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Normalization 2.0: A Longitudinal Analysis of German Online Campaigns in the National Elections 2002–9
Abstract
This article examines the functional, relational and discursive dimensions of the normalization thesis in one study, for both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 features, in a longitudinal design. It is based on a quantitative content and structural analysis of German party websites in the national elections between 2002 and 2009. The results show that the normalization thesis holds true in all its dimensions over time and in the Web 2.0 era: parties still focus on the top-down elements of information provision and delivery while interactive options are scarce. The digital divide between parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties has narrowed over time, but remains visible for all online functions in 2009. Moreover, the gap is wider in Web 2.0 than in Web 1.0. Finally, German e-campaigns increasingly reflect those patterns of traditional election coverage that have been held accountable for rising political alienation among the public, i.e. strategic news and extensive negativism.
... This study tests the above theoretical framework using website campaigning data and can perhaps only be generalized strictly to online campaigning. However, the determinants of going negative do not vary substantially between the web and more traditional campaign outlets (Druckman et al., 2009(Druckman et al., , 2010bSchweitzer, 2005Schweitzer, , 2011. 5 Extending the findings outlined here to negative campaigning more generally is not wholly inappropriate. ...
... A few of the control variables are statistically significant predictors of negativity reception in model 2. Challengers are less likely to receive negativity when they are in very noncompetitive races ( ̂C hallenger−Incumbent = − 0.928; z = − 4.332). This finding is consistent with the literature on negative political campaigning, which finds that incumbents are less likely to lob negativity when there is high confidence in the outcome of a race (Druckman et al., 2010b;Schweitzer, 2011;Trammell, 2006). High fundraisers are also more likely to receive negativity ( ̂F undraising = 0.255; z = 4.355), and candidates in 2002 races were less likely to receive negativity than their 2004 counterparts ( ̂2 004−2002 = − 0.466; z = − 2.947). ...
... This will provide more explicit results for assessing the quality of the theoretical models put forth here. Using non-website data to estimate these effects will also go a long way toward understanding if these effects only hold up in online campaigning-or, like other dynamics of online campaigning (Druckman et al., 2009(Druckman et al., , 2010bSchweitzer, 2005Schweitzer, , 2011, if these effects in the online sphere simply reflect more the dynamics of traditional campaigning. Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. ...
Negative campaigning in elections has received considerable attention. However, an important dimension of negative campaigning remains underexplored: the extent to which a candidate’s presentation of self affects their likelihood of receiving negativity. Work on gender differences in self-personalization and media personalization also suggests that this effect might be shaped by candidate gender. This paper investigates if a candidate using personal details in the service of campaign promotion increases the likelihood that the candidate will receive negativity from an opponent and if this association is moderated by candidate gender. Using congressional campaign website data from 2002 to 2006, evidence does not suggest that candidates who personalize online are any more likely to receive online negativity. Further, findings suggest that only female candidates see their likelihood of receiving online negativity vary as a function of online self-personalization. Female candidates have a higher likelihood of receiving online negativity from their campaign opponent when the candidate is more personable—that is, when they make information about their private selves more publicly available for negative framing at the hands of their opponent. Robustness checks reveal that this effect is not time independent, however, suggesting the personalization-gender-negativity relationship may be conditional on electoral context. Implications for work on personalization and negative campaigning, the role of gender in these processes, and campaign risk-taking are discussed.
... Further, research on mediatization has also suggested that political actors do not adapt to all media requirements to the same extent (Jost et al., 2015). Considering digital media in particular, such research has shown that political actors increasingly adapt to the multimedia capabilities available on their campaign-affiliated websites even while continuing to rely upon established political communication styles that cater to mass media logic (Schweitzer, 2011) or using social media as "electronic brochures" (Hoffmann & Suphan, 2017). Differences in their adaptation are likely due to differences in message features, because new technical opportunities are more obvious and often easier to adapt to. ...
... In those posts, links seem to have negatively affected their willingness. This might be due to the fact that political actors often provide links to their own websites, where they provide information largely prepared for journalists(Schweitzer, 2011) that fails to meet the expectations of social media users, or alternatively, because users leave Facebook when clicking the links and, therefore, do not interact with the original post. At the same time, the suggestion of authenticity by using the first person, the act of directly addressing users, and the interaction of comments among posts have an unrestricted positive effect. ...
The expansion of the Internet, especially social media, enables political actors to address voters directly. However, on social media, where user interactions factor into the algorithmically determined relevance of messages and, in turn, their spread, political actors have to use communication features that entice users to interact with their messages. Taking mediatization theory as a starting point, I transferred assumptions about accommodation into the domain of social media. By conducting a content analysis of Facebook posts made by members of the Bundestag, the German Parliament, from 2010 to 2015, I analyzed whether political actors had adapted their communication to social media logic and more often used message features previously demonstrated to increase the number of interactions. Among the results, politicians had increasingly used message features that had previously raised the number of interactions, including new technical opportunities and social affordances on Facebook, whereas their use of established communication strategies had remained relatively stable. At the individual level, politicians with higher status were more likely to incorporate successful strategies, which suggests that accommodation is constrained by available resources.
... Les études récentes sur les usages de l'Internet en communication politique dans les pays arabes et en Tunisie particulièrement, se sont faites principalement dans le cadre de révoltes et se sont naturellement concentrées sur les usages faits par les citoyens du point de vue du cyberactivisme contestataire (Ben Abdallah C., 2013 ;Howard et Hussain, 2013 ;Lecompte R., 2011 ;Najar S., 2013 ;Zayani, 2015). Ces travaux traitaient plus spécifiquement des formes de participation non conventionnelles au sens de Small, Giasson & Marland (2014 (Schweitzer E., 2011 ;Lilleker D. et Jackson N. A., 2011). Au niveau du contenu en ligne, l'hypothèse de la normalisation prévoit une augmentation de la couverture de la campagne mettant l'accent sur les principaux candidats par le biais de la personnalisation et de l'auto-promotion (Schweitzer E., 2011 ;Lilleker D. et Jackson N. A., 2011) ...
... Ces travaux traitaient plus spécifiquement des formes de participation non conventionnelles au sens de Small, Giasson & Marland (2014 (Schweitzer E., 2011 ;Lilleker D. et Jackson N. A., 2011). Au niveau du contenu en ligne, l'hypothèse de la normalisation prévoit une augmentation de la couverture de la campagne mettant l'accent sur les principaux candidats par le biais de la personnalisation et de l'auto-promotion (Schweitzer E., 2011 ;Lilleker D. et Jackson N. A., 2011) ...
Suite à la révolution de 2011, la Tunisie s'est distinguée par un processus qui a abouti à des acquis sur le plan politique et à une transition démocratique relativement réussie. Bien que huit élections libres et transparentes aient été réalisées durant ces dix dernières années, nous en savons encore très peu aujourd'hui sur l'appropriation du numérique par les partis politiques lors des campagnes électorales. Nous avons tenté dans ce papier de dresser un portrait des usages de Facebook lors des premières élections locales (municipales) à l'ère démocratique réalisées le 6 mai 2018. L'objectif est de savoir dans quelle mesure les partis politiques ont créé un environnement participatif et interactif dans leur usage de Facebook. Une analyse de contenu quantitative de différentes pages Facebook de six partis politiques a été réalisée pendant la période de campagne électorale.
... While some early research found traditional campaign activities to be particularly effective (Fisher and Denver 2009), the link between online campaigning and electoral fortunes of parties and candidates has now been well-documented to hold in multiple electoral contexts. Sudulich and Wall (2010) find more extensive online campaigning to bring about electoral benefits in Ireland, Gibson and McAllister (2006, 2011, 2015 find similar trends in Australia, and Koc-Michalska et al. (2016) confirm these findings at European Parliament elections both in 2009 and 2014. A recent paper by Trumm (2021) shows that online and offline campaigns have roughly equal and positive effects on candidates' vote share at the 2019 parliamentary election in Estonia. ...
