How Political Candidates' Use of Facebook Relates to the Election Outcomes

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin-Chen Lin

This paper examines the relationship between political candidates' use of Facebook and their election outcomes (vote share and election success). The use of social media in political marketing campaigns has grown dramatically over the past few years. It is also expected to become even more critical to future political campaigns, as it creates two-way communication and engagement that stimulates and fosters candidates' relationships with their supporters. Online Facebook data were acquired for all 84 candidates running in a municipal election in Taiwan. Results suggest that a candidate's Facebook presence, the type of account they use, the authentication of the account, and the number of online fans they have are related to their election outcomes.

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-35
Author(s):  
Seerat Sohal ◽  
Harsandaldeep Kaur

The present study is an endeavour to broaden the research on the use of social media websites in political campaigns beyond the ambit of developed countries. This article focuses on scrutinizing the role of YouTube during 2014 Indian Parliamentary elections—the first ‘social media’-based elections in India. The methodology of data collection incorporates the content analysis of 147 YouTube-based audio–visual political advertisements, associating the message characteristics (natures, types and appeals) with message reach (number of views) and viewer engagement (types of comments). The results reveal the failure of the viewers to recognize the association between message reach and viewers’ engagement with message characteristics, confirming the ‘marginal’ use of YouTube. However, the study recommends the incorporation of contemporary, Internet-based social media advertising tools along with the traditional tools in the future political marketing campaigns. This article is instrumental for political marketers and consultants in devising political marketing strategies.


Author(s):  
Ahmet Sarıtaş ◽  
Elif Esra Aydın

Today, using of the internet extended social media by individuals habitually enables both the business firms and politicians to reach their target mass at any time. In this context, internet has become a popular place recently where political communication and campaigns are realized by ensuring a new dimension to political campaigns. When we examine the posts and discussions in the social media, we can say that they are converted into open political sessions. As there are no censorship in such channels, individuals have a freedom to reach to any partial/impartial information and obtain transparent and fast feedback, and with this regard, political parties, leaders and candidates have a chance to be closer to electors. In this study, it is aimed to give information about the social media, present what medium has been used for election campaigns from the past until today and besides, by considering the effects of effective and efficient use of social media and new trends related to the internet by politicians, together with their applications in the world, to make suggestions about its situation and application in Turkey.


Author(s):  
Ahmet Sarıtaş ◽  
Elif Esra Aydın

Today, using of the internet extended social media by individuals habitually enables both the business firms and politicians to reach their target mass at any time. In this context, internet has become a popular place recently where political communication and campaigns are realized by ensuring a new dimension to political campaigns. When we examine the posts and discussions in the social media, we can say that they are converted into open political sessions. As there are no censorship in such channels, individuals have a freedom to reach to any partial/impartial information and obtain transparent and fast feedback, and with this regard, political parties, leaders and candidates have a chance to be closer to electors. In this study, it is aimed to give information about the social media, present what medium has been used for election campaigns from the past until today and besides, by considering the effects of effective and efficient use of social media and new trends related to the internet by politicians, together with their applications in the world, to make suggestions about its situation and application in Turkey.


Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Passini

AbstractIn the past few years, a wave of protest has spread across the world. The particularity of these uprisings lies in the way the Internet is used to support them. Scholars have analyzed these movements as being closely related to a generation that relies on the Internet as a means of organizing themselves as a force of social change. That is, the Internet is seen as a way of promoting the active participation of young people in political issues. Public opinion and the mass media hail the Arab Spring revolutions as movements beneficial to the democratization of oppressive regimes. By contrast, when disobedient movements emerge in democratic countries, they are generally more cautious in evaluating these movements as enriching democracy. This cautious opinion also concerns the use of social media. In this article, the so-called Twitter revolutions are discussed in light of the theories of social psychology that analyze the relationship between disobedience and democracy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hee Yun Lee ◽  
Yan Luo ◽  
Cho Rong Won ◽  
Jiyoung Lee ◽  
Jeongwon Baik

BACKGROUND The use of social media or social networking sites (SNS) is increasing across all age groups, and one of the primary motives of using SNS is to seek health-related information. Although previous research examining the effect of SNS use on depression exist, studies regarding the effect of SNS use for health purpose on depression is limited. OBJECTIVE Our study aims to explore the relationship between SNS use for health purpose and depression across the four age groups (18-34 years old, 35-49 years old, 50-64 years old, and above 65 years old). METHODS A sample of 6,789 adults aged 18 and older was extracted from a 2017 and 2018 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Univariate and bivariate analyses to examine the association between each variable and four age groups were conducted. Multiple linear regression analyses to predict depression level among participants with use of SNS for health purpose were conducted. RESULTS SNS use for health purpose and depression were positively associated for three age groups but not for those 65 years or older (=0.13, P<0.05; =0.08, P<0.05; =0.09, P<0.05). Income and self-reported health status indicated an inverse relationship for all age groups. The relationship with marital status differed based on age group with 18 and 34 years old showing an inverse relationship (=-0.13, P<0.01) while 65 years or older showing a positive relationship (=0.06, P<0.05). Gender was positively associated among those in the 35-49 years old (=0.09, P<0.05) and 65 years or older (=0.07, P<0.05). Being Non-Hispanic White was positively associated with depression among 50-64 years old (=0.07, P<0.001) and 65 years or older (=0.08, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS Age-tailored education on determining accurate and reliable information shared via SNS is needed to reduce depressive symptoms.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110088
Author(s):  
Benjamin N. Jacobsen ◽  
David Beer

