Mediated and networked politics

Social media and the Internet asmediators between politicians and voters

Presentation held at the EPP campaign managers meeting 20-21 October 2011

Dr. Maurice VergeerDepartment of communication

Problems

•Low and declining voter turnout

•Little trust in politicians and politics

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Solutions?

ONLINE CAMPAIGNING

History of campaigning

Pre-modern campaigns

Tools Print media, rallies,

meetings, foot soldiers

Mode / style Labor-intensive,

interpersonal, amateur

Orientation to

voter

Mobilizing, voters = loyal

partisans

Internal power

distribution

Local-centric

Pre-modern campaigns Modern campaigns

Tools Print media, rallies,

meetings, foot soldiers

Broadcast television news,

news advertisements, polls

Mode / style Labor-intensive,

interpersonal, amateur

Capital-intensive,

mediated, indirect

Orientation to

voter

Mobilizing, voters = loyal

partisans

Converting and mobilizing,

voters = loyal partisans and

floating

Internal power

distribution

Local-centric National-centric

Pre-modern campaigns Modern campaigns Professional

campaigns

Tools Print media, rallies,

meetings, foot soldiers

Broadcast television news,

news advertisements, polls

Internet, direct mail

Mode / style Labor-intensive,

interpersonal, amateur

Capital-intensive,

mediated, indirect

Capital-intensive,

marketed, targeted,

continuous

Orientation to

voter

Mobilizing, voters = loyal

partisans

Converting and mobilizing,

voters = loyal partisans and

floating

Interactive, voters =

consumers

Internal power

distribution

Local-centric National-centric Local-/national centric,

bifurcation

Party sites compared across countries

Pippa Norris (2001)

Web feature analysis

•Information function•Communication function

Developmental explanations• Technological development• Human development• Political development

• Kluver, Foot, Schneider & Jankowski (2007)• Web sphere analysis

- Political parties - Labour unions- NGOs

• European focus• Party sites were best equipped

• Advanced and extended replication of web feature analysis

Candidate websites European Parliament elections 2009Sample: 17 countries

• Austria• Belgium• Cyprus• Czech Republic• Estonia• France• Germany• Greece

• Hungary• Ireland• The Netherlands• Poland• Portugal• Romania• Slovakia• Sweden• United Kingdom

Methodology

• All party and campaign websites • Random sampling of candidates with websites, but . . .• Always including the top three candidates per party

• 288 party and campaign websites• 738 candidate websites• All websites were archived digitally

• Elaborate coding scheme• Coding by local experts• Advanced analyses

- factor analysis, hierarchical linear models

Four distinct dimensions of website features

• Informing

• Personal Reputation

• Connecting & Sharing

• Audio-visualisations

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Informing Personal reputation Connecting & Sharing Audio-visualizations

ALDE EPP GUE / NGL S&D GREENS / EFA ECR EFD

Information Personal Reputation Connecting & Sharing Audio-visualizations

Macrolevel explanation?

Political systems variables

•Fractionalization

•Proportionalism

•Voting system

Personalisation

• Personalisation- Politician representing the party

• Personalisation- Politician as a person

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THREE DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALIZATION ON CANDIDATE WEBSITES

•Professional

•Home and Family

•Personal preferences

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professional home and family personal preferences

ECR EPP S&D ALDE GREENS / EFA EFD GUE / NGL

Personal preferences Personal favorites Home & Family

NEW ERA OF CAMPAIGNING?

Two new and related developments

• Online political networking

• Personalisation

Political capital online

• Social networking sites

• Microblogging

Social networking sites

• Facebook• Twitter • Bebo • Hyves• Youtube• Flickr• Picassa• And many many more

Premodern campaigns Modern campaigns Professional

campaigns

Tools Print media, rallies,

meetings, foot soldiers

Broadcast television news,

news advertisements, polls

Internet, direct mail

Mode / style Labor-intensive,

interpersonal, amateur

Capital-intensive,

mediated, indirect

Capital-intensive,

marketed, targeted,

continuous

Orientation to

voter

Mobilizing, voters = loyal

partisans

Converting and mobilizing,

voters = loyal partisans and

floating

Interactive, voters =

consumers

Internal power

distribution

Local-centric National-centric Local-/national centric,

bifurcation

Pre-modern campaigns Modern campaigns Professional

campaigns

Personal campaigns

Tools Print media, rallies,

meetings, foot soldiers

Broadcast television news,

news advertisements, polls

Internet, direct mail Weblogs, micro-blogs,

social networking sites

Mode / style Labor-intensive,

interpersonal, amateur

Capital-intensive,

mediated, indirect

Capital-intensive,

marketed, targeted,

continuous

Low-cost, computer-

mediated, networked,

personalized, amateur

Orientation to

voter

Mobilizing, voters = loyal

partisans

Converting and mobilizing,

voters = loyal partisans and

floating

Interactive, voters =

consumers

Hyper interactive, voters

= interested, personal

Internal power

distribution

Local-centric National-centric Local-/national centric,

bifurcation

Local-/national-centric,

individual and networked

TWITTER AS A CAMPAIGN TOOL

The Dutch parliament elections of 2010

Significantly larger implementation of Twitter

as a campaign instrument

But …

What does it do?