... This debate largely revolves around equalization versus normalization patterns (e.g. Gibson and McAllister 2015;Margolis and Resnick 2000;Schweitzer 2011). The former is the contention that small, poorly resourced parties were faster at appreciating the benefits of campaigning on the web, but their advantage as first mover was only temporary. ...
The internet has become a key battleground for political parties and candidates running for office. Using data from three consecutive parliamentary elections in Estonia, spanning across the last decade, we map the extent to which candidates make use of online campaign tools. The availability of candidate survey data over time enables us to evaluate how online campaigning has evolved in a country at the forefront of digitalization. Our findings show that, despite a highly wired context, candidates still do not exploit the internet to its full potential. We observe a significant increment in candidates’ presence on the web, but the effort remains limited in terms of the range of digital campaign tools used. In addition, we find that candidates’ political profile has a limited influence on their digital proclivity, while young age and intensity of their overall campaign effort are stable predictors of it across the decade.
... Our data allows us to explore these dynamics and to study the impact of communication strategies on the actions and interactions of party supporters. We can assess whether parties with the highest support and resources still develop the most sophisticated offline and online campaigns and achieve the largest and most engaged communities (Schweitzer, 2011). Alternatively, we may find followers of smaller parties work in smaller but more committed communities that seek to mitigate the lower resources and media attention (Gibson,Ward, 1998). ...
... Larger parties still tend to have the most voluminous online networks , as well as higher numbers of influential followers who remediate their content (Anstead, O'Loughlin, 2015). They benefit from more resources, and develop more sophisticated content, attracting larger and more engaged communities (Schweitzer, 2011). The only counter argument is that followers of fringe parties may operate in smaller but more committed communities (Gibson, Ward, 1998). ...
... Our data allows us to explore these dynamics and to study the impact of communication strategies on the actions and interactions of party supporters. We can assess whether parties with the highest support and resources still develop the most sophisticated offline and online campaigns and achieve the largest and most engaged communities (Schweitzer, 2011). Alternatively, we may find followers of smaller parties work in smaller but more committed communities that seek to mitigate the lower resources and media attention (Gibson,Ward, 1998). ...
... Larger parties still tend to have the most voluminous online networks , as well as higher numbers of influential followers who remediate their content (Anstead, O'Loughlin, 2015). They benefit from more resources, and develop more sophisticated content, attracting larger and more engaged communities (Schweitzer, 2011). The only counter argument is that followers of fringe parties may operate in smaller but more committed communities (Gibson, Ward, 1998). ...
Studies show that political campaigns are increasingly developing a digital strategy to convert their social media followers into agents of the campaign. Remediation of content offers the potential to accelerate the reach of party messages, and there is evidence that this has real world impact. In a comparative examination of all parties standing for the 2014 election to the European parliament, we find that parties with existing large support bases are the most likely to benefit from the potential offered by social media. Having a large number of followers means benefiting from greater prominence by captivating more activists. There is some evidence of “equalisation”, however. Parties with pro or anti-EU stances have the highest percentage of activists within their followership but also attract the largest numbers of those who only comment. We suggest, therefore, that while there is evidence that strong ideological commitment motivates activists, it also generates adversarial dynamics. Qualitative research is required to extend these findings as to understand the nature of online discourse across party social media pages.
... That is, we did not stratify the sample based on parties as this may make the sample non-representative of the interactions which take place in these public platforms-which might also shape not only participants' behavior but that of spectators as well. This approach leads to over-representation of the Green party members (see Table 1), who are internationally known for their advanced use of technology (Schweitzer, 2011). Similarly, the high number of candidates from non-parliamentary parties is established in previous research as well (Schweitzer, 2011). ...
... This approach leads to over-representation of the Green party members (see Table 1), who are internationally known for their advanced use of technology (Schweitzer, 2011). Similarly, the high number of candidates from non-parliamentary parties is established in previous research as well (Schweitzer, 2011). Otherwise, the candidate sample seems to correspond to the size of parties in the parliament. ...
Interaction between candidates and constituents via social media is a well-studied domain. The article takes this research further through a synthesis with platform studies, emerging scholarship that applies a critical perspective to the role of digital platforms in society. Examination of candidate–constituent interaction via Twitter and Facebook during the 2015 Finnish parliamentary elections revealed that the types of interaction differ between the two platforms: Facebook was used for formal campaigning and for praising and expressing support, while Twitter was utilized for information and for seeking and sharing opinions. An additional finding is that interaction approaches may be platform-specific, with socio-emotional functions being employed more often by candidates than constituents on Facebook while no such difference existed for Twitter. On the basis of the implication that platforms have a critical role in the nature of candidate–constituent social media interaction, we discuss the implications of platformed interaction for the democratic process, suggesting that campaign strategy may exploit it in ways that may even necessitate regulation. Furthermore, scholars of social media interaction might need to consider the broader ramifications of the findings, and contributions to theory that acknowledge platforms’ part in interaction may be needed.
... On the other hand, the normalisation hypothesis proposes that older parties continue to dominate as they soon see the benefits of online campaigning and start to heavily investing in it. In this ongoing debate most scholars are siding with the latter scenario (Lilleker et al., 2011;Schweitzer, 2008Schweitzer, , 2011Small, 2008;Vaccari, 2008), but Gibson and McAllister (2015) found that both strategies are effective in increasing linkage, suggesting that ICT use can rebalance if not equalise party competition. A core argument of our paper is that the equalisation hypothesis is structured around two different dimensions: party age and party size. ...
... The former group optimistically expects that the advantages of the internet can eliminate the resource inequality of smaller parties in the offline world (Gainous et al., 2018;Margolis and Resnick, 2000;Samuel-Azran et al., 2015). In contrast, the latter group pessimistically argues that party resources are still a profound factor and that larger parties will replicate the imbalance between larger and smaller parties (Gibson and McAllister, 2015;How et al., 2016;Lev-On and Haleva-Amir, 2018;Schweitzer, 2011;Small, 2008;Sobaci, 2018;Strandberg, 2013). ...
Centering on theories of equalization and normalization, resources are seen as an important determinant. This study highlights two theoretical drawbacks related to resources. First, the mental role of party leaders as an invisible resource has been never studied. Second, party size has been massively employed as a proxy for resources in previous studies. To address these lacunae, this study theoretically proposes tech-awareness—operationalized by ages and educational levels of party leaders —to indicate parties’ expertise in using social media in campaigns. Methodologically, this study argues that parties’ annual final accounts can be an alternative to measure their material resources. Facebook utilization by Taiwanese parties ( N total = 37) in the 2016 and 2020 national elections is analyzed. This study indicates that tech-awareness positively influences parties’ Facebook use. Nevertheless, parties’ annual final accounts reveal curvilinear relationships with parties’ Facebook use.
... S'il existe bien sûr, comme nous allons le voir, des travaux traitant des campagnes numériques qui mobilisent une approche croisée à l'international, force est de constater que la comparaison internationale n'est peut-être pas la comparaison la plus évidente pour les chercheurs lorsqu'ils étudient les campagnes électorales en ligne. Ces derniers s'intéressent par exemple tout autant sinon plus à la comparaison entre campagnes en ligne et dans les médias traditionnels, ou plus largement, hors ligne (Eveland et al., 2002 ;Krueger, 2006) ; entre campagnes successives en ligne dans un pays donné dans une perspective longitudinale (Schweitzer, 2011) ; ou encore entre usages de différentes plateformes au sein d'une même campagne (Bossetta, 2018). Notre objet n'est pas ici de revenir sur ces différents travaux, mais plutôt de tracer un panorama (non exhaustif) des travaux portant sur la comparaison des campagnes numériques à l'international. ...
... -Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2004: 102) Findings of normalization in levels of online competition and the mode of voter communication persisted for much of the first decade of the new millennia. Studies in a variety of national contexts repeatedly showed a decisive gap opening up between the larger and smaller parties' web presence and a continuing emphasis on top-down communication (Vedel and Koc-Michalska, 2007;Robles-Estrada et al., 2008;Strandberg, 2009;Schweitzer, 2008Schweitzer, , 2011. Given the support that these findings provided to the e-pluralists' predictions of a return to politics as usual, and the reinforcement of existing elites, one might expect the story of digital campaigns to end here, at least with regard to any further major power shifts. ...
