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Baby Boom or Bust?: The New Media Effect on Political Participation
Abstract
A considerable number of studies have investigated the influence of new media on political attitudes and behaviors. However, much of this research focuses on young people, ignoring other age cohorts, particularly Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964). To fill this gap, this research examines the influence of attention to specific forms of traditional and online media on Baby Boomers’ online and offline political participation during the fall 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. Drawing on a Baby Boomer survey panel, responses were collected during the 2012 general election to analyze the empirical relationship between attention to traditional and online media sources and political participation. Data analyses reveal that Boomers’ attention to traditional media sources, particularly television, did not increase their offline and online political participation. Instead, various forms of offline and online participation were consistently heightened by Boomers’ attention to presidential candidate websites. In addition, attention to Facebook for campaign information was positively linked to online engagement. Boomers’ attention to blogs, Twitter, and YouTube were associated with only certain types of online and offline activities.
... Voters: Political interest, gender, race, and party identification determine the general political use of social media [40,111]. Specific social media activities, however, vary in the factors driving them. ...
... Research demonstrates that PSMM has an impact on online and offline political participation (e.g., [7,34,40,111]. Although, the effect is more pronounced when voters are active followers (liking and sharing) rather than passive followers [34]. ...
... by demographic factors and personal motivations and knowledge (e.g., [40,111]. The framework highlights two consequences of PSMM, which are categorized as online and offline outcomes. ...
We focus on political marketing and conduct a systematic literature review of journal articles exploring political marketing on social media. The systematic literature review delineates the current state of political social media marketing literature. It spans six databases and comprises sixty-six journal articles published between 2011-2020. We identify and categorize the variables studied in the literature and develop an integrative framework that links these variables. We describe the research themes that exist in the literature. The review demonstrates that the field is growing. However, the literature is fragmented, along with being predominantly based in the US context. Conceptual and theoretical shortcomings also exist. Moreover, the literature ignores pertinent contemporary topics such as co-creation, influencer marketing, and political advertising on social media. Nevertheless, a nascent domain with growing practical significance, political social media marketing provides various exciting avenues for further research, which we outline in this study.
... prevede inoltre una massiccia presenza di ipertesti e di rimandi ad altre pagine Web, contribuendo in tal modo alla formazione di una sorta di grande ragnatela virtuale sulla quale l'individuo non può comunque esercitare un'influenza rilevante (Elmer, Langlois 2013), con scarse possibilità di ricevere feedback in tempi brevi. Con tali modalità, intensamente utilizzate dai soggetti politici negli anni Novanta e nei primi anni Duemila (Yannas, Lappas 2005;Demertzis et al. 2005), la comunicazione politica non era in grado di generare dibattiti costruttivi (Foot et al. 2009;Lappas et al. 2008;Yannas, Lappas 2005;Jackson 2011), sebbene gli utenti non più giovani siano ancora abituati ad una navigazione basata sulle peculiarità tipiche del Web 1.0 (Towner, Muñoz 2016). ...
... La gran parte degli utenti di giovane età tende, infatti, a trascurare l'utilizzo dei siti Web per ottenere informazioni, preferendo nella maggior parte dei casi i social media come fonte principale da cui attingere dati e notizie (Garcia-Castañon et al. 2011). Al contrario, gli individui adulti, abituati alla navigazione in rete su strutture più datate, tendono a comportarsi in modo opposto, impiegando le piattaforme sociali in misura minore rispetto ai siti Internet di partiti e candidati (Towner, Dulio 2011), sebbene appaiano sempre più sensibili alla propagazione virale dei social media (Dolezal 2015;Towner, Muñoz 2016). Pertanto, affinché la comunicazione possa raggiungere il maggior numero possibile di soggetti è fondamentale che sia veicolata non soltanto su canali come Twitter e Facebook, ma anche sui siti Web, al fine di essere presenti su tutti i mezzi impiegabili nell'accrescimento della consapevolezza politica (Gibson, McAllister 2009;Wu, Dahmen 2010) e di ridurre le eventuali ineguaglianze nei processi di divulgazione informativa riguardo ai segmenti di pubblico da essi raggiunte (Yoo, de Zúñiga 2014). ...
... Dall'altro lato, canali più datati come siti Web, blog e forum, sebbene abbiano sperimentato un incremento progressivo delle funzionalità e delle potenzialità dovuto all'evoluzione della struttura del Web (Druckman et al. 2017), non consentono al mittente di godere di tali vantaggi. Il loro utilizzo rimane comunque fondamentale in quanto garantiscono un contatto più o meno diretto con soggetti abituati all'impiego di tali canali, individui adulti che hanno potuto vivere in prima persona la nascita di Internet e delle prime forme di comunicazione politica veicolata tramite tale mezzo (Towner, Dulio 2011;Towner, Muñoz 2016). ...
... The focus on information or news draws upon a long-standing literature that examines media use, political knowledge, and participation in civic and political life (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996;McLeod, Scheufele, & Moy, 1999). The premise is that social media use exposes people to information about political issues or current events, which raises their awareness and knowledge of these issues and increases their likelihood of engaging in civic and political life (e.g., Boulianne, 2016;Saldana, McGregor, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2015;Towner & Muñoz, 2016;Wolfsfeld, Yarchi, & Samuel-Azran, 2016). The focus on networking or relationship-building draws on research suggesting that a key predictor of participation is formal and informal social ties that increase the chance of being asked to, and subsequently agreeing to, participate (Musick & Wilson, 2008;Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). ...
... The former study focuses on studies in Asia, whereas the latter included a global perspective with a handful of studies from Asia. This paper re-visits this finding in light of new research in Asia (e.g., Chan, 2016;Chan, Chen, & Lee, 2016;Choi & Shin, 2017;Hyun & Kim, 2015;Park, 2015; and other parts of the world (e.g., Leyva, 2016;Lu et al., 2016;Saldana et al., 2015;Towner & Muñoz, 2016;Vaccari, Chadwick, & O'Loughlin, 2015). Which types of social media uses matter most to participation and how does political context affect the relationship between types of social media use and participation? ...
... When studies do specify a platform, the focus tends to be Facebook (n = 146). Towner (2013; as well as Towner & Muñoz, 2016) argues the need to examine the varied social media options. She advocates for the exploration of platform effects (also see Bode et al., 2014;Tufekci & Wilson, 2012;Vraga, 2016). ...
Social networking sites are popular tools to engage citizens in political campaigns, social movements, and civic life. However, are the effects of social media on civic and political participation revolutionary? How do these effects differ across political contexts? Using 133 cross-sectional studies with 631 estimated coefficients, I examine the relationship between social media use and engagement in civic and political life. The effects of social media use on participation are larger for political expression and smaller for informational uses, but the magnitude of these effects depends on political context. The effects of informational uses of social media on participation are smaller in countries like the United States, with a free and independent press. If there is a social media revolution, it relates to the expression of political views on social networking sites, where the average effect size is comparable to the effects of education on participation.
... The presence of the Internet has allowed the creation of various platforms for citizens to engage with one another as a community with similar interests; for example, Facebook, which has risen to be the most well-known social media platform, in which people can encounter like-minded individuals to discuss politics (Kushin and Kitchener 2009;Vesnic-Alujevic 2012;Enli and Skogerbø 2013). Towner and Muñoz (2016) suggested that social media platforms are positively linked to Baby Boomers' political engagement in an online environment. ...
... Moon and Hwang (2018) defined subjective norm as the extent of influence of an individual's close reference members on individuals' decision to participate in crowdfunding. Towner and Muñoz (2016) found that even in virtual relationships and observing the political activities of their reference groups on social media, Baby Boomers no longer feel isolated from online politics and, instead, feel more associated. Baber (2019b) found the influence of family and friend reference groups strongly influences the behavioral intention of an individual to participate in crowdfunding. ...
