Web campaigning and European Parliament elections 2011. Presentation held at the European People's...
-
Upload
maurice-vergeer -
Category
News & Politics
-
view
182 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Web campaigning and European Parliament elections 2011. Presentation held at the European People's...
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
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1979 1981 1984 1987 1989 1994 1995 1996 1999 2004 2007 2009
BE DK DE IE FR IT LU NL UK EL ES PT SE AT
FI CZ EE CY LT LV HU MT PL SI SK BG RO
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
0,0
0,1
0,2
0,3
0,4
0,5
0,6
0,7
0,8
0,9
1,0
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
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
THREE DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALIZATION ON CANDIDATE WEBSITES
•Professional
•Home and Family
•Personal preferences
0,0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1,0
1,2
1,4
1,6
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
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
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
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
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
01-m
ei-2
010
02-m
ei-2
010
03-m
ei-2
010
04-m
ei-2
010
05-m
ei-2
010
06-m
ei-2
010
07-m
ei-2
010
08-m
ei-2
010
09-m
ei-2
010
10-m
ei-2
010
11-m
ei-2
010
12-m
ei-2
010
13-m
ei-2
010
14-m
ei-2
010
15-m
ei-2
010
16-m
ei-2
010
17-m
ei-2
010
18-m
ei-2
010
19-m
ei-2
010
20-m
ei-2
010
21-m
ei-2
010
22-m
ei-2
010
23-m
ei-2
010
24-m
ei-2
010
25-m
ei-2
010
26-m
ei-2
010
27-m
ei-2
010
28-m
ei-2
010
29-m
ei-2
010
30-m
ei-2
010
31-m
ei-2
010
01-ju
n-20
10
02-ju
n-20
10
03-ju
n-20
10
04-ju
n-20
10
05-ju
n-20
10
06-ju
n-20
10
07-ju
n-20
10
08-ju
n-20
10
09-ju
n-20
10
CDA PvdA SP VVD PVV GL CU D66
PvdD SGP NN TON MenS HNL Partij1 Piraten
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
01-m
ei-2
010
02-m
ei-2
010
03-m
ei-2
010
04-m
ei-2
010
05-m
ei-2
010
06-m
ei-2
010
07-m
ei-2
010
08-m
ei-2
010
09-m
ei-2
010
10-m
ei-2
010
11-m
ei-2
010
12-m
ei-2
010
13-m
ei-2
010
14-m
ei-2
010
15-m
ei-2
010
16-m
ei-2
010
17-m
ei-2
010
18-m
ei-2
010
19-m
ei-2
010
20-m
ei-2
010
21-m
ei-2
010
22-m
ei-2
010
23-m
ei-2
010
24-m
ei-2
010
25-m
ei-2
010
26-m
ei-2
010
27-m
ei-2
010
28-m
ei-2
010
29-m
ei-2
010
30-m
ei-2
010
31-m
ei-2
010
01-ju
n-20
10
02-ju
n-20
10
03-ju
n-20
10
04-ju
n-20
10
05-ju
n-20
10
06-ju
n-20
10
07-ju
n-20
10
08-ju
n-20
10
09-ju
n-20
10
CDA pvda SP VVD PVV GL CU D66 PvdD SGP NN TON MenS HN P1 Piraten
Number of tweets sent to politicians during last 40 days of campaign
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
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: [email protected]
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.