scholarly journals Voter outreach campaigns can reduce affective polarization among implementing political activists

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kalla ◽  
David Broockman
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Prejudice Reduction ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Qualitative Responses ◽  
Politically Active

Political campaigns regularly dispatch activists to contact voters. A large literature considers the effects of these conversations on voter behavior and opinion, but little research has examined their impacts on the implementing activists—an important population given the outsized influence politically active Americans wield. We argue personal persuasion campaigns can reduce affective polarization among the implementing activists. We report data from three real-world campaigns wherein activists attempted to persuade voters who had opposing viewpoints: two campaigns about a politicized issue (immigration) and a third about the 2020 Presidential election. All three campaigns trained activists to persuade voters through in-depth, two-way conversations. We find that these voter outreach efforts meaningfully reduced affective polarization among implementing activists, with reductions large enough to reverse over a decade of increases in affective polarization. Qualitative responses suggest that the conversations reduce polarization by creating opportunities for perspective-getting, which reduced animosity by humanizing and individuating outpartisans. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of affective polarization and prejudice reduction more generally.

scholarly journals Political Agonism for Indonesian Cyberpolitic: Critical Cyberculture to Political Campaign of 2019 Indonesian Presidential Election in Twitter

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 211
Author(s):  
Heni Gusfa ◽  
Fransiskus Emilus D. Kadjuand
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Real World ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Text And Image

In this era of third-generation media, political battles not only occur in the real world but also occur in cyberspace. Various strategies and products of political campaigns using social media have become commonplace in political communication. This happens because along with the disruption of public communication media, conventional campaign ideas and models have also expanded into cyber channels and shaped cyber politics reality. The uniqueness of this research is antagonistic narratives such as hoax, ethnicity, religion, race, intergroup, and provocation in the 2019 Presidential Election political campaign on Twitter from January 1st, 2019 to April 13th, 2019. This research intends to critically analyze the narrative of political campaigns on Twitter using the Agonism Cyber-politic approach. The method used in this research is Multimodal Critical Cyberculture Analysis to analyze the multimodality text (text and image components), Using hashtags to amplificated a political narration, and the antagonism narrations that develops on Twitter by supporting accounts of Jokowi and Prabowo. The results showed that the @jokowi and @prabowo accounts were the accounts with the highest engagement in spreading political campaign narratives on Twitter. The @jokowi account uses optimistic narratives, while @prabowo tends to use pessimistic narratives. Nevertheless, there are so many antagonism narratives like hoax, fake news, propaganda, and politicization of SARA which are specified by anonymous accounts. These antagonistic narratives are more developed in cyber politics discourse on Twitter. The result is horizontal conflict among Indonesian people. The community represented by netizens experienced division and formed two clusters. This fact certainly reduces the meaning of Indonesian democracy which should be substantive to mere procedural. It was found out that the concept of agonistic politics becomes practice of Indonesian democracy, based on the philosophy of the Indonesian nation Keywords: Jokowi, Prabowo, 2019 Presidential Election, political campaign, twitter, cyber politic, Indonesian cyber-democracy ABSTRAKDi era media generasi ketiga sekarang ini, pertarungan politik tidak hanya terjadi di dunia nyata, tetapi juga terjadi di dunia maya. Berbagai strategi dan produk kampanye politik menggunakan media sosial menjadi hal yang lumrah dalam komunikasi politik. Hal ini terjadi karena seiring dengan terganggunya media komunikasi publik, ide dan model kampanye konvensional juga merambah ke saluran siber dan membentuk realitas politik siber. Keunikan dari penelitian ini adalah narasi antagonis seperti hoax, etnisitas, agama, ras, antargolongan, dan provokasi dalam kampanye politik Pilpres 2019 di Twitter dari 1 Januari hingga 13 April 2019. Penelitian ini ingin menganalisis secara kritis narasi kampanye politik di Twitter dengan pendekatan Agonism Cyber-politic. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah Multimodal Critical Cyberculture Analysis, bertujuan untuk menganalisis teks multimodal (komponen teks dan gambar), penggunaan hashtag untuk memperkuat narasi politik, dan narasi antagonisme yang berkembang di Twitter dengan mendukung akun Jokowi dan Prabowo. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa akun @jokowi dan @prabowo merupakan akun yang paling banyak terlibat dalam menyebarkan narasi kampanye politik di Twitter. Akun @jokowi menggunakan narasi optimis, sedangkan @prabowo cenderung menggunakan narasi pesimistis. Namun demikian, banyak ditemukan narasi antagonisme, seperti hoax, fake news, propaganda, dan politisasi SARA yang dibocorkan oleh akun anonim. Narasi antagonis ini lebih berkembang dalam wacana politik dunia maya di Twitter. Akibatnya terjadi konflik horizontal dalam kehidupan (politik) masyarakat Indonesia. Komunitas yang diwakili oleh netizen mengalami perpecahan dan membentuk dua kluster. Fakta ini tentu mereduksi makna demokrasi Indonesia yang semestinya substantif menjadi sekadar prosedural. Konsep politik agonistik sendiri sudah menjadi bagian dari praktik demokrasi di Indonesia yang berlandaskan pada falsafah bangsa Indonesia.Kata Kunci: Jokowi, Prabowo, Pilpres 2019, kampanye politik, Twitter, politik siber, demokrasi siber Indonesia