Participation in the political process is the fundamental right and responsibility of a citizen. Online political participation has gained popularity as it is convenient and effective. Political crowdfunding helps political candidates and parties pledge funds, usually small, from a large population and seek support through marketing campaigns during elections. In November 2020, when there were presidential elections in the US and the world was facing a global pandemic from COVID-19, political crowdfunding was a helpful method to communicate the political agenda and seek funding. The study aims to examine the intentions of US citizens to participate in political crowdfunding amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will integrate two models—the theory of planned behavior and civic voluntarism model—to check intentions and, in addition, the influence of COVID-19. The data were collected from 529 respondents from the US before the elections. The data were analyzed through a partial least squared structural equation modeling technique with SmartPLS 3.2. The results suggested that political efficacy and online community engagement have a positive influence on the intention to participate in political crowdfunding. Further, all three factors of TPB have a significant positive influence on intention. The perceived threat variable of COVID-19 does impact the attitude towards political crowdfunding. The study will be helpful for crowdfunding platforms and political contenders to examine the factors that can help them to seek maximum funds from the public and, at the same time, examine the effectiveness of their political communications.
... The aim of this chapter is to explore how young citizens' day-to-day participation in political activities intersects with their online political enactments. The conclusion that youth interest and involvement in politics is on the wane has been met with both agreement and disagreement (Towner & Muñoz, 2016). All round, there has been much discussion of what can be done to attract youngsters into political life, offline and online -make them commit; and, again, Namibia takes part in such discussions as much as any country. ...
... On the African continent, political participation has been regarded as consisting mainly of citizens' presence or active attendance at political rallies, meetings, conferences, and other gatherings of this sort. This kind of presence has been declining, as citizens -particularly young citizens -increasingly choose not to attend such meetings in person, since they can participate in them digitally (Kruikemeier & Shehata, 2016;Towner & Muñoz, 2016). Empirical studies that investigate this phenomenon offer an explanation for it (Mattes & Richardson, 2015;Dawson, 2014;Fu et al., 2016;Hao et al., 2014). ...
In the last five years, Namibia has experienced an increase in the presence of people on social media platforms, creating various debates on its impact on citizen engagement in the political sphere. Studies from the global north have established a vibrant scholarship about the transformative influence these digital platforms have on direct democracy with limited empirical evidence whether this applies to contexts beyond the west. This 7 months ethnography, explores how the youth in the Ohangwena Regional Youth Forum use mobile social media to participate in regional and local politics by using participant observations, semi-structured interviews and content analysis of seven Facebook pages and two WhatsApp groups. The findings reveal that the youth and political leaders use social media for digital skilling and literacy; digital political site for leisure entertainment and engagement; as affective publics; promote direct and indirect digital democracy, despite network connectivity issues and the high unemployment rate.
Key words: Namibia, youth, Africa politics, affective publics, digital literacy, social media, digital democracy
... As such, we might expect similarities in the roles of these platforms for protest participation. Early research suggests that the use of YouTube for campaign information did not influence offline participation in campaign activities in the 2012 US presidential election (Towner, 2013;Towner & Muñoz, 2018). However, this research was done when this platform was not new, and citizens' participation was measured in terms of campaign activities, rather than the youth-preferred protest participation. ...
Protest has long been associated with left-wing actors and left-wing causes. However, right-wing actors also engage in protest. Are right-wing actors mobilized by the same factors as those actors on the left? This article uses cross-national survey data (i.e., US, UK, France, and Canada) gathered in February 2021 to assess the role of misinformation, conspiracy beliefs, and the use of different social media platforms in explaining participation in marches or demonstrations. We find that those who use Twitch or TikTok are twice as likely to participate in marches or demonstrations, compared to non-users, but the uses of these platforms are more highly related to participation in right-wing protests than left-wing protests. Exposure to misinformation on social media and beliefs in conspiracy theories also increase the likelihood of participating in protests. Our research makes several important contributions. First, we separate right-wing protest participation from left-wing protest participation, whereas existing scholarship tends to lump these together. Second, we offer new insights into the effects of conspiracy beliefs and misinformation on participation using cross-national data. Third, we examine the roles of emerging social media platforms such as Twitch and TikTok (as well as legacy platforms such as YouTube and Facebook) to better understand the differential roles that social media platforms play in protest participation.
... Serrano-Puche and others (2018) analyze the phenomenon of incidental exposure: even though users come across news without looking for it on their social networks, for example, when they use it for entertainment or social content, this exposure is related to their understanding of public affairs and their political participation. Towner and Lego Muñoz (2018) analyzed the increase in political participation in baby boomers based on their attention to the media and social networks and found that television does not modify their political involvement, while presidential candidates' websites do increase their participation in digital and physical environments. Koivula and others (2019) examined the relationship between online political activity and personal participation in online identity bubbles and showed that political activity was positively associated with identity bubbles. ...
Through a review of the literature, the present article outlines the interaction forms that happen on Twitter when the participation is political, intending to show that the conversations made by the most significant collective on Twitter which is formed by ordinary users that post tweets 24/7 any given day with the sole intention to make public its political views, are invisible for the social studies. The actual political conversations attended by the social studies are related to parties, civic organizations, street manifestation, social activism, or some political manifestation that requires organization. The subject is important because these ordinary users with no agendas related to the formal or informal forms of political conversations known by the social studies form the biggest sector in the political social network par excellence, and no one is studying them. We propose the adjective ‘detached’ users to refer to these Twitter users.
... Facebook, on the other hand, is designed to facilitate communication in networks where strong-ties are relatively more important, and where there is a stronger basis in offline relationships (Vaccari and Valeriani 2021). The two platforms exhibit differences in how they enable engagement and political expression and with what consequences (Bode 2017;Koc-Michalska et al. 2021;Boulianne et al. 2020;Towner and Muñoz 2018;Yu 2016). On the contrary, Facebook's requirement that both persons accept 'friendship' before they are connected enables a different network structure for news consumption and conversational dynamics. ...
Political participation opportunities have been expanding for years, most recently through digital tools. Social media platforms have become well integrated into civic and political participation. Using a cross-national sample from the United States, United Kingdom and France, this article examines whether acts of participation associated with social media should be classified using a traditional, five-factor solution to the structure of participatory acts. The distinction between online and offline participation is set aside, focusing instead on acts supported and enabled by social media, and in particular on differences between the use of Twitter and Facebook. The analysis shows that acts enabled by social media do not load with traditional factors in the structure of participation. Political acts employing Twitter and Facebook are distinct in the factor structure of participation.
... Such accidental or incidental exposure effects have been increasingly discussed in literature on political communication Kim et al., 2013;Tang & Lee, 2013;Valeriani & Vaccari, 2016). Future research might study specific platforms, such as YouTube or Snapchat, in terms of how they might enable political online participation indirectly, through accidental exposure (Bowyer et al., 2017;Rice & Moffett, 2019;Towner & Muñoz, 2018). In addition to the limitations already mentioned, our study has some shortcomings. ...
Digital inequalities research has investigated the question of who engages in online political participation, finding gaps along socioeconomic variables such as gender, age or education. Recent research has also highlighted how online platforms may facilitate or encumber political participation. Especially for multi-purpose platforms such as Facebook, where users are supposed to use their real names, issues of adequate self-presentation arise. The diversity of multiple audiences engenders privacy concerns, particularly when controversial political issues are at play. In this contribution, we add to existing research on digital inequalities in online political participation by focusing on privacy concerns as a critical construct. We use a survey of German Internet users to test the effect of privacy concerns on online political participation. Contrary to initial expectations, privacy concerns are found to increase political participation. As privacy concerns are spread quite evenly throughout the population, they contribute little to the socioeconomic stratification of online political participation. Social media use, however, exerts a strong positive effect on political participation, and differs significantly among socioeconomic segments of the population.
... Authors in [20,21] indicated that the use of social media exposes individuals to information on political issues or current events, raising their awareness and understanding of these issues and increasing their likelihood of engaging in civic and political life. ...