When the Nerds Go Marching In shows how digital technology has moved from the margins to the mainstream of campaign and election organization in contemporary democracies. Combining an extensive review of existing literature and comparative data sources with original survey evidence and web content analysis of digital campaign content across four nations—the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and the United States—the book maps the key shifts in the role and centrality of the internet in election campaigns over a twenty-year period. The chapters reveal how these countries have followed a four-phase model of digital campaign development which begins with experimentation, and is followed by a period of standardization and professionalization. Subsequent phases focus on increasingly strategic activities around the mobilization of activists and supporters, before switching to micro-targeted mobilizing of individual voters. The changes are mapped over time in each country from the perspective of both the campaigners (supply side), and that of voters (demand side), and the four nations are compared in terms of how far and fast they have moved through the developmental cycle. As well as providing the most comprehensive narrative charting the evolution of digital campaigning from its inception in the mid-1990s, the book also offers important insights into the national conditions that have been most conducive to its diffusion. Finally, based on the findings from the most recent phase of development, the book speculates on the future direction for political campaigns as they increasingly rely on digital tools and artificial intelligence for direction and decision-making during elections.
... The normalization hypothesis has been largely confirmed for websites by parties and politicians in various national contexts (Gibson & McAllister, 2015;Koc-Michalska, Lilleker, Smith, & Weissmann, 2016;Margolis et al., 1999;Schweitzer, 2011). For the adoption of social media, the picture is less clear: In Germany, Twitter seems to be a stronghold of national politicians from minor parties, whereas national politicians from major parties seem more likely to be on Facebook (e.g., Nuernbergk & Conrad, 2016;Quinlan et al., 2018). ...
Politicians’ social media use affects their relationship with citizens. For example, politicians are better evaluated when they communicate interactively. However, they mostly use social media to broadcast information to their audience. This study asks why politicians use Facebook and Twitter the way they do. The study contends that politicians want to satisfy their audiences’ expectations, to get favorable reactions and increase their visibility, and that politicians from different parties have different audiences who have different expectations for how politicians should communicate. Data from two surveys conducted among national (n = 118) and local (n = 859) German politicians show that politicians’ Facebook and Twitter communication is strongly oriented to their perceptions of their audiences’ expectations. The party size did not influence politicians’ Twitter communication, but their Facebook communication: Compared to politicians from major parties, politicians from minor parties communicate in more interactive ways via Facebook. In addition, politicians from minor parties perceive more strongly than their colleagues from major parties that their audience expects them to criticize other politicians or journalists.
... In this respect, the theory concerning equalization and normalization of the political playing field and the differential adoption of online media technology is relevant. Equalization and normalization of power in politics (Margolis and Resnick, 2000;(Schweitzer, 2011) mean that power among political parties is distributed unevenly: Parties differ in terms of the number of seats they have in parliament, their visibility in the media, and also their financial resources. The premise of the hypothesis suggests that, by adopting new innovative ways to communicate and increase visibility, the power distribution between political parties can shift from uneven to more equalized. ...
... In Germany, many politicians do not operate their own YouTube channels. In most cases, videos are published by the respective party channels to reach a wider audience [18]. By showcasing leadership, they predominantly use the platform for positive campaigning by expressing an optimistic vision instead of depreciating political opponents [19]. ...
YouTube has emerged as one of the most commonly used platforms for entertainment, information and political communication , for media consumers as well as professional communicators. News organizations and political parties alike have adopted strategies for publishing video content-ranging from already broadcasted news programs to political speeches of local party members. In this ongoing study we interrogate YouTube ranking algorithm on the occasions of three federal state elections in Germany. We retrieved ranked search results for every parties leading candidate in the elections, as well as the comments and replies which YouTube determines as relevant for each video occurring in the rankings. Preliminary results show that content dealing with and content authored by far-right parties is most widely consumed and interacted with. The ranking of the content is relatively stable over time but partially interrupted by short phases that jumble the previous order.
... Likewise, the cross-national comparative study of Koc-Michalska et al. (2016) reveals major parties' advantages in Web 2.0 campaigning. Although Schweitzer (2011) investigates Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 campaigning, her analysis of differences across major and minor parties' use of professionalised strategies is limited to parties' websites. Until now, there is a lack of studies comprising all strategies of professionalised political communication on social media platforms. ...
Election campaigns in hybrid media systems are characterised by the integration of newer and older media. With the rise of social media platforms, newer tools of political communication emerge, such as online campaign posters, complementing older tools, such as traditional campaign posters. This raises the question whether the newer medium online campaign posters replicates strategies of professionalised political communication (i.e. personalisation, de-ideologisation and negative campaigning), and whether major and minor parties differ in their use of these strategies in online campaign posters. Against this background, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of visual and textual elements of online campaign posters and traditional campaign posters (N = 1,069) for the 2013 and 2017 German Bundestag elections. The results indicate that online campaign posters are significantly more negative than traditional campaign posters. Moreover, the use of online campaign posters tends to moderate the inter-party competition in the social media environment.
Almanya’nın siyasi tarihi, ülkenin güncel politik atmosferi üzerinde önemli bir etkiye sahiptir. Bu çalışma, Almanya’nın tarihsel bağlamının AfD’nin (Alternative für Deutschland) ortaya çıkışı ve yükselişi üzerindeki etkisini analiz etmektedir. Almanya’nın 20. yüzyılda yaşadığı İki Dünya Savaşı, Soğuk Savaş dönemi ve yeniden birleşme süreci, Alman toplumunda çeşitli ekonomik, sosyal ve politik kırılmalar yaratmıştır. AfD’nin ortaya çıkışı, özellikle Almanya’nın küreselleşme, Avrupa Birliği entegrasyonu ve mülteci politikalarına karşı gelişen tepki hareketleriyle bağlantılıdır. Çalışma, AfD’nin yükselişinde tarihsel travmaların, ekonomik eşitsizliklerin ve kültürel kimlik sorunlarının nasıl rol oynadığını incelemektedir. Ayrıca, AfD’nin milliyetçi ve popülist söyleminin, özellikle doğu Almanya’daki seçmenlerde karşılık bulmasının tarihsel kökleri ele alınmaktadır. Çalışma, Almanya’nın tarihsel gelişim sürecinin, günümüz siyasetindeki radikal sağ hareketlerin güçlenmesine nasıl katkıda bulunduğunu ortaya koyarak, tarih ve politikanın kesişim noktalarını analiz etmektedir. Bu kapsamda, AfD’nin başarısının sadece güncel ekonomik ve sosyal koşullarla değil, aynı zamanda Almanya’nın geçmişten gelen yapısal sorunlarıyla da ilgili olduğu vurgulanmaktadır.
This article provides a comprehensive longitudinal survey of Internet effects in Danish elections, spanning across 15 years and covering five Danish national elections. Rather than utilizing an institutional macro‐level approach, this article adopts a micro‐level perspective by investigating individually perceived effects, assessed through survey questionnaires. The investigation draws on theoretical concepts of media affordances, political engagement, and efficacy as predictors for perceived effects as well as including the influence of demographic factors. This article examines two categories of perceived effects, internal and external. Internal effects are defined as increased political competence and knowledge, what can also be called personal effects. The study reveals a rise in respondents' acknowledgment of the Internet's role in enhancing political awareness and influencing opinions and party choices. Despite positive trends, a significant portion of respondents indicated no discernible impact, indicating a divergence in citizenry between active Internet engagement and indifference to its possibilities and effects. External effects, focusing on the Internet's impact on the election agenda and results, exhibited an upward trajectory over time. However, perceptions regarding the role of social media showed less pronounced increases, with evidence of stagnation or decline in positive perceptions in 2022. This phenomenon may indicate a perceived plateau in the Internet's effects or reflect divergent viewpoints among respondents regarding its democratic ramifications. It is noteworthy that respondents perceive larger internal effects compared to external effects, a pattern that also influences subsequent analyses where demographics and other predictors are used to establish models for likely effects on citizens.