Does Social Media Engagement Translate to Civic Engagement Offline?

2021 ◽  
pp. 089976402199944
Author(s):  
Jaclyn Piatak ◽  
Ian Mikkelsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Engagement ◽  
Informal Volunteering ◽  
Using Data

People increasingly engage in politics on social media, but does online engagement translate to offline engagement? Research is mixed with some suggesting how one uses the internet maters. We examine how political engagement on social media corresponds to offline engagement. Using data following the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, we find the more politically engaged people are on social media, the more likely they are to engage offline across measures of engagement—formal and informal volunteering, attending local meetings, donating to and working for political campaigns, and voting. Findings offer important nuances across types of civic engagement and generations. Although online engagement corresponds to greater engagement offline in the community and may help narrow generational gaps, this should not be the only means to promote civic participation to ensure all have a voice and an opportunity to help, mobilize, and engage.

Attitudes toward Mormons and Voter Behavior in the 2012 Presidential Election

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hawley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Active Member ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

AbstractPrior to the 2012 presidential election, some commentators speculated that Mitt Romney's status as a devout and active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would undermine his presidential aspirations. Using the 2012 American National Election Survey, this study examines the relationship between attitudes toward Mormons and voter behavior in the United States in that election year. It finds that attitudes toward Mormons had a statistically-significant effect on turnout — though these effects differed according to party identification. It additionally finds that these attitudes influenced vote choice. In both cases, the substantive effects were small, indicating that anti-Mormon feelings did play a role in the 2012 presidential election, but they did not determine the final outcome.

scholarly journals Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 891-899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin P. Wattenberg ◽  
Craig Leonard Brians
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Real World ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Negative Advertising ◽  
Campaign Advertising

As political campaigns become increasingly adversarial, scholars are giving some much-needed attention to the effect of negative advertising on turnout. In a widely recognized Review article and subsequent book, Ansolabehere and his colleagues (1994, 1995) contend that attack advertising drives potential voters away from the polls. We dispute the generalizability of this claim outside the experimental setting. Using NES survey data as well as aggregate sources, we subject their research to rigorous real-world testing. The survey data directly contradict their findings, yielding no evidence of a turnout disadvantage for those who recollected negative presidential campaign advertising. In attempting to replicate Ansolabehere et al.'s earlier aggregate results we uncover quite substantial discrepancies and inconsistencies in their data set. We conclude that their aggregate study is deeply flawed and that Ansolabehere et al. exaggerated the demobilization dangers posed by attack advertising, at least in voters' own context.