The rapid growth of the use of social media opens up new challenges and opportunities to analyze various aspects and patterns in communication. In-text mining, several techniques are available such as information clustering, extraction, summarization, classification. In this study, a text mining framework was presented which consists of 4 phases retrieving, processing, indexing, and mine association rule phase. It is applied by using the association rule mining technique to check the associated term with the Huawei P30 Pro phone. Customer reviews are extracted from many websites and Facebook groups, such as re-view.cnet.com, CNET. Facebook and amazon.com technology, where customers from all over the world placed their notes on cell phones. In this analysis, a total of 192 reviews of Huawei P30 Pro were collected to evaluate them by text mining techniques. The findings demonstrate that Huawei P30 Pro, has strong points such as the best safety, high-quality camera, battery that lasts more than 24 hours, and the processor is very fast. This paper aims to prove that text mining decreases human efforts by recognizing significant documents. This will lead to improving the awareness of customers to choose their products and at the same time sales managers also get to know what their products were accepted by customers suspended.
... The EPIG model 17 studies focus on one generation-mostly the young-but do not include other age groups (Towner & Muñoz, 2018). Before presenting our model, we therefore highlight three prominent models that have contributed to our understanding of the link between news media and political involvement: the Communication Mediation Model, the Orientations-Stimulus-Reasoning-Orientations-Response (O-S-R-O-R) perspective, and the Opportunity-Motivation-Ability (OMA) framework. ...
This book investigates news use patterns among fve diferent generations in a time where digital media create a multi-choice media environment.
The book introduces the EPIG model (Engagement-ParticipationInformation-Generation) to study how diferent generational cohorts’ exposure to political information is related to their political engagement and participation. The authors build on a multi-method framework to determine direct and indirect media efects across generations. The unique dataset allows for comparison of efects between legacy and social media use and helps to disentangle the infuence on citizens’ political involvement in nonelection as well as during political campaign times. Bringing the newly of-age Generation Z into the picture, the book presents an in-depth understanding of how a changing media environment presents diferent challenges and opportunities for political involvement of this, as well as older generations.
Bringing the conversation around political engagement and the media up to date for the new generation, this book will be of key importance to scholars and students in the areas of media studies, communication studies, technology, political science, and political communication.
... While online political participation is common among older adults (Towner &Muñoz, 2016), reports suggest that this activity is especially popular among young adults (Rainie, 2012;Rainie et al., 2012). Given varied forms of political participation enabled by online media, Bennett, Wells, and Freelon (2011) proposed two styles of participation among the young in today's digital era. ...
In this chapter, we expand the idea that conflict avoidance (CA) inhibits online political participation. We specifically propose that CA has a direct negative link with traditional online political participation and online political expression, and an indirect negative link with these two forms of participation when mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. We test our propositions through analyzing data from a survey of young adult college students residing in a battleground state in the U.S. Midwest conducted during the weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Our results showed that CA has a direct negative association with both traditional online political participation and online political expression. CA also has a negative relationship with political interest and internal political efficacy, which in turn, are positively linked with traditional online political participation and online political expression. We discussed implications.
... Another observation they could make was that the personal homepages of minor and fringe parties have started to even outperform those of major candidates, despite the difference in resources. Towner and Muñoz (2016) analyzed data of a Baby Boomer survey panel from a general election in 2012 and observe that following campaign information on Facebook was linked to further online engagement for this group of individuals. ...
It is still believed by many that the perceived democratic deficit
of the European Union indicates the need for fostering a
European public sphere as a space for debate across national
public spheres. Moreover, there is a consensus that new modes
of political communication and participation via the internet can
play a role in that respect. Far-reaching expectations of
fundamental reform of modern democracy through the
application of online participatory tools are vanishing after two
decades of e-democracy. However, if properly designed and
implemented, e-participation has the potential to contribute to
accountability and transparency, trans-nationalisation and
politicisation of public debates, and the improvement of
exchanges and interactions between EU decision-making and
European citizens.
A common critique on e-participation practices at EU level is
that they are a successful civic instrument but not a convincing
policy instrument. Many e-participative projects suffer from a
lack of direct, or even indirect, political or policy impact, but
seem to provide personal added value for participants and
community building.
... SNSs have been found in recent years to be important for marketers as tools for increasing political participation (Cogburn and Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011;Towner and Muñoz, 2016), micro-targeting specific electorate (Newman, 2016), creating a space for dialogue (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013) and as a means for shaping the brand image of political entities (Colliander et al., 2017). This study is concerned with the conspicuous act of "Liking" the US and the UK political brands on Facebook in the lead up to the 2015 UK General Election and the 2016 US Presidential Election. ...
Purpose
Acquiring “Likes” for a political party or candidate’s Facebook pages is important for political marketers. For consumers, these “Likes” are conspicuous, making their political affiliation visible to their network. This paper aims to examine the roles of the undesired social-self and visibility (conspicuous vs inconspicuous) in predicting consumers’ intention to “Like” political brands. The authors extend knowledge on the undesired social-self and transference of theory from general marketing to a political domain and provide practical advice for political marketers engaging social network sites.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gather data from two surveys run with Facebook using electorates in the run up to the UK 2015 and US 2016 elections ( n = 1,205) on their intention to “Like” political brands under different visibility conditions.
Findings
Data support the theorized relationship of the undesired social-self with social anxiety intention to “Like” when “Liking” is conspicuous. However, data also indicate that all users – irrespective of proximity to the undesired social-self – prefer to “Like” inconspicuously.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited by the generalizability of the specific context and the use of self-report measures.
Practical implications
Political marketers should reconsider promoting conspicuous consumption for that which is more inconspicuous.
Originality/value
The authors provide the first examination of the undesired social-self in driving behaviour under different visibility conditions. Furthermore, the authors challenge the extension of existing knowledge of the self-concept within political marketing, based on the “norm” for consumers’ to avoid disclosing political views publically.
... These mixed findings suggest that additional research on social media's agenda-setting power is required, particularly regarding how candidates employ social media to set the media's agenda during a campaign. Acknowledging social media's ability to influence citizens (e.g., Towner, 2013Towner, , 2016Towner & Dulio, 2011;Towner & Munoz, 2016a, 2016b as well as the mainstream media (e.g., Conway et al., 2015;Parmalee, 2014), every presidential candidate in recent elections has utilized a variety of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and more (Pew Research Center, 2016). Candidates employ social media to directly communicate with citizens, solicit donations, and mobilize the electorate--all without the mainstream media filter (Towner & Dulio, 2012). ...
Instagram emerged as a pivotal campaign tool in the 2016 presidential campaign. This study examines the agenda-setting effects between the presidential primary candidates’ Instagram posts and articles published in the mainstream newspapers during the primary period. A reciprocal relationship between Democratic and Republican candidates’ Instagram posts and newspaper articles is expected. A content analysis of issues recorded daily issue frequencies in each medium which were then examined using a time-series analysis. Results offer evidence of a relationship between Democratic and Republican candidates’ Instagram posts and newspapers on some of the top issues in the primary campaign. However, the findings also reveal that candidate Instagram posts independently predicted newspapers’ issue agendas on certain issues with no reverse effects.
... While online political participation is common among older adults (Towner &Muñoz, 2016), reports suggest that this activity is especially popular among young adults (Rainie, 2012;Rainie et al., 2012). Given varied forms of political participation enabled by online media, Bennett, Wells, and Freelon (2011) proposed two styles of participation among the young in today's digital era. ...
In this chapter, we expand the idea that conflict avoidance (CA) inhibits online political participation.
We specifically propose that CA has a direct negative link with traditional online political participation
and online political expression, and an indirect negative link with these two forms of participation when
mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. We test our propositions through analyzing
data from a survey of young adult college students residing in a battleground state in the U.S. Midwest
conducted during the weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Our results showed that CA
has a direct negative association with both traditional online political participation and online political
expression. CA also has a negative relationship with political interest and internal political efficacy,
which in turn, are positively linked with traditional online political participation and online political
expression. We discussed implications.