The emergence of new digital tools has brought about a revolution in party organizations. However, the literature is still lacking comparative studies that utilize comprehensive theoretical frameworks and consider variations in the supply‐side of party digitalization. This paper addresses both shortcomings by turning the spotlight on party websites. By relying on data from the Political Party Database, we delve into the determinants of website functionalities across a spectrum of diverse political parties. Our findings underscore that parties with less centralized leadership and affiliated to the left of the ideological spectrum tend to display websites with a broader range of functions. Moreover, younger parties also tend to present more complex websites, although this effect is mitigated by their electoral strength. Notably, a common thread among most parties is the use of their websites for mobilizing human and financial resources, while interactive features remain less prevalent.
Mobilization strategies are an essential part of political parties' campaign communication. By mobilizing voters and supporters , parties promote civic participation in politics, the forms of which have multiplied given the possibilities of user activities on social media. To define their online mobilization strategies, parties have to choose which forms of participation (e.g., voting, donating, or liking or sharing a post) they will seek to mobilize. Understanding mobilization as a communicative appeal to engage audiences in participatory actions, in our study we conceptually linked parties' mobilizing appeals with three campaign functions-information, interaction, and mobilization-to systematize different types of mobilization. We applied that categorization to the social media campaigns of parties and top candidates in Germany and conducted a manual quantitative content analysis of 1,495 Facebook and 1,088 Instagram posts published in the run-up to the 2021 federal election. Results show that parties primarily mobilized their audiences to vote and seek out more information (e.g., on the party's website). Although user reactions are generally an important factor of performance on social media, parties mostly avoided calls to like, share, or comment on posts. When compared, the strategies of parties and candidates indicate that mobilization is more the task of parties than of candidates. Differences between Facebook and Instagram can be attributed to the different technical affordances of the platforms. Because Facebook, unlike Instagram, supports clickable links in posts, parties are more likely to encourage users on Facebook to seek out more information online.
Purpose
Social media have become the main channel of direct communication between members of parliament and constituents. The study analyzes the content in all Israeli MPs' Facebook channels throughout an entire term of parliament and asks if the results are consistent with the equalization or the normalization hypotheses.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses automatic analysis to produce a birds-eye-view of the content uploaded to the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs during a full term of parliament. All 106 MP pages were automatically scraped. Some complementary information was added to each post in the dataset, such as post length (number of words) and whether the page belongs to a member of the opposition or coalition. The total of 441,974 posts was analyzed to compare engagement and publication rates between pages, coalition vs opposition MPs, MPs vs users etc.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that the MP-Facebook sphere is non-egalitarian, in that it follows skewed distributions by MPs in terms of post publication and engagement rates; non-inclusive, in that pages of coalition members receive significantly much more engagement vis-a-vis pages of members of the oppositions; and “top-down”, in that MP-authored posts receive dramatically more engagement then user-authored posts, suggesting MPs have a near-monopoly on setting the agendas manifest in their pages, while users have extremely limited agenda-setting capabilities in these pages.
Originality/value
Previous studies have looked at the character of the interactions between MPs and constituents on the Internet and particularly on online social media. Yet, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study provides a birds-eye-view of the content in all MPs' Facebook channels throughout a full term of parliament. Such an analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of the character and dynamics of conversations that take place in such arenas.
Purpose
Paid digital campaigning tools play an increasingly pivotal role in individual election campaigns worldwide. Extant literature often juxtaposes the equalization theory, which argues that these tools create a level playing field, and the normalization theory, which contends that strong and resource-rich politicians benefit most from digital tools. This article aims to inform this debate by looking at it from a campaign expenditure perspective beyond the Anglo-American bias of most research on the subject.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use an original dataset on campaign expenditures and resources of 1,798 candidates running for 13 Belgian parties in the 2019 federal parliamentary election. Relying on multilevel statistical models, the authors link the candidates' digital campaign expenses to their incumbency status, which is expected to affect digital campaigning.
Findings
While earlier work on majoritarian cases often showed contradicting results, this study on the Belgian flexible-list proportional representation (PR) case provides strong support for the equalization theory by demonstrating that incumbents are not only less inclined to spend on digital tools than challengers, but also spend a smaller part of their budget on these tools.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the equalization versus normalization debate from a campaign expenditure perspective using a made to purpose dataset in a non-Anglo-American context.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2021-0679
The digitalisation of political communication has played a crucial role in campaigns on both national and regional levels. For many political candidates in Poland, Facebook has become the primary tool for building a successful campaign. However, campaigns for elections to regional government bodies are often associated with traditional offline media, outdoor advertising and ubiquitous leaflets. The aim of this paper is to contribute to our knowledge of electoral communications in Poland from the regional perspective. Data gathered during the 2018 online campaign for the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly examined through a semiautomated content analysis uncovered the dynamics of the professionalisation of Polish political communication and identified predictors of Facebook adoption for electoral purposes among regional candidates. Furthermore, focusing solely on Facebook data, research revealed a tendency toward the normalisation of social media campaigning and a propensity for using mobilisation communication strategies. Taken together, this paper provides new insights into the study of political campaigning in Central and Eastern Europe on social media from the perspective of political actor.
Social media has been a part of election campaigns for more than a decade. In this special issue, we combine longitudinal and cross-national studies of social media in election campaigns, expanding the time span as well as number of countries compared to former comparative studies. The four papers present examples of longitudinal studies, covering multiple election cycles from four different countries: Australia, the United States of America, Denmark, and Italy. By including the countries mentioned, we focus on countries considered to be “first movers” when it comes to the digitization and internetization of the political life. As such, they are “most similar cases.” However, they also have different political systems: the United States and Australia are characterized by a Westminster system dominated by a few large parties and a tradition of strong confrontation between government and opposition, whereas Denmark and Italy are multi-party systems with a tradition of collaboration and coalition governments. Technologically, the four countries might be similar, but politically and in terms of media systems, they differ; the United States is characterized by a commercialized American media system with little role for public service broadcasters, Denmark has very strong public service media, and Australia has elements of both these systems. Finally, Italy represents a Southern European media system with traces of clientelism as well as public service media. Thus, studies of the four countries form a diverse yet solid set of cases for exploring the growing (and changing) role of social media in national elections.
This paper analyses the investment in digital tools and the allocation of communication expenses in a Global South country with an uneven digital penetration rate. Data were collected for 2,563 candidates in the 2018 legislative election in Colombia, based on the official campaign finance disclosure documents. A multivariate analysis shows that particularly challengers invest in social media tools, which is a strong indication in favor of the equalization model. That such an effect is not found for radio and television expenses confirms this interpretation. Candidates on open lists are more inclined to spend on both digital and radio and television tools than candidates on closed lists. At the district level, the odds of spending on digital media increase with the digital media use, but so does the odds of spending on radio and television ads.