Level the playing field?equalisation hypothesis

or

Nothing changesnormalisation hypothesis

TWITTER ADOPTION RATE IN THE NETHERLANDS 2010

Twitter

Several indicatorsNumber of people following the candidate (followers)Number of people followed by candidate (following)Number of Tweets (number of original messages)Number of replies

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EXPLAINING TWITTER ADOPTION

Subscribing to Twitter

• Party age is unrelated to Twitter adoption

• Ideology is unrelated to Twitter adoption

• Candidate rank on election list is related (higher ranked -> more adoption)

• External shock is related: loss of seats if prior elections -> more adoption)

• Internal shock (leadership uncertainty) is unrelated

Subscribing to Twitter

• Male and female candidates adopt Twitter as likely

• Younger candidates adopt Twitter more likely

The number of tweets

• The longer a candidate is subscribed to Twitter, the more Tweets s/he sends

The number of followers• The older the party is, the more followers the candidate has

• The higher ranked the candidate, the more followers s/he has

• The more seats the party won in the last elections, the more followers the candidate has

• Candidates from parties with leadership uncertainties have more followers

• Candidates who are subscribed longer, have more followers

The number of following

• The lower ranked candidates follow more other people on Twitter

• Candidates from parties who lost in prior elections follow more others on Twitter

• Candidates from parties with leadership uncertainty follow less others on Twitter

• Longtime subscribers to Twitter follow more others on Twitter

The number of reciprocated relations (follower and following)

• Candidates of parties that have leadership uncertainties have less reciprocated relations on Twitter

• Longtime subscribers have more reciprocated relations in Twitter

MICRO-BLOGGING ACTIVITIES Trends running up to Election Day

Research questions

1. To what degree do candidates and the public engage in public discussions on the Web?

2. To what extent is do parties engage in online communications?

3. Do discussions take place within the boundaries of the party (i.e. many small ideological public spheres consisting of homogeneous networks) or are they crossing party boundaries?

• All candidates

• All tweets in 40 days prior to Election Day

• Inner circleAll tweets of Twitter users that follow

candidates

• Outer circleTwitter users , not following candidates, but who can be (re)tweeted to

Findings

• All messages: n=4,451,128 sent out by the candidates and the inner circle of the candidates

• nearly half of all messages is undirected, i.e. sent to no one in particular.

• About a third is sent to people on Twitter not following any candidates (i.e. outer circle).

• Little over a sixth of the messages are sent to people following at least one candidate,

Number of tweets by politicians during last 40 days of campaign

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Number of tweets sent to politicians during last 40 days of campaign

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CDA pvda SP VVD PVV GL CU D66 PvdD SGP NN TON MenS HN P1 Piraten

Number of replies by politicians during last 40 days of campaign

COMMUNICATION NETWORKSCandidates’ political blogging sphere

• Only few replies• Little reciprocity in general • Reciprocity decreases when activity increases

• Level playing field?

Conclusion

• Social media’s success kills the social part of social media

• Successfull candidates turn social media into mass media

So . . .

… back to square one?

Thank you for your attention

Maurice VergeerWeb: www.mauricevergeer.nlEmail: m.vergeer@maw.ru.nl

Twitter: @mauricevergeer

Sources• Hermans, L. & Vergeer, M. (forthcoming). Personalisation in e-campaigning

Cross national comparison of personalisation strategies used on candidate websites in EP-elections 2009. New media & Society.

• Vergeer, M. Hermans, L. & Sams, S. (2011). Is the voter only a tweet away? Micro-blogging during the 2009 European parliament Election campaign in the Netherlands, First Monday, 16(8).

• Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. (2011). New public deliberations. Twitter as a new campaign tool for public discussions. Paper presented at World Association of Public Opinion Research (Wapor).

• Vergeer, M., Hermans, L. & Sams, S. (in press). Online social networks and micro-blogging in political campaigning: The exploration of a new campaign tool and a new campaign style. Party Politics.

• Vergeer, M., Hermans, L., & Cunha, C. (forthcoming). Political parties, candidates, and Web campaigning in the 2009 European Parliament elections. A decade of cross-national comparative website-feature analysis

• Vergeer, M., Lim, Y.S., & Park, H.W. (2011). Mediated relations: new methods to study online social capital. Asian Journal of Communication, October 2011 issue

• Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. Campaigning on Twitter. Twitter as a campaign tool in the general elections 2010 in the Netherlands. (submitted for publication)

• Kluver R, Jankowski NW, Foot K and Schneider SM (eds.) (2007) The Internet and National Elections. A Comparative Study of Web Campaigning: London: Routledge.

• Norris P (2001) Digital Divide? Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Van Os R., Jankowski NW and Vergeer M (2007). Political communication about Europe on the Internet during the 2004 European Parliament election campaign in nine EU member states. European Societies 9(5): 755-775.