For over two decades, political communication research has hailed the potentially reinvigorating effect of social media on democracy. Social media was expected to provide new opportunities for people to learn about politics and public affairs, and to participate politically. Building on two systematic literature reviews on social media, and its effects on political participation and knowledge (2000–2020), and introducing empirical evidence drawing on four original US survey data that expands for over a decade (2009–2020), this Element contends that social media has only partially fulfilled this tenet, producing a Social Media Democracy Mirage. That is, social media have led to a socio-political paradox in which people are more participatory than ever, yet not necessarily more informed.
This study aims to advance the understanding of POEM (paid, owned and earned media) literature through a mixed-review approach, comprising bibliometric and thematic analyses. VOSviewer was used for the bibliometric analysis of 816 articles from the Scopus database, while thematic analysis identified five themes and 17 sub-themes. The major thematic clusters are (a) brand communication and engagement via social media; (b) dynamics of media engagement and marketing strategies; (c) advertising, cross-channel synergy and branding; (d) mediated diplomacy and advertising literacy; and (e) the role of different media types in brand communication. This study presents the current state of research in POEM marketing and provides actionable recommendations for marketing practitioners and policymakers. Practitioners can use these findings to adapt and integrate emerging communication strategies, while policymakers can develop guidelines to enhance marketing practices and regulatory frameworks. Additionally, the study outlines five future research directions: (a) the integration of AI technologies, (b) ethical considerations, (c) cross-media synergy, (d) interdisciplinary approaches and (e) robust research methodologies.
2023 Türkiye Cumhurbaşkanlığı Seçimlerinde adaylar günümüzün en etkili iletişim araçları olarak kabul edilen sosyal medyayı aktif bir şekilde kullanmıştır. Bu araştırmada Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ve Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’nun Instagram paylaşımlarının analizi ve politik pazarlama stratejilerinin incelemesi yapılmıştır. Analiz için Instagram’ın tercih edilmesinin nedeni en çok kullanılan sosyal medya mecralarından biri olmasının yanı sıra, adayların diğer mecralarda da aynı veya benzer paylaşımlar yaptığının tespit edilmesidir. Instagram, adayların seçmenlerle etkileşim kurduğu, mesajlarını ilettiği ve kendilerini tanıttığı önemli bir platform olmuştur. Adayların paylaşımları, beğeni ve yorum sayıları, görsel içerikler, alt yazı kategorileri, adayların imajı, kampanya stratejileri ve slogan kullanımı gibi farklı faktörler dikkate alınarak analiz edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ve Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’nun Instagram kampanyaları, seçmenlere ulaşmak ve desteklerini kazanmak için çeşitli stratejileri kullanmaktadır. Her iki aday da mesajlarını etkili bir şekilde iletmek ve seçmenleri etkilemek için görsel içerikler, metinler ve duygusal vurguları bir araya getirmeyi amaçlamaktadır.
This study examines the role of digital media in civic and political engagement, specifically the respective roles of websites vs. social media in relation to volunteering. The study uses four-country (United States, United Kingdom, France, and Canada) survey data collected in 2019 and 2021 (n = 12,359). For both types of volunteering, we find that organizations’ websites are more strongly correlated with volunteering compared to following organizations on social media. We replicate this finding across multiple countries, two types of analysis, and volunteering for civic and political organizations. Our findings suggest that the informational role of websites is of greater importance than the creation of quasi-membership ties inherent to social media when it comes to mobilizing volunteers. However, engaging in both online activities has the strongest relationship with volunteering, suggesting a need for multi-method communication strategy. This finding is important with respect to developing communication strategies in civic and political groups.
One of today’s most controversial and consequential issues is whether the global uptake of digital media is causally related to a decline in democracy. We conducted a systematic review of causal and correlational evidence (N = 496 articles) on the link between digital media use and different political variables. Some associations, such as increasing political participation and information consumption, are likely to be beneficial for democracy and were often observed in autocracies and emerging democracies. Other associations, such as declining political trust, increasing populism and growing polarization, are likely to be detrimental to democracy and were more pronounced in established democracies. While the impact of digital media on political systems depends on the specific variable and system in question, several variables show clear directions of associations. The evidence calls for research efforts and vigilance by governments and civil societies to better understand, design and regulate the interplay of digital media and democracy.
The current research was conducted to study Political Campaigns on social media (Facebook) and the spiral of silence effect on youth. The objectives of the study were to explore how youth use Facebook to determine the climate of opinions related to politics; to examine the implementation of the spiral of silence theory on the issue of politicians' accountability process in the current regime in Pakistan. The purposive sampling technique was use for the collection of samples from the University of Sargodha and comprised of (N= 300) youth participants, including (n=150) males and (n=150) females. A questionnaire was Well-designed for assessing opinion climate and inclination to share their views on controversial political issues. Results of the current study revealed that individuals are more likely to speak out on controversial topics through Facebook than other communication channel. Findings indicate that social media plays an important role in setting up the direction of the public opinion climate beside the group of close friends, which also important role in the assessment of opinion climate on controversial political issues, including politicians' accountability process. In Pakistan, political polarization is on the rise. It this context spiral of silence for deviant opinion is evident from the findings.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how exposure to a presidential candidate's high engagement Instagram images influences a citizen's candidate evaluations.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected via Amazon MTurk. A 3 × 2 experimental design was employed to test the persuasive effect of exposure of the “most liked” and “most commented on” images of the top four 2016 US presidential primary candidates on a US citizen's candidate evaluation.
Findings
Results reveal that highly engaging Instagram images of unfamiliar presidential candidates positively influenced candidate evaluations. However, the same was not true for more well-known presidential candidates.
Research limitations/implications
This study was not conducted during a live campaign and only examined four of the top 2016 presidential primary candidates.
Practical implications
The research includes implications for marketers seeking to increase engagement and reach in Instagram marketing campaigns. This study shows that even brief exposure to a highly engaged post involving an unfamiliar person/product on social media can significantly alter evaluations of that person or product.
Originality/value
To the authors' knowledge, no experimental designs have addressed how Instagram posts influence users' political attitudes and behaviors within the political marketing and communications literature.
Focusing on the Better Know A Ballot initiative launched by Stephen Colbert to encourage voter registration and turnout in the 2020 Election, the research offers an in-depth analysis of Colbert’s satirical interrogation of voting rules across the United States. In focusing on the nuances that come with a federalized system of voting, Colbert effectively revisits his role as satirical election educator-in-chief, producing digital YouTube video content that is designed to be shared by and engage his audience. Colbert’s simultaneous satirical criticism of our election system and his call to get out the vote reflects a full circle return to playful participatory satire all the while offering an important mobilization tool for greater citizen engagement with technology and politics. Like recent efforts by other political satirists, Colbert’s Better Know A Ballot series reflects an increasingly entertaining yet activist take on engagement with US electoral politics.
The multifaceted nature of political participation has led to various ways of measuring it. This, in turn, has led to conflicting outcomes (even when applied to the same problem) in the research field. What are the contemporary challenges of measuring political participation? The main objective of this paper is to identify current challenges of measuring political participation that are common in the existing literature and empirical findings. This review paper examines different methods of measuring both online and offline political participation and shows current problems that are crucial to deal with methodological challenges in the emerging era of Web 3.0. Drawing from a careful analysis of 86 published (2012–2019) empirical research on new media and political participation, the present study finds that self-reported measures, different question-wordings, misuse of Likert scales and time frames, and the lack of clear concept of political participation are current problems of measuring political participation. In so doing, it contributes to research on political participation (1) attempting to gather various measurements and their common problems as well as (2) urging the importance of these challenges.