Studimi i komunikimit politik ka qenë vazhdimisht i lidhur ngushtë me mediet dhe me zhvillimin e tyre. Në dekadën e fundit fokusi ka kaluar te mediet sociale, për shkak të përdorimit të gjerë të tyre dhe, rrjedhimisht, edhe të ndikimit të tyre në proceset zgjedhore. Përqendrimi i akterëve politik në medie sociale i ka yshtë edhe studiuesit që të merren më dendur me mundësinë e efektit që mund të ketë media sociale në fushatë zgjedhore dhe në zgjedhje. Sikundër në shtetet më të zhvilluara, edhe në Kosovë, përdorimi i medieve sociale nga akterët politikë është në rritje. Por, siç konfirmohet në konkludimet e studiuesve të ndryshëm, që do të shkoqiten më tepër në kapitullin e tretë, mënyra e përdorimit të medieve sociale dhe, mbi të gjitha, qëllimi i përdorimit të tyre ndryshon nga shteti në shtet, ose edhe nga rajoni në rajon. Politikanët mëtojnë të shpërndajnë idetë e tyre dhe të fitojnë besimin e qytetarëve duke komunikuar drejtpërdrejt me ta nëpërmjet medieve sociale, Facebook apo Twitter. Ky lloj komunikimi ka përjashtuar tashmë rolin e madh të gazetarit në procesin e komunikimit politik dhe, njëherësh, i ka dhënë politikanit mjetin më të përshtatshëm për të shpërndarë një mesazh, pa frikën se mund t'i 'censurohet', apo t'i filtrohet ai mesazh nga politikat redaktoriale të radios, televizionit, gazetës, apo portalit. Facebook-u dhe Twitter-i e kanë shkrirë distancën që kishin politikani dhe qytetari. Në shikim të parë, kjo duket tejet pozitive, sepse shmangia e distancës mundëson një komunikim më të drejtpërdrejtë, më të shpejtë, më të shpeshtë, më të lehtë dhe, kësisoj, qytetarët, çdo herë mund t'i drejtohen me shqetësimet e tyre politikanit të cilin ata e shohin si faktor që mund t'ua zgjidh problemet. Por, historikisht, politika gjithëherë ka synuar ta ketë medien në dorë, me qëllimin që media të jetë në shërbim të saj dhe, që media ta përçojë mesazhin te publiku ashtu siç ajo, pra politika dëshiron dhe ashtu siç asaj i konvenon. Objekt i këtij studimi është përdorimi i medieve sociale nga partitë politike për komunikim politik me qytetarët, gjegjësisht me zgjedhësit në zgjedhjet e përgjithshme të vitit 2017.
This article analyzes social media presence of all parties, leaders, and candidates (PLCs) during Israel’s 2015 electoral campaign, within a transformational era for online campaigns. The article adheres to the theoretical frameworks of normalisation/equalisation hypotheses and personalised politics. Its research design is based on a cross-platform analysis. Findings indicate not only a centralised personalisation trend but rather a depersonalised web sphere. Leaders are more prominent online compared to other candidates; and parties out-perform their leaders, too. Furthermore, findings point to a normalised web sphere, even when referring to new and trendy platforms, revealing that the chances of political newcomers entering the parliamentary arena are scarce.
Los flujos comunicacionales que discurren en las redes sociales y la derivación en cámaras de eco han comenzado a ser objeto de investigación en los últimos años, en parte por sus consecuencias en la construcción de una esfera pública anclada en valores democráticos. Recientes estudios afirman que la interacción digital origina encuentros con voces que lejos de alentar el debate confirman opiniones preexistentes. Esta investigación estudia el papel que los dirigentes políticos argentinos cumplen en la construcción de cámaras de eco en Facebook a partir del uso estratégico que realizan de las herramientas de interacción que esta red ofrece. Para ello se analizaron los mensajes que Cristina Fernández, Mauricio Macri, Sergio Massa y Daniel Scioli publicaron durante el período noviembre de 2014-noviembre de 2015 en Facebook, la red social en la que más de la mitad de los argentinos tiene una cuenta de perfil activa. Los resultados de este estudio empírico demuestran que los dirigentes incorporan, pero escasamente, las herramientas de interacción propias de Facebook y que, además, el uso que realizan responde a una lógica difusionista antes que conversacional, enmarcada en una comunicación personalista que colabora en la construcción de espacios de interacción cerrados a puntos de vista divergentes.
Pierre Bourdieu zählt ohne Zweifel zu den großen Soziologen des 20. Jahrhunderts (ähnlich u. a. Ignatow und Robinson, Information, Communication & Society 20:950–966, 2017, S. 950). Dabei steht sein Name besonders mit seinen Überlegungen zu verschiedenen Kapitalformen und deren Einfluss auf die Werdegänge von Individuen in Verbindung (z. B. Bourdieu und Köhler, Titel und Stelle. Über die Reproduktion sozialer Macht, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main, 1981). Bourdieu differenziert verschiedene Arten von Kapital, die akkumuliert und ineinander konvertiert werden können. Grundlegend sind dabei vor allem das ökonomische Kapital, das kulturelle Kapital und das soziale Kapital (Bourdieu, P., Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital. In R. Kreckel (Hrsg.), Soziale Ungleichheiten. (S. 183–198). Schwartz, Göttingen (Soziale Welt. Sonderband, 2), 1983.). Während die Konzeptionen anderer Autoren zu Sozialkapital in der politikwissenschaftlichen Betrachtung Würdigung erfahren – vor allem ( Putnam, R D., Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster., 2000) und (Granovetter,.The American Journal of Sociology 78:1360–1380, 1973) sind hier zu nennen –, scheinen Bourdieus Überlegungen eher ein Schattendasein zu fristen. Sie verdienen jedoch gerade aus der Perspektive von Beobachtern politischer Organisationen Aufmerksamkeit.
Though the use of social media for political campaigning has been widely studied, its correlation with electoral success has not received much attention. The current study uses the 2013 Israeli elections to examine the impact of social media on campaigns as a process. Findings indicate that parties and candidates that invest in social media are more likely to achieve social media success, which in turn increases their chances of achieving electoral success. Some may dispute the level of influence of social media; however, study findings suggest that being active in the digital arena has become a significant element in achieving ballot box success.
The authors explored the research methods of the manifold studies on online political communication published in nine selected scientific journals over an 8-year period stretching from the beginning of 2009 to March 2017 and systematized the results into a comprehensive, methodological, "state-of-the-art" report. The main findings are that the most frequent method of researching online political communication is the quantitative or qualitative content analysis. Still, recurrent is the combination of methodological approaches, where the quantitative and qualitative techniques complement each other. Moreover, the research of political communication in general, but online especially, has become more an interdisciplinary field. Yet the collection and analysis of data from new media and social networks requires more and more advanced expert skills.
Los medios digitales se han transformado en una herramienta esencial para las campañas electorales y diferentes autores afirman que el uso de las nuevas tecnologías ayudaría las democracias occidentales a resolver la creciente desafección de los ciudadanos hacia la política y a dar nueva vida a las estructuras políticas tradicionales. Los investigadores se dividen en dos grupos: el primero respalda la idea de un desplazamiento positivo hacia un discurso político más participado, plural y de calidad; en cambio, el segundo rechaza la idea de efectos revolucionarios sobre las campañas electorales. Este trabajo pretende evaluar el uso que los partidos hicieron de Facebook y su influencia sobre las estrategias de comunicación durante las dos últimas campañas electorales para el Parlament de Catalunya
Die Effekte der Digitalisierung auf die Demokratie sind vielfältig. Die Einschätzungen der Debatte fächern sich von Gefahren für Demokratien bis hin zur basisdemokratischen Revolution auf, wobei die tatsächlichen und finalen Folgen derzeit kaum absehbar sind. Das Fazit beinhaltet daher die Antwort, dass wir uns noch in der Phase der Frühdigitalisierung befinden, in der lediglich Abschätzungen und eine Bestandsaufnahme möglich sind. Daher wird in dem vorliegenden Band insbesondere ein Gewicht auf die Theoriebildung gelegt, in der die Demokratietheorie einem Update unterzogen werden soll, um den Digitalen Wandel zu inkludieren. Zudem soll die Demokratietheorie dafür genutzt werden, um die stattfindende digitale Transformation zu erklären und zu verstehen.
Die Herausgebenden
Dr. Michael Oswald ist Akademischer Rat am Institut für Politikwissenschaft der Universität Passau.
Dr. Isabelle Borucki ist Akademische Rätin a.Z. an der NRW School of Governance der Universität Duisburg-Essen.
Digital information is a new source of political information for citizens. News websites differ in the diversity of news content that they deliver, and such difference may have varied impacts on political behavior. This study explores the impact of news website characteristics on users’ news browsing behaviors, and in turn on voting participation. Using datasets on Internet browsing and U.S. presidential elections, the study finds indications that both the popularity and apparent bias of websites have an impact on the browsing behaviors of users. Non-biased websites have more user visits and longer user visits than biased websites, which positively correlate with users’ voting behaviors. Also, the longer users navigate news websites and the more users visit the news website, the higher the apparent political participation. The paper concludes with the implications of the research for political systems and news content providers.