As social media platforms have developed over the past decade, they are no longer simply sites for interactions and networked sociality; they also now facilitate backwards glances to previous times, moments, and events. Users’ past content is turned into definable objects that can be scored, rated, and resurfaced as “memories.” There is, then, a need to understand how metrics have come to shape digital and social media memory practices, and how the relationship between memory, data, and metrics can be further understood. This article seeks to outline some of the relations between social media, metrics, and memory. It examines how metrics shape remembrance of the past within social media. Drawing on qualitative interviews as well as focus group data, the article examines the ways in which metrics are implicated in memory making and memory practices. This article explores the effect of social media “likes” on people’s memory attachments and emotional associations with the past. The article then examines how memory features incentivize users to keep remembering through accumulation. It also examines how numerating engagements leads to a sense of competition in how the digital past is approached and experienced. Finally, the article explores the tensions that arise in quantifying people’s engagements with their memories. This article proposes the notion of quantified nostalgia in order to examine how metrics are variously performative in memory making, and how regimes of ordinary measures can figure in the engagement and reconstruction of the digital past in multiple ways.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089443932110329
Author(s):  
Paul Dodemaide ◽  
Mark Merolli ◽  
Nicole Hill ◽  
Lynette Joubert

There is a growing body of literature exploring the general population’s use of social media for assistance in dealing with stigmatized health issues. This study presents novel research examining the relationship between social media use and young adults. It utilizes a therapeutic affordance (TA) framework. Quantitative results from this study are complemented by qualitative data. The relationships between distinct social media and their TA (a–b) are presented to highlight their potential to impact positively on social and emotional well-being outcomes. Evidence includes broad support for “connection,” “narration,” and “collaboration” TAs in this context and the relationship between the use of distinct social media and perceived quality of life (QOL) outcomes (a–c). TA provides an appropriate and valuable theoretical framework which is useful for the development of an evidence-base from the analysis of young adult’s social media usage. An analysis of the association between social media and their QOL outcomes is presented according to the TA relationship pathway (a–c–b). The adoption of a TA framework enables a nuanced analysis of significant associations between specific social media, TA, and improved QOL outcomes. This study demonstrates the significant association between social media and perceived QOL outcomes in young adults.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 806-817
Author(s):  
Patrick Amfo Anim ◽  
Frederick Okyere Asiedu ◽  
Matilda Adams ◽  
George Acheampong ◽  
Ernestina Boakye

Purpose This paper aims to explore the relationships between political marketing via social media and young voters’ political participation in Ghana. Additionally, this study examines the mediating role political efficacy plays in enhancing the relationship. Design/methodology/approach With a positivist mindset, and adopting the survey strategy, data gathered from the questionnaire administered from the sampled 320 young voters (18-29 years) in Greater Accra were quantitatively analyzed. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to assess and confirm the proposed scales validity and the relationships of the research model. Findings The study revealed that a political party or candidate’s ability to achieve political participation from Ghanaian young voters’ is dependent on how effective they build customer relationship or gaining visibility through social media. In addition, the study showed that political efficacy mediates the relationship between customer relationship building or gaining visibility through social media and political participation among Ghana young voters. Thus, young voters in Ghana must see themselves to have a say in the affairs of political parties through the political messages they gather from social media platforms to enhance their political participation activities. Practical implications The results of this paper will enable political marketers and politicians not only in Ghana but across the globe, to better understand how social media as a communication tool could be used to positively influence users’ political participation. Originality/value Considering the uniqueness of this study in a Ghanaian context, this paper is the first of its kind to use the social capital theory in examining the mediating role political efficacy plays in enhancing the relationship between political marketing on social media and young voters’ political participation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schlagwein ◽  
Monica Hu

In this paper, we examine the relation between social media use and the absorptive capacity of organisations. Over the past 10 years, many organisations have systematically adopted social media. Trade press and consulting companies often claim that the systematic use of social media increases the performance of organisations. However, such claims are typically neither empirically grounded nor theoretically examined. In this paper, based on key informant interviews at 20 organisations, we examine these claims empirically and theoretically. Firstly, we examine the ways in which social media are used by organisations. We identify five different social media use types that support different organisational purposes (broadcast, dialogue, collaboration, knowledge management and sociability). Secondly, we analyse how these five social media use types relate to organisations' absorptive capacity. We find that particular social media use types (e.g., dialogue) support organisations' absorptive capacity and, ultimately, their performance although others (e.g., sociability) do not.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnan Dong ◽  
Dickson K.W. Chiu ◽  
Po-Sen Huang ◽  
Kevin K.W. Ho ◽  
Mavis Man-wai Lung ◽  
...  

Purpose Existing studies reflect that traditional teaching–learning relationships between supervisors and graduate students have become disjointed with actuality seriously. In particular, there are practical difficulties in handling many students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees under current university curricula. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between research supervisors and graduate students on social media, which is popular among students. Design/methodology/approach This study surveyed 109 graduate students from two majors (population around 100 each) of a university in Hong Kong to explore their information usage for research on social media, related attitudes and their perceived supervisor relationships. The differences between the two majors were also compared. Findings The authors’ findings indicated that graduate students were active on social media, and social media has successfully provided effective alternate ways for students to communicate with their research supervisors. Social media could improve relationships between supervisors and research students and among fellow students. Besides education purposes, students also discussed their personal affairs on social media with supervisors, demonstrating enhanced trusted relationships. Graduate students also showed confidence in the further application of social media in higher education. Some differences between respondents from the two programs were also found in terms of communication contents, strengths, personal preferences and purposes for using social media. Originality/value Scant studies focus on the relationship between supervisors and graduate students under the current social media environment, especially for students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees. At a deeper level, for the widespread use of social media in the information age, this study explores the specific changes brought about by social media. Therefore, this study is of great theoretical and practical value to graduate education under the current social media environment.


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