scholarly journals Reproducing Toxic Election Campaigns: Negative Campaigning and Race-Based Politics in the Western Cape

2015 ◽  
pp. 124-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherrel Africa
Keyword(s):  
Western Cape ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Negative Campaigning

scholarly journals Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook Ads in European election campaigns

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto López Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
European Election

AbstractConcerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.

Do Campaigns “Go Negative” on Twitter?

2017 ◽  
pp. 178-191
Author(s):  
Marija Bekafigo ◽  
Allison Clark Pingley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Gubernatorial Elections ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Negative Ads ◽  
Media Forum

The use of negative ads in traditional election campaigns has been well-documented, but we know little about the use of Twitter to “go negative.” We content analyze candidate tweets from four different gubernatorial elections in 2011 to understand how candidates are using Twitter. We coded 849 tweets to explain the determinants of “going negative” on Twitter. Our results show that while tweets are overwhelmingly positive, candidates go negative by tweeting about policy. We believe this supports the innovation hypothesis and argue that Twitter is a conducive social media forum for policy-based messages due to its highly partisan nature. However, other determinants of negative campaigning such as competitiveness of the race and campaign funding were consistent with the normalization hypothesis. Our mixed results are consistent with other studies on social media and suggest there is still much to be learned from this tool.

scholarly journals Are microtargeted campaign messages more negative and diverse? An analysis of Facebook ads in European election campaigns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto López Ortega
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
European Election

Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such technique in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behavior of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesize that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyze an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.

Tweeting Negative

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Anna Bekafigo ◽  
Allison Clark Pingley
Keyword(s):  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Gubernatorial Elections ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Negative Ads

The use of negative ads in traditional election campaigns has been well-documented, but the authors know little about the use of Twitter to “go negative.” They content analyze candidate tweets from four different gubernatorial elections in 2011 to understand how candidates are using Twitter. They coded 849 tweets to explain the determinants of “going negative” on Twitter. The results show that while tweets are overwhelmingly positive, candidates go negative by tweeting about policy. They believe this supports the innovation hypothesis, with Twitter being a more conducive forum for policy-based messages. Other determinants of negative campaigning such as competitiveness of the race and campaign funding were consistent with the normalization hypothesis.

Research Note: “Negative” Personalization: Party Leaders and Party Strategy

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Pruysers ◽  
William Cross
Keyword(s):  
Research Note ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Strategy ◽  
Opposing Party ◽  
Campaign Communication ◽  
Personalization Of Politics

AbstractWhile the negative campaigning literature has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, the precise targets of campaign negativity have not been fully explored, as candidates and their parties are largely treated as the same target. Likewise, although scholars are increasingly writing about the personalization of politics, this literature has not considered whether parties can “personalize” their opponents by focusing their messaging and attacks more on individual leaders than the parties they lead. In an attempt to bridge the gap between these two literatures, we develop the concept of negative personalization. Negative personalization, as we define it, is an emphasis on opposing party leaders in campaign communication more so than on the parties that they lead. Exploring recent election campaigns in Canada's largest province, we document the extent to which parties engage in negative personalization and suggest hypotheses for the factors leading to increased negative personalization.

scholarly journals Friendly fire? Negative campaigning among coalition partners

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316801879691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Haselmayer ◽  
Marcelo Jenny
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Friendly Fire ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Party Press ◽  
The One

In democracies with multi-party competition, government parties face a dual challenge in election campaigns: on the one hand, they have to compete against and criticize their coalition partners. On the other hand, they should avoid virulent attacks on their partners to preserve their chances of future collaboration in government. Going beyond a dichotomous operationalization of negative campaigning, this manuscript analyses the tonality and volume of negative campaigning. Studying 3030 party press releases in four national Austrian election campaigns, different patterns for the tonality and frequency of negative campaigning reflect the electoral dilemma of government parties. Coalition parties criticize each other abundantly but refrain from ‘burning bridges’ with their partners through virulent attacks. These findings have implications for studying negative campaigning and coalition politics.

Context matters: Professionalization of campaign posters from Adenauer to Merkel

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-121
Author(s):  
Niklas Venema ◽  
Dennis Steffan
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Downward Trend ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Negative Campaigning ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War

AbstractThis study examines the professionalization of political communication by focusing on changes to campaign posters for Bundestag elections over the course of five eras of German post-war history. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of both visual and textual elements of campaign posters (N = 1,857) in the period from 1949 to 2017 with regard to personalization, de-ideologization, and negative campaigning. The study revealed differences related to the five eras. Following the early conservative governments (1949–1969), high levels of personalization and ideologization first became defining features of election campaigns during the social-liberal era (1969–1982). After the Kohl era (1982–1998), these trends have occurred again since the Schröder era (1998–2005) and have been reinforced in the Merkel era (2005–2017). Furthermore, we found neither a clear upward nor a downward trend for negative campaigning. Overall, our study demonstrated that political parties adapt their communication strategies to the context of the respective election.

Everybody Follows the Crowd?

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Obermaier ◽  
Thomas Koch ◽  
Christian Baden
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Bandwagon Effect ◽  
Political News ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Opinion Polls ◽  
Electoral Preferences

Abstract. Opinion polls are a well-established part of political news coverage, especially during election campaigns. At the same time, there has been controversial debate over the possible influences of such polls on voters’ electoral choices. The most prominent influence discussed is the bandwagon effect: It states that voters tend to support the expected winner of an upcoming election, and use polls to determine who the likely winner will be. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying the effect. In addition, we inquired into the role of past electoral performances of a candidate and analyzed how these (as well as polls) are used as heuristic cues for the assessment of a candidate’s personal characteristics. Using an experimental design, we found that both polls and past election results influence participants’ expectations regarding which candidate will succeed. Moreover, higher competence was attributed to a candidate, if recipients believe that the majority of voters favor that candidate. Through this attribution of competence, both information about prior elections and current polls shaped voters’ electoral preferences.

Nation, Locality and Radical Identity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Control ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Political Left ◽  
National Model ◽  
Selection Of

Concentrating upon the years between the 1924 and 1929 general elections, which separated the first and second minority Labour governments, this chapter traces the rise of a modernised, national vision of Labour politics in Scotland. It considers first the reworking of understandings of sovereignty within the Labour movement, as the autonomy enjoyed by provincial trades councils was circumscribed, and notions of Labour as a confederation of working-class bodies, which could in places include the Communist Party, were replaced by a more hierarchical, national model. The electoral consequences of this shift are then considered, as greater central control was exercised over the selection of parliamentary candidates and the conduct of election campaigns. This chapter presents a study of the changing horizons of the political left in inter-war Scotland, analysing the declining importance of locality in the construction of radical political identities.

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