This paper contributed to the body of knowledge on how new political party endorses themselves to attract people, especially millennials, to vote for them in the election by utilizing social medias. Therefore, this research aimed to cover the gap on the effectiveness of social media that was used by the new political party to endorse them to attract people to vote for them in 2019 election in Indonesia. Millennial generation grew in the era of advanced information technology that changed various aspects of life, especially the media. Millennials used the internet for almost everything including sending messages through social media. PSI's aim to attract millennials through social media was a strategy that was not only to give information about the leaders who would occupy new political positions, but also to educate politics to young people so that they could become leaders in the future. Hereby, the research methodology used qualitative interpretative content analysis approach: collecting all the tweets of PSI in campaign period and analyzed it using manual coding. Moreover, this study aimed to dig deeper understanding regarding the political branding on the case of the new political party.
Politics are becoming increasingly personalized, the focus shifting from party policies to individual candidates. Throughout the world, social media plays a significant role in this transformation (Enjolras & Karlsen,2016; Garzia, 2011; Kruikemeier, et.al., 2016; Larsson, 2014; Small 2010; McAllister,2007; Meeks, 2017). The most common definition of the term personalisation phrases it simply as a dichotomous relationship between the importance placed on the candidate on the one hand and the party on the other (Chan, 2018). Compared to other countries, Icelanders are very active on social media with 92% of the population owning a Facebook account, while 62% use Snapchat. Other social media are used less, Instagram 44% and Twitter 20% (Gallup, 2017). Electoral volatility has furthermore been on the rise in the last two decades with diminishing party loyalty and partisan dealignment (Harðarson, 2008, 2016). Dealignment in turn creates a dynamic context for personalization and leadership focus vis-á-vis party attachments (Garzia, 2011; Garzia, et. al. 2018). This rising trend of dealignment, as Lobo (2018) has pointed out, correlates with the phenomenon of personalization (Lobo, 2018). Precisely this tendency was felt in Iceland before the 2017 parliamentary elections, e.g. in the case of the now prime minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who had become more popular in the polls than her party (Jóhannsson, 2016. Magnússon, 2017). Traditional media and their news values are partly responsible for keeping up the visibility of political leaders on the news agenda, as normally they are considered more newsworthy than ordinary MPs or candidates. Thus, personalization is enhanced by the media, not only traditional media but social media as well. There are two cornerstones to all recent research into social media and politics: the Obama campaign of 2008 and the Trump campaign of 2016. These elections were not exclusively held nor won on social media but innovated its use to attract more attention and votes (Chadwick, 2017). However, Scandinavian research has shown that in the fragmented hybrid media environment in European parliamentary democracies, social media have as well become a vehicle for non- leaders and newcomers who use these platforms proportionally more than their leaders (Blach-Örsten, et.al, 2016; Larson and Moe, 2014). The aim of this paper is to find out if politician´s usage of social media, not only of leaders, contributes to the personalization of the Icelandic political system, which has historically been party centred (Harðarson, 2008). This will be done through a content analysis of the posts on social media of top two candidates of every party in every constituency before the 2017 parliamentary elections and with post- election semi-standardized interviews with 5 party officials. We will explore whether social media is more party, or candidate centred, gaining insight into why that is and what we can expect to see in the future through the interviews. As no research exists on the effect of social media on personalization in Iceland, this will be the first attempt at such analysis.
Die vorliegende Studie hat Digitalisierungsprozesse auf der Mesoebene zum Thema und untersucht diese Prozesse am Beispiel der Onlinekommunikation von Interessenorganisationen. Das Erkenntnisinteresse liegt darin, zu beschreiben, wie Interessenorganisationen langfristig auf die Verbreitung von Onlinekommunikation als Bestandteil der Digitalisierung reagieren.
Ziel der Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer theoretischen Konzeption, mit der analysiert werden kann, wie sich Digitalisierung auf der Mesoebene vollzieht. Um eine Analyse zu entwickeln, die der Komplexität des Phänomens gerecht wird, muss allerdings über die Mesoebene der Organisationen hinausgegangen werden. Digitalisierung ist ein Megatrend, der tiefgreifende Veränderungen für alle gesellschaftlichen Teilbereiche bedeutet – und sich auf globaler Ebene vollzieht.
Digitalisierungsprozesse führen zu Veränderungen in allen gesellschaftlichen Teilbereichen. Dies gilt auch für Interessenorganisationen als zentralen Akteuren der politischen Kommunikation auf der Mesoebene. Paula Nitschke untersucht deshalb, wie sich Onlinekommunikation im Binnengefüge von Interessenorganisationen institutionalisiert. Dieser Zugriff hat den Vorteil, dass Onlinekommunikation nicht bloß als Werkzeug in der Toolbox politischer PR erscheint. Es wird stattdessen gezeigt, wie Onlinekommunikation zum dauerhaften Bestandteil der Strukturen von Interessenorganisationen wird. Die Autorin verbindet Forschung unterschiedlicher Wissenschaftsdisziplinen zu einer theoretischen Konzeption, die in zwei Fallstudien mit teilnehmender Beobachtung empirisch erprobt wird.
Der Inhalt
• Forschungsstand zur Onlinekommunikation von Interessenorganisationen
• Überblick über den Neoinstitutionalismus in der Kommunikationswissenschaft
• Forschungsprogramm zur Institutionalisierung von Onlinekommunikation in Organisationen
• Methodenteil zur teilnehmenden Beobachtung mit Beobachtungsinstrument
Die Zielgruppen
• Dozierende und Studierende der Kommunikationswissenschaft, Organisationssoziologie und Politikwissenschaft
• Fachkräfte der Bereiche Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und NGO-Kommunikation
Die Autorin
Dr. Paula Nitschke ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Medien, Wissen und Kommunikation der Universität Augsburg.
Um zu analysieren, wie sich Onlinekommunikation als soziale Praktik institutionalisiert, braucht es eine Operationalisierung des Institutionalisierungsprozesses. In diesem Kapitel wird deshalb eine vierdimensionale Forschungsheuristik entwickelt, anhand derer der Weg nachgezeichnet werden kann, entlang dessen institutionelle Ordnungen aus der Organisationsumwelt Eingang in organisationale Strukturen und organisationales Handeln finden. Dieses Vorgehen unterscheidet sich in entscheidenden Punkten von Herangehensweisen, in denen nach dem Vorkommen einer (Online-) Medienlogik oder anderen, gut abgrenzbaren Elementen, zum Beispiel Organisationsmodellen, gefragt wird.
Die vorliegende Studie hat die Onlinekommunikation von Interessenorganisationen zum Thema. Das Erkenntnisinteresse der Arbeit lag darin, zu beschreiben, wie Interessenorganisationen langfristig auf die Verbreitung von Onlinekommunikation als Bestandteil der Digitalisierung reagieren. Die langfristige Reaktion wurde auf Basis neoinstitutionalistischer Theorie als Institutionalisierung von Onlinekommunikation verstanden.
Im Folgenden werden die Befunde der empirischen Untersuchung anhand der Forschungsheuristik dargestellt, die den komplexen Institutionalisierungsprozess der Untersuchung zugänglich macht und dafür die Dimensionen Artefakte, Arbeitsroutinen und Arbeitsregeln, Beziehungsnetzwerke und Koordination sowie sprachbasierte Sinnwelten unterscheidet. Um die Befunde zu den beiden untersuchten Organisationen sinnvoll aufeinander zu beziehen, werden die Organisationen nicht einzeln besprochen und anhand der vier Dimensionen durchdekliniert. Es wird stattdessen andersherum vorgegangen und innerhalb der Analysedimensionen die Befunde beider Organisationen dargestellt.
In diesem Kapitel werden die bislang vornehmlich getrennt voneinander behandelten theoretischen Ausführungen kurz zusammengefasst und aufeinander bezogen, bevor auf dieser Basis einzelne Forschungsfragen als Konkretisierung der leitenden Fragestellung abgeleitet werden. Die leitende Fragestellung der Arbeit wurde bereits formuliert und lautet.
