scholarly journals Examining spread of emotional political content among Democratic and Republican candidates during the 2018 US mid-term elections

Author(s):  
Meng-Jie Wang ◽  
Kumar Yogeeswaran ◽  
Sivanand Sivaram ◽  
Kyle Nash

AbstractPrevious research investigating the transmission of political messaging has primarily taken a valence-based approach leaving it unclear how specific emotions influence the spread of candidates’ messages, particularly in a social media context. Moreover, such work does not examine if any differences exist across major political parties (i.e., Democrats vs. Republicans) in their responses to each type of emotional content. Leveraging more than 7000 original messages published by Senate candidates on Twitter leading up to the 2018 US mid-term elections, the present study utilizes an advanced natural language tool (i.e., IBM Tone Analyzer) to examine how candidates’ multidimensional discrete emotions (i.e., joy, anger, fear, sadness, and confidence) displayed in a given tweet—might be more likely to garner the public’s attention online. While the results indicate that positive joy-signaling tweets are less likely to be retweeted or favorited on both sides of the political spectrum, the presence of anger- and fear-signaling tweets were significantly associated with increased diffusion among Republican and Democrat networks, respectively. Neither expressions of confidence nor sadness had an impact on retweet or favorite counts. Given the ubiquity of social media in contemporary politics, here we provide a starting point from which to disentangle the role of specific emotions in the proliferation of political messages, shedding light on the ways in which political candidates gain potential exposure throughout the election cycle.

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p1
Author(s):  
Rantu Sarmah ◽  
Dr. Niranjan Mohapatra

This is an attempt to find out the role of social media in election campaigning in India with special reference to Assam. Democratic countries like United States of America, India the social media has become an integral part for political communications during election campaigning. This new way of campaigning during election plays an important role to attract voters. Social media has given a new platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Whatsapp, Youtube etc. to the political parties and the voters, these are becoming an easy tool for the political leaders to interact with their voters. Social media allows candidates to share, post, comments, and their views during election and making them more direct involvement to their voters. These new tools or platforms are appeared as new area for research. Firstly to find out the term of social media, secondly, general meaning of political campaigning, thirdly, uses of social media in Indian election campaigning with reference to Assam and lastly conclusions.


Author(s):  
Ngozi Akinro ◽  
Emmanuel O. Nwachukwu ◽  
Adaobi V. Duru

In this chapter, the authors used framing analysis to examine the dynamics of music, social media, and politics. Based on framing and impression management theories, this study considers music as a tool to convey political messages and argues that political parties use music to spread positive narratives of their accomplishments to promote themselves and their flag-bearers while using negative narratives to vilify and attempt to delegitimize their opponents. The authors examined the lyrics of two songs, “Change Blues” and “The Truth Blues,” both viral political satires by opposing political parties, and discussed the songs' strong emphasis on corruption in Nigeria and ways in which the political parties attempted to use the songs to encourage political participation and for their image management.


Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu

The mid and late 2000s witnessed a proliferation of political parties in European party systems. Marxist, Libertarian, Pirate, and Animal parties, as well as radical-right and populist parties, have become part of an increasingly heterogeneous political spectrum generally dominated by the mainstream centre-left and centre-right. The question this article explores is what led to the surge of these parties during the first decade of the 21st century. While it is tempting to look at structural arguments or the recent late-2000s financial crisis to explain this proliferation, the emergence of these parties predates the debt-crisis and can not be described by structural shifts alone . This paper argues that the proliferation of new radical parties came about not only as a result of changes in the political space, but rather due to the very perceived presence and even strengthening of what Katz and Mair (1995) famously dubbed the "cartelization" of mainstream political parties.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.210


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

Chapter 3 investigates the process of party formation in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, and demonstrates the important role of cultural and societal premises for the development of political parties in the nineteenth century. Particular attention is paid in this context to the conditions in which the two mass parties, socialists and Christian democrats, were established. A larger set of Western European countries included in this analysis is thoroughly scrutinized. Despite discontent among traditional liberal-conservative elites, full endorsement of the political party was achieved at the beginning of the twentieth century. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of the interwar totalitarian party, especially under the guise of Italian and German fascism, when ‘the party’ attained its most dominant influence as the sole source and locus of power. The chapter concludes by suggesting hidden and unaccounted heritages of that experience in post-war politics.