Resumo O processo de inovação das tecnologias de informação e comunicação promoveram o desenvolvimento de iniciativas que corroboram maior adesão popular às ações políticas. Diante disso, as political techs surgem como uma forma de inovação do uso da tecnologia para facilitar o acesso às informações e à análise dos candidatos para escolha durante a eleição e como meio de acompanhamento e monitoramento das ações e pautas de governo, auxiliando o processo de participação e engajamento cívico. Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo analisar o engajamento do cidadão, por meio do uso de aplicativos classificados como political techs, na participação em ações de mandatos eletivos no Poder Legislativo brasileiro após as eleições gerais de 2018. A abordagem quantitativa adotou método multivariado de equações de modelagem estrutural, com aplicação de um survey presencial com uma amostra de 467 universitários. Como resultado, a partir das political techs, é proposto um modelo que possibilita a análise por parte dos cidadãos para fiscalizar e participar das decisões sobre os recursos investidos nas políticas e ações públicas, sendo possível, assim, fomentar o engajamento do cidadão.
The innovation process of information and communication technologies have led to an increasing engagement of the population in political activities. Political techs emerge as an innovation to facilitate access to information and analysis of candidates during elections. They are used to monitor government actions and agendas, encouraging participation and civic engagement. This research analyzes citizen engagement through political techs adopted in elective mandates in the Brazilian Legislature after the general elections of 2018. The quantitative approach used a multivariate method of structural equation modeling with the application of a face-to-face survey with a sample of 467 university students. As a result, from the political techs, a model is proposed that allows the analysis by the citizens to inspect and participate in the decisions about the resources invested in the public policies and actions, being possible, thus, to foment the citizen’s engagement.
This paper examines use of the Internet in politics among youth in Malaysia. Specifically, this study focused on gender, education and the urban/rural factors related to the use of the Internet in politics. Using survey as a method of data collection, a total of 600 respondents between the ages of 18-40, were randomly selected in Peninsular Malaysia to answer the questionnaire. The result found that Malaysian youth use the Internet to seek the political news. Additional analysis further discovered the relationship between gender, area of residence and education level with use of the Internet in politics.
This article offers a critical examination of various interpretations of “political participation” and shows that there is a lack of consensus among scholars concerning the definition of this particular concept. The lack of consensus has led to various conflicting outcomes (even when applied to the same problem) in the research on political participation. The main purpose of this paper is to offer a new definition of political participation that effectively addresses the challenges facing modern civil societies and the emerging era of Web 3.0. The present study argues that “civic engagement” should be differentiated from political participation such that the former is not counted as part of the latter; civic engagement fosters political participation and refers entirely to social activities. Moreover, I argue that online political actions should be accepted as an integral part of political participation if they fulfil all of the criteria of the phenomenon as defined in this article.
This study aims to describe President Jokowi's rhetorical strategies during the 2019 campaign on Instagram and its consistency with the rhetorical strategy as president. Rhetoric is not just a speech strategy, not a speech that tends to lie to manipulate or control people, and not talk much without action. Because of political competition, it can be concluded that the use of words and sentences (syntax) as rhetorical strategies also competes in building a positive image. The syntactic analysis was conducted to describe the categories of use of words and sentences as a rhetorical strategy to build a positive image. The method used was a content analysis of 508 Instagram posts during the campaign period. Social media is a new innovation in spreading messages of rhetoric in the form of words and sentences more quickly and easily accessing them. The interview method was also conducted on President Jokowi's communication team to find out how these rhetorical strategies were carried out in order to prove the consistency between rhetorical strategies during campaigns and rhetorical strategies as a President. The results of this study confirm that not all rhetorical strategies are used, but, only the use of positive rhetoric to build a positive image. The syntactic analysis shows that Jokowi-Amin does not use negative words and sentences. Not all rhetorical strategies for building imagery are displayed on Instagram, namely @ jokowi.amin does not use intimidation and self-depreciation strategies. The interviews also display that the rhetoric strategies during campaigns are consistent with the president’s strategies.
The 2016 presidential primary candidates expanded their social media marketing campaigns to include the image and video-centered social network platform Instagram. To explore the role that images play in framing political character development and to identify which images received higher levels of engagement, content analyses were performed on the top seven primary candidates’ Instagram accounts. Results indicate that candidates most frequently employ the Ideal Candidate frame in their images, which also garnered the highest number of user likes and comments. Results also reveal that among Instagram image attributes, candidates frequently and successfully used text within their images, but filters were inconsistently applied across the candidates.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the themes identified in the submissions to this volume. The findings are contextualized in recent scholarship on these themes.
Design/methodology/approach
The discussion is organized around predicting social media use among candidates, organizations, and citizens, then exploring differences in the content of social media postings among candidates, organizations, and citizens, and finally exploring the impact of social media use on mobilization and participatory inequality defined by gender, age, and socio-economic status.
Findings
This volume addresses whether social media use is more common among liberal or conservative citizens, candidates, and organizations; the level of negativity in social media discourse and the impact on attitudes; the existence of echo chambers of like-minded individuals and groups; the extent and nature of interactivity in social media; and whether social media will reinforce participation inequalities. In sum, the studies suggest that negativity and interactivity on social media are limited and mixed support for echo chambers. While social media mobilizes citizens, these citizens are those who already pre-disposed to engage in civic and political life.
Originality/value
This paper explores key topics in social media research drawing upon 60 recently published studies. Most of the studies are published in 2015 and 2016, providing a contemporary analysis of these topics.
This study compares the effects of consuming news preference online or offline on political participation. It also examines the variation in these effects between young and older adults. Given that young adults are disproportionately more intensive users of the Internet, Internet use may have varying effects on people’s political participation by their age. Secondary analysis of Pew data found that people’s preference for consuming news online versus offline explains a significant portion of variance of political participation, both online and offline. More importantly, the effects of online media preference were significantly stronger for young adults than for their older counterparts. These findings suggest that a preference for news online matters far more for younger adults than for older adults, and that the Internet may indeed be narrowing the participation gap between age groups.
Scholars have observed the influence of online and offline media use on the promotion of political and civic engagement. Findings indicate a positive correlation between media use and participation. This study moves beyond such effect on participation. Using data from an original national US survey, this article explores the effects of News Platform Preference Scale – a construct that measures the contrast between online and traditional news use in a continuum – on participatory behaviours. Controlling for usual online and offline media use, results show that a preference for digital media has strong positive effects over political and civic participation, suggesting these media may indeed be different.
In the time since the rise of the Internet, it has often been claimed that it has the potential to contribute to the quality of democracy by fostering citizens’ involvement in politics. So far, empirical evidence regarding this purported effect has been mixed, and many questions about the consequences of specific forms of political Internet use (PIU) have remained unanswered. This study expands the knowledge about the relation between PIU and political involvement by examining the effect of active and passive forms of PIU on citizens’ political involvement: more specifically, interest and voter turnout during election times. The results obtained from a panel study of a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 985) reveal a positive relation between particular forms of PIU on the one hand and voter turnout and political interest on the other hand. In addition, for two specific forms of PIU, the positive effect on voter turnout is more prevalent for citizens who exhibit lower levels of political interest.
We examine the relationship between citizen-to-citizen discussions and online political participation considering various attributes of individuals' social networks: Modality, discussants' ties, diversity of opinions, and quality of argumentation. Using a national survey of U.S. residents we find that communication within networks is a significant predictor of web-based forms of political engagement, after controlling for offline participation, political orientations, news use, and socio-demographics. Consistent with the "strength of weak ties" argument, larger online networks and weak-tie discussion frequency are associated with online participation. While like-minded discussions are positively related to online participation, discussions with people who are not of like mind correlate negatively with it. Online network size and reasoning discussions were positively related to online participation, although these associations were rather weak compared to the role of other network characteristics.
Research shows that digital media use is positively related to political participation. However, this relationship does not appear in all studies. To date, researchers have generally treated inconsistent findings from study to study and from election to election as an empirical problem that reflects differences in measurement and model specification. In this article, we question the assumption that a consistent relationship between Internet use and political participation should exist over time. We test this expectation using 12 years of data from the American National Election Studies. Our findings support the expectation that a general measure of Internet use for political information is not consistently related to six acts of traditional political participation across elections.