Um die entwickelte theoretische Konzeption explorativ zu erproben, wurden zwei vertiefende Organisationsfallstudien durchgeführt. Das Herzstück dieser Fallstudien stellt eine teilnehmende Beobachtung dar, die durch weitere Methoden ergänzt wurde. Zur Vorbereitung der Organisationsfallstudien wurden Interviews mit Kommunikationsverantwortlichen von insgesamt 28 Interessenorganisationen geführt.
Zu den zentralen Fragen der politischen Internetforschung gehört, ob das Internet politische Partizipation fördert und zu einer starken Demokratie beiträgt. Von Beginn an lassen sich in der Debatte über die Folgen des Internets auf die Verfasstheit demokratischer Systeme und politische Partizipation die Positionen der Cyberenthusiasten und der Cyberpessimisten unterscheiden (vgl. Park und Perry 2009; Rowell 2009; Wright 2012). Die Cyberenthusiasten argumentieren, dass die Demokratie-Internet-Beziehung positiv ist.
The role of the media in the creation of distrust is much debated in political communication. Will negative news, for example, relentless attacks on political authorities, result in political cynicism or in a stimulation effect? By and large the media may stimulate political participation,but it is less clear when negative news will nullify this effect. Negative news may not only have short-term behavioral effects but also effects on underlying attitudes such as trust in politicians, which may produce their “sleeper effect” on political behavior only in the long run. This article addresses two related research questions.Will negative news discourage trust in political leaders? Will trust have a sleeper effect for future party choice and future turnout within the months to come? The 2002 Dutch election campaign,being an unprecedented negative campaign as compared to other Dutch campaigns, provides a good case to investigate these questions. On the basis of a biweekly seven-wave panel survey study and a daily content analysis of television news and newspapers,negative news was found to have a significant effect on trust in party leaders in addition to prior vote preference and education.The distrust in party leaders also had a significant sleeper effect in the long run on turnout and on the actual vote in addition to previous intentions.In general,these findings support the malaise theory. They are helpful to explain why the Christian Democrats could win the elections in defiance of the polls.
During the last decade a number of scholars have argued that political campaigning has become professionalized, and that political marketing has become the new dominant campaign paradigm. However, the conceptual relationship between political marketing and the professionalization of political campaigning is unclear. Furthermore, the distinction between political marketing, market orientation, and marketing techniques is often blurred. At the same time, most of the literature is dominated by either an American or British perspective. This makes it unclear as to whether these concepts should be viewed as general concepts, or as concepts relevant primarily for countries that share some specific set of political institutions.In this backdrop, the purpose of this article is to analyze (1) the conceptual relationship between political marketing, market orientation, marketing techniques, and professionalization of political campaigning, and (2) whether contemporary concepts of political marketing and the professionalization of political campaigning are equally applicable to all modern democracies regardless of, for example, political system and other country-specific factors. It also outlines a theory of strategic party goals for multiple arenas.
Using a sample of 99 political advertisements from 1990 statewide and federal elections, a content analysis was employed to test whether negative political advertisements exhibited a normative style. Results indicated that negative political advertisements were remarkably similar in substance and style, indicating a normative advertising form. The authors suggest that negative advertisements are used more to “blunt” an opponent's chance of winning the election than to promote the sponsoring candidate's own images or characteristics with their constituency.
Through the use of experimental methods, this study examines the claim that strategic news engenders political cynicism. First, it builds upon previous theory by conceptualizing and measuring political cynicism at both issue-specific and global levels. Second, the contingency of framing effects is a contested but crucial area of the framing paradigm and deserves greater attention in strategic framing studies. The study therefore examines this in detail by testing a number of individual characteristics for their moderating effects. The author found that relative to issue-based coverage, strategic news frames increased issue-specific political cynicism, but this effect was only evident for those who were less politically engaged and knowledgeable. The effects of the strategy frame on more global measures of political cynicism were minimal. The findings are discussed in the light of ongoing debates about framing effects and the media’s role in democratic engagement.
The focus of this article is on Norwegian political parties' adaption of Web 2.0 before and during the long campaign for the local elections in September 2007. By 2007, most parties had learned to use their Web sites as instruments for professional political marketing. In this process of streamlining, party presence on the Web acquired the characteristics of what is now conceptualized as Web 1.0. This article asks whether the emergence of Web 2.0, with its potential for grassroots participation and networking, as well as multilateral interactivity, was a catalyst of “e-ruptive” change towards greater pluralism or participation. The data indicate that in terms of party competition, Web 2.0 had at best a weak pluralizing effect, as party visibility in Web 2.0 environments roughly reflected party vote share. However, Web 2.0 enhanced participatory democracy by lowering the threshold for the involvement of the party grassroots and other sympathizers.
This study examines the effects of generic strategy news, self-referential press news, and “spin” spotlighting publicity coverage on political cynicism, against the backdrop of governance and policy. Drawing on data from two experiments allowing for replication within a single study, the authors demonstrate that exposure to both generic and publicity strategy news aroused political cynicism relative to issue-based news. In addition, the authors found positive interactions between political knowledge and strategic press and publicity news exposure, showing that more knowledgeable individuals were more strongly affected by these frames. The findings are discussed in the light of extant knowledge about framing effects and the media's increasing use of metareporting.
This article examines the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 and how these Web strategies are used within a political communication context. The data focus on how political parties (and their leaders) in Britain use Web 2.0 applications. We consider whether the content political elites published in their Web 2.0 applications is shovelware and more appropriate for Web 1.0, or if a genuinely Web 2.0 style of political communication is emerging. We investigate the extent to which there has been a shift in the way British politicians communicate or if caution over co-production, coupled with the demands of electioneering, is restricting the development of interactivity. Our analysis suggests that British political parties have sought to create a “Web 1.5” that offers the advantages of both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
This article explores the impact of strategy-based campaign coverage on turnout and confidence in government. Recent theoretical advances suggest that variables such as sophistication and involvement frequently moderate media exposure effects. We hypothesize that the impact of strategy frames will be moderated by political involvement and sophistication. In an experiment, we precisely isolate and manipulate particular story elements that have been said to foster public cynicism: the strategic interpretation of candidate motives, the presence of polling results, and the use of war or game metaphors to describe the campaign. Relative to the issue-oriented coverage, strategy frames boost the number of strategy-based comments people offer when describing the campaign and depress issue-based commentary. As expected, framing effects on turnout, trust in government, civic duty, and the perceived meaningfulness of elections are moderated by involvement and sophistication. Nonpartisans and those with less than a college degree are significantly demobilized and alienated by strategy-based coverage, while partisans and the highly educated are mostly unaffected.
The growth of party and candidate activity on the World Wide Web over the past 5 years has provoked much comment and criticism. Although initially most assessments were descriptive and anecdotal, more recent studies have taken a more systematic and quantitative approach to this topic. This article builds on the existing literature by developing a coding scheme that addresses two basic questions applicable to all political Web sites: (a) what the purpose of the sites are, and (b) how effectively they deliver their contents. In doing so, this article attempts to standardize the study of party Web sites and to promote the growth of cross-national and longitudinal comparative research in this area.
This article takes a close look at two important theories concerning the effects that online party campaigning has on party competition. The equalization and normalization theories are tested for systematic logical dependence on conditions present in existing studies within the research field. The conditions are country-specific contextual settings and studyspecific methodology. The method of qualitative comparative analysis is used, such that variable based reasoning can be applied in the low n case study. The main result of the analysis is that findings of normalization are mostly dependent on offline conditions - electoral settings in particular - being favourable to major parties. Concerning findings of equalization, an online media environment favourable to minor parties, compared to the offline environment proved important. Through a meta-analytical approach, the article brings important information to light on how scholarly interpretations of the two theories have been constructed.