Author(s):  
Kevin Munger ◽  
Patrick J. Egan ◽  
Jonathan Nagler ◽  
Jonathan Ronen ◽  
Joshua Tucker

Abstract Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurdistan Saeed

This study deals with the political parties’ pluralism in Iraq under the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. The importance of the study lies in the fact that it looks at a topic that is at the heart of democracy and it is necessary for the success of any democratic processes. The study focuses on parties’ pluralism in Iraq since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 until the end of the Baath Party regime in 2003, it also covers the period after 2003 and pays particular attention to the Parties Law No. 36 of 2015. It focuses on the legal framework of political parties after the adoption of the Political Parties Law and studies the impact of this law on parties’ pluralism in Iraq after its approval in 2015. The study concludes that Law No. 36 of 2015 is incapable of regulating parties’ pluralism for reasons including: the lack of commitment by the political parties to the provisions of the law, the inability of the Parties Affairs Department to take measures against parties that violate the law the absence of a strong political opposition that enhances the role of political parties, the association of most Iraqi parties with foreign agendas belonging to neighboring countries, and the fact that the majority of Iraqi parties express ethnic or sectarian orientations at the expense of national identity.


Author(s):  
Yuriy Kyrychenko ◽  
Hanna Davlyetova

The article examines the role of political parties in modern state-building processes in Ukraine. The place of political parties in the political and legal system of society is determined. The general directions of overcoming problematic situations of activity of political parties in Ukraine are offered. It is noted that political parties play an important role in the organization and exercise of political power, act as a kind of mediator between civil society and public authorities, influence the formation of public opinion and the position of citizens directly involved in elections to public authorities and local governments. It is determined that in a modern democratic society, political parties carry out their activities in the following areas: the work of representatives of political parties in public authorities and local governments; participation in elections of state authorities and local self-government bodies; promoting the formation and expression of political will of citizens, which involves promoting the formation and development of their political legal consciousness. These areas of political parties determine their role and importance in a modern democratic society, which determines the practical need to improve their activities and improve the national legislation of Ukraine in the field of political parties. Political parties are one of the basic institutions of modern society, they actively influence the ac-tivities of public authorities, economic and social processes taking place in the state and so on. It is through political parties that the people participate in the management of public affairs. Expressing the interest of different social communities, they become a link between the state and civil society. The people have the opportunity to delegate their powers to political parties, which achieves the ability of the people to control political power in several ways, which at the same time through competition of state political institutions and political parties contributes to increasing their responsibility to the people. It is noted that the political science literature has more than 200 definitions of political parties. And approaches to the definition of this term significantly depend on the general context in which this issue was studied by the researcher. It was emphasized that today in Ukraine there are important issues related to the activities of political parties. First of all, it is a significant number of registered political parties that are incapable, ie their political activity is conducted formally or not at all. According to official data from the Department of State Registration and Notary of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, 352 political parties are registered, of which 48 political parties do not actually function. The reason for the liquidation of such parties is not to nominate their candidates for the election of the President of Ukraine and People's Deputies of Ukraine for 10 years. According to this indicator, Ukraine ranks first among other European countries. Thus, 73 political parties are officially registered in Latvia, 38 in Lithuania, 45 in Moldova, 124 in Romania, and 56 in Slovakia. However, despite the large number of officially registered political parties in Ukraine, public confidence in their activities is low. It is concluded that political parties occupy a special place in the political and legal system of society and play an important role in the organization and exercise of political power, as well as a kind of mediator between civil society and public authorities. The general directions of overcoming problematic situations of activity of political parties in Ukraine are offered, namely: introduction of effective and impartial control over activity of political parties; creating conditions for reducing the number of political parties, encouraging their unification; establishment of effective and efficient sanctions for violation of the requirements of the current legislation of Ukraine by political parties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-332
Author(s):  
Ayesha Siddiqua

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study is to examine the use of cyber hate by the Pakistan’s mainstream political parties. The issue of poll rigging in Pakistan’s General Elections 2013 is examined through discourse analysis of the related tweets. The study also aims at comprehending the extent to which cyber ethics were violated during the digital electoral campaigns. Methodology: Discourse Analysis of the tweets generated from the official Twitter handles of PTI and PMLN leaders was conducted to examine the use of cyber hate by the Pakistan’s mainstream political parties. Violation of cyber ethics was explored through the qualitative interviews of 8 purposively selected social media managers of PMLN, PPP, and PTI. Main Findings: The findings indicated that party leadership/politicians used the elements of cyber hate which included abusive language, provocation, and character assassination against their opponents during the digital electoral campaign in general and regarding the poll rigging issue of Pakistan’s General Elections 2013 in specific. Resultantly the tweets using strong adjectives and metaphors on the political opponents were more frequently re-tweeted and attracted more favorites. Applications of this study: The study can be helpful in various cross-disciplinary areas that focus on the examination of the usage and impact of social media and cyberspace as a medium for hate speech dissemination. The study can significantly contribute to areas related to cyber ethics, digital electoral campaigning, freedom of expression, and political opinion building. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study’s originality lies in its attempt to unfold the foundations of digital electoral campaigning in Pakistan and how cyberhate was used as a pivotal tool for advancing the political narratives in a fragile democratic society.


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document