This study examined the relationship between the political involvement and online media use from a Midwestern statewide sample during the 2008 presidential election. A series of analyses of variance indicated that the increased use of weblogs, social networking sites, online video sites, and candidates' websites for news and campaign information purposes was moderately but positively related to political involvement. When controlling for social and political demographics as well as other media use characteristics, only two online media variables achieved statistical significance: general Internet use and frequency of weblog use. Using the Internet for campaign news was related to an increase in political involvement but regularly using blogs actually predicted lower levels of political involvement. These results were further moderated by partisanship, which suggests that the political influence of online media was positive only for certain segments of the population during this presidential campaign.
Scholars disagree about the impact of the Internet on civic and political engagement. Some scholars argue that Internet use will contribute to civic decline, whereas other scholars view the Internet as having a role to play in reinvigorating civic life. This article assesses the hypothesis that Internet use will contribute to declines in civic life. It also assesses whether Internet use has any significant effect on engagement. A meta-analysis approach to current research in this area is used. In total, 38 studies with 166 effects are examined. The meta-data provide strong evidence against the Internet having a negative effect on engagement. However, the meta-data do not establish that Internet use will have a substantial impact on engagement. The effects of Internet use on engagement seem to increase nonmonotonically across time, and the effects are larger when online news is used to measure Internet use, compared to other measures.
In this article, the authors investigate whether and how young people combine online and offline civic activities in modes of participation. The authors discuss four participation modes in which online and offline activities may converge: Politics, Activism, Consumption, and Sharing. Applying confirmatory factor analysis to survey data about the civic participation among Dutch youth (aged 15−25 years; N = 808), the authors find that online and offline activities are combined in the Politics, Activism, and Sharing modes, and that these three modes correlate significantly with each other. Conversely, the Consumption mode can only be validated as a separate offline participation mode. The results confirm the conclusion of previous studies that youth’s participation patterns are relatively dependent of mode, and add that their participation is concurrently relatively independent of place (offline vs. online).
The increasing popularity of social network sites (SNSs) in election campaigns provides a unique climate for scholarly inquiry. The study reported here builds upon Zhang, Johnson, Seltzer, and Bichard and investigates the impact of different types of SNS use on voters’ attitudes and behavior during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. Sites such as Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and YouTube are included to offer a robust assessment of distinct relationships. A national online panel of Internet users was utilized to examine reliance on SNSs and the multiple consequences on political attitudes and behavior such as political participation, political interest, selective exposure, selective avoidance, and strength of party affiliation. The findings are evaluated for theoretical and practical implications on democratic governance.
This research examined the influence of attention to specific forms of traditional and online media on young adults’ online and offline political participation as well as voter turnout during the fall 2012 presidential campaign. A three-wave panel survey demonstrated that attention to traditional media did not increase offline and online political participation in September; instead, participation was heightened by attention to online sources, particularly presidential candidate websites, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. In the following months, individual-level change in participation was attributable to attention to several online media sources as well as change in media attention. In the case of voter turnout, results suggest that television attention was positively linked to voter likelihood in September but was negatively linked to individual-level change in voter turnout in November.
This article investigates how media use differs across age groups- and whether this matters for people’s inclination to participate politically. More specifically, the study investigates the impact of social media use for political purposes and of attention to political news in traditional media, on political interest and offline political participation. The findings, based on a four-wave panel study conducted during the 2010 Swedish national election campaign, show (1) clear differences in media use between age groups and (2) that both political social media use and attention to political news in traditional media increase political engagement over time. Thus, this study suggests that frequent social media use among young citizens can function as a leveller in terms of motivating political participation.
To rigorously consider the impact of new media on the political and civic behavior of young people, The MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) developed and fielded one of the first large-scale, nationally representative studies of new media and politics among young people. The two principal researchers for the survey component of the YPP, Cathy J. Cohen of the University of Chicago and Joseph Kahne of Mills College, oversaw a research team that surveyed nearly 3,000 respondents between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age. Unlike any prior study of youth and new media, this study included large numbers of black, Latino, and Asian American respon- dents, which allows for unique and powerful statistical comparisons across race with a focus on young people.
This article examines the political uses of social networking (SN) Web sites by young adults in context of the early stages of the 2008 presidential primary season. Using a survey of over 3,500 18- to 24-year-olds contacted immediately prior to the Iowa caucuses, we illustrate that although SN Web sites are recognized by youth as a possible source of news and that many receive some of their news from these sites, the types of news gathered probably do little to inform them or add to democratic discourse. Moreover, the study shows that in spite of the promise SN sites hold for increasing political interest and participation among a chronically disengaged cohort, users are no more inclined to participate in politics than are users of other media.
This article reconsiders civic involvement and citizen empowerment in the light of interactive media and elaborates the concept of media participation. Departing from conventional notions of political activity which downplay the participatory opportunities inherent in communication media, the authors argue that since 1992 new media formats have made accessible to citizens a political system that had become highly orchestrated, professionalized and exclusionary. A typology of active, passive and inactive political involvement is presented to accurately distinguish civic involvement from political disengagement and to categorize the types of empowerment and rewards - both material and symbolic - that different modes of civic activity afford. Even if only symbolically empowering, civic engagement through new media serves as an important legitimizing mechanism of mass democracy.
This research explores the influence of mass media use and community context on civic engagement. The article presents a multilevel test of print, broadcast, and Internet effects on interpersonal trust and civic participation that acknowledges there are (a) micro-level differences in the motives underlying media use, (b) age-cohort differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement, and (c) macro-level differences in community / communication context. Accordingly, the effects of individual differences in media use and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed within generational subsamples using a pooled data set developed from the 1998 and 1999 DDB Life Style Studies. The data suggest that informational uses of mass media are positively related to the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Informational uses of mass media were also found to interact with community context to influence civic engagement. Analyses within subsamples find that among the youngest adult Americans, use of the Internet for information exchange more strongly influences trust in people and civic participation than do uses of traditional print and broadcast news media.
The present study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine the discourse of leadership in the YouTube video clips of 16 candidates who competed in the 2008 U.S. presidential race. The introduction and farewell videos of the candidates included on the YouChoose portion of YouTube are inductively analyzed for leadership utterances. Common categories are constructed through a grounded theory approach, while frequencies of the appearance of leadership traits are discovered through a content analysis of the data. The findings are then compared with relevant literature to determine the nature of presidential campaigns within the participatory culture of YouTube. The study suggests that the YouChoose videos favor the candidate's character over political experience and explores the possibility that the medium promotes passive (rather than active) political engagement on the part of the user. The idea of the construction of the YouTube audience as a “postmodern constituency” is also proposed. Finally, the implications of the study are discussed.
We find strong support for an on-line model of the candidate evaluation process that in contrast to memory-based models shows that citizens are responsive to campaign information, adjusting their overall evaluation of the candidates in response to their immediate assessment of campaign messages and events. Over time people forget most of the campaign information they are exposed to but are nonetheless able to later recollect their summary affective evaluation of candidates which they then use to inform their preferences and vote choice. These findings have substantive, methodological, and normative implications for the study of electoral behavior. Substantively, we show how campaign information affects voting behavior. Methodologically, we demonstrate the need to measure directly what campaign information people actually attend to over the course of a campaign and show that after controling for the individual's on-line assessment of campaign messages, National Election Study-type recall measures prove to be spurious as explanatory variables. Finally, we draw normative implications for democratic theory of on-line processing, concluding that citizens appear to be far more responsive to campaign messages than conventional recall models suggest.
This study surveyed Weblog users online to investigate how credible they view blogs as compared to traditional media as well as other online sources. This study also explores the degree to which reliance on Weblogs as well as traditional and online media sources predicts credibility of Weblogs after controlling for demographic and political factors. Weblog users judged blogs as highly credible—more credible than traditional sources. They did, however, rate traditional sources as moderately credible. Weblog users rated blogs higher on depth of information than they did on fairness.
