-
forms, such as Facebook (that became much
more prominent in the year following the elec-
tions), will be translated into greater political
usage by candidates and constituencies, and
more interaction between them.
It will also be useful to integrate current and
future findings into a theory of uses of candi-
dates and audiences and their gratifications from
new media. Such a theory can explain how can-
didates perceive the Internet as an arena for
campaigning, what the perceived opportunities
and costs are, what the actual uses of the Internet
(and of social media in particular) are, and how
their expected impact is perceived.
NOTES
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXH
YICqU
2. The site was ranked third in Alexa when data for
this study were collected. See also Madden (2009), and
YouTube’s own fact sheet at http://www.youtube.com/t/
fact_sheet.
3. Gulati and Williams (2010) found that incumbents
have uploaded more YouTube videos than new candidates
in the U.S. senate elections. However, in the elections they
studied, unlike the elections studied here, candidates invest
considerable sums of money, and also there are consid-
erable quantities of filmed materials collected during the
incumbent’s term in office. Since municipal candidates do
not have substantial budgets or massive film archives, we
do not expect to see a similar phenomenon here.
4. Data about socio-economic status, age median,
education (percentage of students among residents in the
age group 20–29, percentage of high school graduates
among residents ages 17–18), and income (average
income, percentage of residents earning minimum wage,
percentage of residents earning twice or more than
the average wage) are based on Israeli CBS (Central
Bureau of Statistics) data published in March 2008 on
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Lev-On 215
the Web site of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, http://
www.moin.gov.il/Apps/PubWebSite/publications.nsf/
All/5FCD19CFBECFBC18C2257427002FF5DC/FILE/
Publications.pdf?OpenElement. The district, and the
percentages of residents ages 20–29 and 30–44 in the
population, were taken from the CBS Website, http://
www1.cbs.gov.il/publications/local_authorities2006/
excel/p_libud.xls. Data about how peripheral the authority
was were also taken from the CBS Web site, http://
www.cbs.gov.il/hodaot2008n/24_08_160b.pdf. The num-
bers of eligible voters were taken from messages posted by
the elections supervisor in the Israeli Ministry of Interior
Affairs. Details of incumbents were downloaded from the
Web site of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, and from the
site of the center of the local authorities in Israel, http://
www.iula.org.il. Unfortunately, data on other parameters
that can be of relevance, such as Internet connectivity rates
and population religiosity in different locations across the
country, are not available.
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAZ0jos3dyg
6. The socio-economic index ranges from 1 (lowest)
to 10 (highest).
7. The peripherality index was constructed by the
Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), and takes into
account the distance of the municipality from Tel-Aviv dis-
trict, which is the economic and business center of Israel;
and the potential accessibility index, which uses the dis-
tance between the municipality and other municipalities,
as well as the size of population, and functions as a proxy
to a variety of economic parameters.
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