This article examines online campaigning for the U.S. Congress in 2006. Increases in web presence have slowed, but with minor-party candidates closing the gap with major-party candidates in Senate races. A content analysis of the campaign web sites of every Senate and House candidate reveals that baseline informational web content and features have become standardized but that Senate sites are more sophisticated technologically. Multivariate analyses reveal that financial resources underwrite the highest levels of content and constitute a moving hurdle for disadvantaged candidates. Democrats, Greens, and challengers demonstrated more interest in relationship building, and the competitiveness of the race increased the likelihood of using the web site for mobilizing supporters. Features and functionality that allow citizens to coproduce content and interact in two-way communication are not being adopted widely, and it is an open question how candidates might integrate new social networking tools into their campaign strategies.
In a few short years, the World Wide Web has become a standard part of candidates’ campaign tool kits. Virtually all candidates have their own sites; and voters, journalists, and activists visit the sites with increasing frequency. In this paper, we study what candidates do on these sites - in terms of the information they present - by exploring one of the most enduring and widely debated campaign strategies: “going negative.” Comparing data from over 700 congressional candidate websites, over three election cycles (2002, 2004, and 2006), with television advertising data, we show that candidates go negative with similar likelihoods across these media. We also find that while similar dynamics drive negativity on the Web and in television advertising, there are some notable differences. These differences likely stem, in part, from the truncated sample available with television data (i.e., many candidates do not produce ads). Our results have implications for understanding negative campaigning, and for the ways in which scholars can study campaign dynamics.
The article provides a theoretical overview of how parties in modern democracies are using the Internet to perform a range of key functions, such as opinion formation, interest mediation and party organization. Drawing on the party goals’ literature and classic party typologies, the central argument of the article is that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are utilized in different ways by different types of political parties. While some parties stress the downward dissemination of information via new ICTs, others emphasize their interactive and targeting possibilities. The findings of the articles included in this Special Issue are profiled and assessed for the extent to which they provide empirical support for the strategies outlined.
Drawing upon a common conceptual framework of political webcampaigning the book offers theoretical reflections on Internet-based campaign politics. It provides a comparative overview on the use of the Internet as a campaigning instrument by diverse intermediary political actors. Taking the empirical findings of Internet appropriations into consideration, the book discusses the impact of political webcampaigning on (transnational) democracy and the transformation of public spheres.
Wieder einmal war ein Jahr zum Superwahljahr ausgerufen: Neben mehreren Landtags- und Kommunalwahlen fanden mit Europawahl und Bundestagswahl 2009 im Abstand von nur wenigen Wochen zwei nationale Wahlen statt. Die Beiträge in diesem Buch untersuchen die Kommunikationsbeziehungen zwischen Politik, Wählerschaft und Medien in den Wahlkämpfen unter den Bedingungen dieser besonderen politischen Konstellation und der Großen Koalition, die Entwicklung des modernen Wahlkampfmanagements sowie der Herausforderungen durch neue Kanäle der Kampagnenkommunikation
This research examined the influence of negative political advertising frames on the thoughts and feelings people generate in response to campaign advertising. Preparing and conducting this investigation involved the use of a multiple-method strategy. Content analysis identified two advertising frames (i.e., candidate theme and ad hoc issue advertisements) and two experiments separately induced political cynicism and politician accountability. Three hundred and sixty people participated in the experimental studies, in which they read and responded, using a thought-listing technique, to candidate theme or ad hoc issue negative advertisements. Results demonstrated that participants were more likely to generate cynical comments and hold politicians accountable for the country's ills when reading candidate theme advertisements than ad hoc issue advertisements. The results indicate that this contributes to a political climate of cynicism and may function to erode the electorate's overall trust in government.
This study examines the news releases that were posted on the official campaign Web sites of George W. Bush and Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. Analysis of each of the 487 news releases posted during the campaign season reveals that nearly three-quarters of these contained an attack on the opponent. This parallels data on the incidence of attacks appearing in televised political advertising during the 2000 campaign. The study provides support for the Political Competition Model, which posits that close races produce significant negativity. Furthermore, the study offers insights on how presidential political campaigns may use campaign Web sites in the future.
This article presents an integrated quantitative analysis of the functional, formal and content-related aspects of German political party websites during the 2002 National Elections. The analysis is guided by the normalization hypothesis of cyberspace, which infers a transfer of ‘real-world’ features of politics to the Internet. Results provide empirical evidence of a limited normalization in German e-campaigning: indeed, German party websites primarily serve information functions while neglecting interactive features. Yet, no overall gap in professionalism is found between major and minor parties analysed. Finally, online campaigning is dominated by a high level of self-referentiality but lacks both the expected degree of personalization and characteristic differences in communication styles between incumbents and challengers.
■ Scholars have seldom tested the innovation and normalization paradigm of e-campaigning over time. Particularly outside the US, there is a lack of comparative analyses of candidate or party websites that deal with the concept's temporal validity and scope. The article addresses this research gap through a longitudinal content and structural analysis of German party websites in the 2002 and 2005 national elections. The results provide empirical evidence of a twofold development of federal e-campaigns: while the major party websites evolved over time in information density, interactivity and sophistication (innovation), the minor parties were throughout characterized by an underutilization of structural website functions (normalization). On the content level, however, the major parties also adhered primarily to traditional offline strategies such as metacommunication or negative campaigning (normalization). Hence, a theoretical refinement of these basic concepts emerged according to a party's political status and the unit of analysis used. ■
Is negative campaigning on the internet an American phenomenon or an international trend? To explore this question, this article compares the use of attacks on German party websites in two state elections, one federal election and one election to the European parliament with recent American evidence. The results show that virtual mudslinging has affected German e-campaigns at all levels of the political system, with patterns similar to those found in the United States. This includes the amount and frequency of the attacks as well as their differential usage by incumbents and challengers, their respective sources, and the subject dimensions of the assaults. Only with regard to the thematic context and the targets of the attacks did German and American e-campaigns vary in their style of online negativism. These findings support the notion of a global standardisation effect in web campaign practices brought about by the professionalisation process in politics.
This article supplements and further develops the almost exclusively American literature on the determinants of negative campaigning by analyzing the tone of the Danish parties’ election campaigns. It concludes that proximity to governmental power matters, as oppositional parties are more negative than incumbents. This is comparable to the American experiences. The prospect of electoral failure, however, does not affect the tone the same way as poor poll standings do in the US. Moreover, it is suggested that future studies of negativity might consider how different party organizations affect the campaign tone; at least this study finds indications that parties with large proportions of party identifiers are slightly more negative than other parties. Finally, it is found that parties campaign differently in different channels of communication; that is, they are generally more negative in channels that allow direct interaction among politicians. This finding poses the question whether some channels are better empirical sources for studies of negativity than others, which is addressed in the closing section of the article.
This research examined the influence of negative political advertising frames on the thoughts and feelings people generate in response to campaign advertising. Preparing and conducting this investigation involved the use of a multiple-method strategy. Content analysis identified two advertising frames (i.e., candidate theme and ad hoc issue advertisements) and two experiments separately induced political cynicism and politician accountability. Three hundred and sixty people participated in the experimental studies, in which they read and responded, using a thought-listing technique, to candidate theme or ad hoc issue negative advertisements. Results demonstrated that participants were more likely to generate cynical comments and hold politicians accountable for the country's ills when reading candidate theme advertisements than ad hoc issue advertisements. The results indicate that this contributes to a political climate of cynicism and may function to erode the electorate's overall trust in government.
This study investigates the extent of candidates' use of the video sharing YouTube site in 2008, and analyzes which Congressional candidates were more likely to use this tool. A large majority of the major party candidates for the Senate opened YouTube channels as did a much smaller proportion of those running for House seats in 2008. This is about double the percentages of House and Senate candidates who made use of profiles on the social network Facebook site when these emerged as campaign vehicles in 2006. For House candidates, campaign fundraising is the only strategic resource that differentiates both having a YouTube channel and the number of videos posted to it. In addition to better financed candidates, those in competitive elections also were more likely to open channels. Incumbents joined better financed candidates in posting more videos to their channels. Percentage minority is the only constituency attribute related to YouTube use, and is significant only for the level of activity. YouTube is best understood as a vehicle for disseminating campaign communications produced by or for traditional media, especially television, and not so much as a new technology tool.