The contribution of professional journalism to democratic citizenship is well-established, but the proliferation of online user-generated news begs the question of whether citizen journalism plays a similar role. Use and trust of both professional and citizen journalism were investigated for their associations with political knowledge and participation. User-generated journalism was negatively related with knowledge of national political figures, but strongly and positively associated with higher levels of online and offline participation; professional news media produced gains in knowledge and offline participation. Trust in user-generated news amplified the link between citizen journalism and online participation.
With young voters reporting lower levels of political knowledge and information than older voters, and with young citizens often attributing their abstention from voting to their lack of political knowledge, this study focuses on the role that specific campaign messages play in enhancing young voters' political information. We first advance a theory of political information efficacy, positing that different levels of information processing occur from different sources of political information. Our findings reveal that specific types of political messages affect young and older citizens' political information efficacy differently and that political information efficacy plays a significant role in voting or nonvoting for young citizens.
This article examines the role of the Internet as a source of political information and a sphere for public expression. Informational media use, whether traditional news sources or online public affairs content, is expected to foster interpersonal political discussion and online civic messaging, contributing to increased civic participation. Using two-wave national panel survey data, three types of synchronous structural equation models are tested: cross sectional (relating individual differences), fixed effects (relating intraindividual change), and auto regressive (relating aggregate change). All models reveal that online media complement traditional media to foster political discussion and civic messaging. These two forms of political expression, in turn, influence civic participation. Other variable orderings are tested to compare the theorized model to alternative causal specifications. Results reveal that the model produces the best fit, empirically and theoretically, with the influence of the Internet, rivaling the mobilizing power of traditional modes of information and expression.
The high cost of contacting individuals encourages mobilizing institutions to maximize resources by targeting those most likely to effectively respond, resulting in stimulation of the politically engaged, civically skilled, and socioeconomically advantaged. By dramatically reducing communication costs, the Internet should eliminate the underpinning of this “rational prospecting.” However, because most e-mail addresses are not available in public directories and cultural norms make sending unsolicited e-mail politically risky, individuals generally must provide their e-mail address before receiving e-mail messages from political organizations. Online mobilization campaigns should disproportionately contact those with the political motivation and technical ability to submit their e-mail. The author tests these expectations about online political mobilization using a probability sample survey. Although most of the long-standing determinants of offline political mobilization fail to predict online mobilization, political interest and Internet skills powerfully determine online mobilization. However, because socioeconomic status, civic skills, and political interest directly predict online skills, these factors indirectly influence the likelihood of online mobilization.
Research has shown consistently that news consumption both online and offline is related positively to interpersonal discussion, political involvement and political engagement. However, little consideration has been given to the role that new sources of information may exert on different forms of political engagement. Based on secondary analysis of data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, this article contrasts the influence of traditional sources of information online with that of emergent sources (blogs) in predicting further political discussion, campaigning and participation in both the online and the offline domains. The results show that the use of traditional sources online is related positively to different types of political engagement, both online and offline. Most interestingly, the article finds that blog use emerges as an equally important predictor of political engagement in the online domain. Its analyses provide support for the contention that asserts the democratic potential of the internet.
Recently, research revolving around blogs has flourished. Usually, academics illustrate what blogs are, motivations to blog, and, only to some extent, their role in politics. Along these lines, we examine the impact of digital politics by looking specifically at blog readers. Although blog readers might be considered at the forefront of a new technological revolution, and people have speculated about their participatory habits both online and off, little research has specifically looked at this growing proportion of the population. This article models factors that predict traditional and online forms of participation, presenting a portrait of a new type of political advocate.
This study looks at student Facebook groups supporting the 2008 presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, from largest land-grant universities in seven battleground states. The findings of a content analysis of wall posts show that students are using Facebook to facilitate dialog and civic political involvement. In opposition to pro-McCain groups, pro-Obama groups have wider time frame coverage and demonstrate substantively higher site activity. Political discussions related to the political civic process, policy issues, campaign information, candidate issues, and acquisition of campaign products dominate across groups and election seasons. An examination of the content of wall posts based on the four categories of the Michigan Model of voting behavior (partisanship, group affiliation, candidate image, and political/campaign issues) reveals that in the primary season, pro-Obama groups focus mostly on short-term topics (candidate image and campaign issues), whereas pro-McCain groups focus mostly on long-term topics (partisanship and group affiliation). The overall findings of this study suggest that youth online communities actively follow campaigns and post comments that foster the political dialog and civic engagement.
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.
Drawing on a multitude of data sets and building on analyses carried out over more than a decade, this book offers a major new theoretical explanation of how ordinary citizens figure out what they favour and oppose politically. Reacting against the conventional wisdom, which stresses how little attention the general public pays to political issues and the lack of consistency in their opinions, the studies presented in this book redirect attention to the processes of reasoning that can be discerned when people are confronted with choices about political issues. These studies demonstrate that ordinary people are in fact capable of reasoning dependably about political issues by the use of judgmental heuristics, even if they have only a limited knowledge of politics and of specific issues.
One of the more common forms of political participation is the display of decals on automobiles as a means of political expression. Individuals use bumper stickers for purposes such as showing allegiance to an organization, spreading the message of an interest group, and communicating candidate preferences in a campaign. Through a survey of automobiles conducted before the 1992 election, this article provides an examination and empirical classification of bumper sticker messages. Stickers are categorized according to their expressive content, and three questions are addressed: (1) what is the frequency of expression through bumper stickers? (2) how much of this expression is political? and (3) what patterns can be identified in the use of bumper stickers for expressive purposes? The results suggest that car owners apply decals to their vehicles as a form of identification and solidarity with a group sharing common beliefs.
The number of people actively participating in online social networking is ever increasing. According to a Pew Research Center survey (Smith, 2014), 16 percent of registered voters follow political candidates, parties, or officials on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; this has increased from 6 percent since 2010. Forty-one percent reported they follow political figures on social media so they could find out about political news before other people (Smith, 2014). Twitter, a microblogging site that allows users to post 140 characters or less, is becoming increasingly popular among the public as well as current officeholders and political candidates. In the 2012 Republican primaries, for example, all candidates seeking office were present on Twitter. Twitter use is not limited to the top of the ticket, however. Twitter was also widely employed by candidates vying for US Senate, US House, and governor in 2010 (e.g., Hanna, Sayre, Bode, Yang, & Shah, 2011; Parmelee & Bichard, 2012). Indeed, Twitter has become a vital communication tool for campaigns, politicians, political parties, protesters, and voters (Price, 2012; Vergeer, Hermans, & Sams, 2013).
The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project is a "fact tank" of primary research that has documented three revolutions in digital technology in the United States since 2000. First, the project has charted the rise of the Internet and broadband connections in the U.S. Second, it has explored the rise of mobile connectivity on mobile phones and laptops. Third, it has charted the growth of social media, especially social networking websites. At the same time, the project has paid particular attention to probing the impact of digital technology on six domains of the social world: 1) the impact on families, 2) communities, 3) healthcare, 4) education, both formal and informal, 5) politics and civic life, and 6) workplaces. All of the reports of the project and the survey data it has collected are available for free from its website at pewinternet.org.
While the study of e-participation has gained increasing attention within political science, our understanding of its underlying structure and relationship to offline participation is limited. This article addresses these gaps by focusing on three interrelated questions: (1) Is e-participation a multidimensional phenomenon (differentiation hypothesis)? (2) If submodes exist, do they mirror existing modes of participation (replication hypothesis)? (3) If offline forms are replicated online, do they mix together (integration hypothesis) or operate in separate spheres (independence hypothesis)? We test our hypotheses through confirmatory factor analysis of original survey data from the U.K. General Election of 2010. The results show that distinct submodes of e-participation, comparable to those occurring offline, can be identified. Support for integration and independence varies according to the type of participation undertaken. Finally our results suggest that the online environment may be fostering a new social-media-based type of expressive political behavior.
The 2008 US presidential election was called the ‘YouTube Election’. However, scholars know little about how the internet influences attitudes toward politics. To address this, we conduct an experiment to test the effects of exposure to the YouTube channel, ‘YouChoose’08’, on young adults during the 2008 US presidential election. We find that those exposed to YouChoose’08 exhibit more cynicism toward the US government, yet also had a heightened sense that they influence the political system. Exposure to YouChoose’08 had no influence on attitudes toward candidates or internet sources.
Several scholars, most notably Matt Baum, have recently argued that soft news for- mats contribute to democratic discourse, because they attract viewers who would otherwise not be exposed to news at all. I extend Baum's approach in two ways. First, Baum's theory postulates that people's appreciation of entertainment is one of the factors determining news exposure and, by extension, attention to politics, but he does not analyze the underlying utility calculation directly. I create a measure of entertainment preference and examine its impact on people's preferred news for- mats. Second, while Baum's analysis is restricted to attention paid to politics, I assess the effect of soft news preference on political knowledge. If soft news leads people to pay more attention to the "entertaining" aspect of politics, but does not actually produce any learning effects, the suggested positive consequences of soft news would have to be qualified. The main data source for this article is a survey of 2,358 randomly selected U.S. residents conducted by Knowledge Networks in Febru- ary and March 2002. Results show that people like soft news for its entertainment value but that soft news programs are still not very popular compared to hard news and pure entertainment. More critically, there is only very limited evidence that viewers actually learn from soft news. The positive consequences of soft news for the political process remain to be demonstrated.
The 2007 CNN-YouTube Presidential Candidate Debates provided a unique opportunity for Americans to engage in national political discussion. For the first time in American political history, the public was invited into national debate discourse through submissions of video questions to YouTube for possible inclusion in two nationally broadcast candidate debates. Content analysis was used to examine the nearly 8,000 submissions to uncover both the demographic populations represented and the submitted questions' characteristics to determine if the debates provided a viable method for increasing citizen mobilization and redefining democratic participation in the Internet Age. Results indicate that traditionally politically underrepresented or disengaged populations were present in a significant number of submissions and that the submissions were politically substantive.
Does television advertising produce sales by changing attitudes? Not always, says Herbert E. Krugman in his presidential address
before the American Association for Public Opinion Research on May 15, 1965. It may do so, he states, just by changing perceptions
of the product in the course of merely shifting the relative salience of attitudes, especially when the purchaser is not particularly
involved in the message. This arresting thesis has important implications for noncommercial as well as commercial persuasion
efforts.
The contributions of initial stimulus affect and of associative learning to the effects of repeated stimulus exposures were examined in two experiments. Stimuli that were initially positive and stimuli that were initially negative were presented for different number of times, and subjects rated these stimuli afterward on a number of affective dimensions. In all cases, except when negative affect was associatively paired with every stimulus exposure, affective responses became increasingly more positive with increasing exposures. The results were taken to indicate that the exposure effect can overcome an initially negative stimulus affect when the conditions of the mere exposure hypothesis are satisfied. Initial stimulus affect and associative learning of affect were shown to be independent factors, the first influencing the intercept of the exposure function, the second its slope.
Web logs (blogs) were an integral component of the 2004 presidential campaign and are a new medium for civic engagement. Arguably, the most important campaign blog was Blog for America, which served as a nerve center for Governor Howard Dean's insurgent presidential campaign. The authors offer an initial assessment of the community that developed around Blog for America and its orientation toward civic engagement, based on an original content analysis of 3,066 unique posts encompassing every entry in the Dean blog from March 15, 2003, through January 27, 2004. The guiding hypothesis is that blog discussion centered on a set of system-affirming topics absent from or unusual in political coverage on television,particularly substantive policy debate and community action.The authors find Blog for America to be an example of how the Internet is emerging as a vehicle for enhanced civic involvement with the potential to counteract the negative effects of television on the political process.
This study compares the impact of various types of traditional and Web-based forms of communication on political efficacy, knowledge, and participation. Findings suggest that the role of the Internet in promoting citizenship is limited. In fact, respondents who used the Web frequently for entertainment purposes were less likely to feel efficacious about their potential role in the democratic process and also knew less about facts relevant to current events. Regardless of the frequency with which people used the Internet for various informational or entertainment purposes, these analyses suggest that traditional mass media maintain a key role in promoting democratic citizenship.
The 2008 U.S. presidential election saw the first significant integration of Web 2.0 technologies; however, scholars know little about how Web 2.0 sources influence political attitudes. To address this, the authors test the effects of exposure to various Web 2.0 sources during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. They find that young adults exposed to television network sites and candidate Web sites consider them more trustworthy and high-quality than YouChoose ‘08 and Facebook. Moreover, YouChoose ‘08 viewers exhibit more government cynicism, whereas those exposed to candidate Facebook pages have a heightened sense that they influence the political system. Last, the authors find that YouChoose ‘08 and Facebook viewers were more likely to vote on Election Day.
In this study, the associations between Internet use and the social networks of adults over 50 years of age were examined. A sample (n = 2284) from the 2004 wave of the Health and Retirement Survey was used. In regression models considering a number of control variables, frequency of contact with friends, frequency of contact with family, and attendance at organizational meetings (not including religious services) were found to have a significant positive association with Internet use for adults over 50. Results add to the body of research that suggests Internet use can strengthen social networks, looking specifically at adults over 50.
This study examined college students' use of online media for political purposes in the 2008 election. Social media attention, online expression, and traditional Internet attention were assessed in relation to political self-efficacy and situational political involvement. Data from a Web survey of college students showed significant positive relationships between attention to traditional Internet sources and political self-efficacy and situational political involvement. Attention to social media was not significantly related to political self-efficacy or involvement. Online expression was significantly related to situational political involvement but not political self-efficacy. Implications are discussed for political use of online media for young adults.
Although Facebook is primarily known for building and maintaining relationships, the 2008 presidential election highlighted this social networking website as a viable tool for political communication. In fact, during primary season until Election Day in 2008, Facebook users created more than 1,000 Facebook group pages that focused on Barack Obama and John McCain. Using quantitative content analysis, the primary purpose of this study was to assess how both John McCain and Barack Obama were portrayed across these Facebook groups. Results indicated that group membership and activity levels were higher for Barack Obama than for John McCain. Overall, Barack Obama was portrayed more positively across Facebook groups than John McCain. In addition, profanity, racial, religious, and age-related language were also coded for and varied with regard to how each candidate was portrayed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Exposure research was extrapolated to political elections by relating candidates' media advertising (stimulus exposure) to voting outcomes (perceiver evaluation) into 1972 congressional primaries. In making the extrapolation, primaries were divided into focal (119 primaries) and comparison (147 primaries) categories on the basis of whether they were conducted under conditions analogous to laboratory experiments and whether they involved candidates whose previous exposure to the voters made them analogous to novel or somewhat familiar stimuli. As expected, media advertising was more significantly related to voting outcomes for primaries that satisfied the conditions of laboratory research than for primaries that did not. The reverse was true for previous exposure. With the exception of one category, results also show that previous or media exposure alone successfully predicted 83% of the primary winners and that the 2 variables together accounted for 60–80% of the variance in voting outcomes for all candidates. Findings are discussed in terms of how campaign finance laws affect election outcomes and how future research could be conducted in the psychological laboratory and the political arena. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study argues that, due to selective political coverage by the entertainment-oriented, soft news media, many otherwise politically inattentive individuals are exposed to information about high-profile political issues, most prominently foreign policy crises, as an incidental by-product of seeking entertainment. I conduct a series of statistical investigations examining the relationship between individual media consumption and attentiveness to several recent high-profile foreign policy crisis issues. For purposes of comparison, I also investigate several non-foreign crisis issues, some of which possess characteristics appealing to soft news programs and others of which lack such characteristics. I find that information about foreign crises, and other issues possessing similar characteristics, presented in a soft news context, has indeed attracted the attention of politically uninvolved Americans. The net effect is a reduced disparity in attentiveness to select high-profile political issues across different segments of the public.