scholarly journals Incorporating Social-Marketing Insights Into Prejudice Research: Advancing Theory and Demonstrating Real-World Applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 608-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell R. Campbell ◽  
Markus Brauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Marketing ◽  
Real World ◽  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Prejudice Reduction ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Real World Applications ◽  
Reduction Methods

Prejudice researchers have proposed a number of methods to reduce prejudice, drawing on and, in turn, contributing to our theoretical understanding of prejudice. Despite this progress, relatively few of these methods have been shown to reliably improve intergroup relations in real-world settings, resulting in a gap between our theoretical understanding of prejudice and real-world applications of prejudice-reduction methods. In this article, we suggest that incorporating principles from another field, social marketing, into prejudice research can help address this gap. Specifically, we describe three social-marketing principles and discuss how each could be used by prejudice researchers. Several areas for future research inspired by these principles are discussed. We suggest that a hybrid approach to research that uses both theory-based and problem-based principles can provide additional tools for field practitioners aiming to improve intergroup relations while leading to new advances in social-psychological theory.

The Civic Consequences of “Going Negative”

2012 ◽  
Vol 644 (1) ◽  
pp. 256-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Wang ◽  
Itay Gabay ◽  
Dhavan V. Shah
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Advertising ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
2008 Presidential Election ◽  
Human Interest ◽  
Campaign Messages ◽  
Advertising Exposure

This study explores whether negative political advertising has any impact on adolescents. Two datasets are merged for this inquiry: (1) content-coded ad-buy data on the placement of campaign messages on a market-by-market and program-by-program basis and (2) national survey data of parent-child dyads collected immediately after the 2008 presidential election. The authors’ analysis finds that the negativity of political advertising to which adolescents were exposed predicted human-interest candidate knowledge, but not policy-relevant candidate knowledge. In addition, the negativity of political advertising exposure suppressed political consumerism among adolescents, but had no effect on their levels of political participation. This study shows that political campaigns can affect adolescents’ knowledge and participation in unconventional and potentially deleterious ways.

scholarly journals The electoral photograph reloaded: a social semiotic approach

Letras ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Osvanilson Dourado Veloso
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Semiotic Approach

While studies on the role of social media in political campaigns are growing, we still need to understand how well established communicative resources such as political photographs have been adapted in face of the digital transformation. Departing from Barthes (1972) discussion on electoral photographs, this paper discusses the production of Interactive meanings in photographs uploaded by the three main contenders in the Presidential Election 2014 in Brazil. The results show an expansion both in the functions and semiotic strategies adopted to establish a relationship with viewers through electoral photographs.

scholarly journals Social Media for Political Campaigns: An Examination of Trump’s and Clinton’s Frame Building and Its Effect on Audience Engagement

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511985514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulsamad Sahly ◽  
Chun Shao ◽  
K. Hazel Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Audience Engagement ◽  
Frame Effect ◽  
Frame Building ◽  
Cross Platform

This study investigates cross-platform differences in social media by analyzing the contending candidates who represent different political ideology during the 2016 presidential election. Borrowing the frame-building and frame-effect perspectives, it examines the ways in which the two contending candidates (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) built their message frames in two different social platforms—Twitter ( N = 3,805) and Facebook ( N = 655)—and how the frame differences affected audience engagement in each platform. The results showed that Trump’s messages presented more variety in frame selection than Clinton’s, focusing on conflict and negative emotional frames on Twitter while displaying frequent positive emotional frames on Facebook. Clinton’s strategy relied heavily on conflict and positive emotional frames on both Twitter and Facebook. The results also suggested that for both Trump and Clinton followers on Twitter, conflict and morality frames consistently attracted retweeting behaviors and emotional frames attracted favoriting behaviors. However, Facebook engagement behaviors did not show a consistent pattern between the followers of the two candidates.

Poll Vaulting

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-112
Author(s):  
Charles E. Phelps ◽  
Guru Madhavan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Real World ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Taste Testing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Judgment Of Paris ◽  
Voting Method

This chapter provides a set of real-world examples of how the process used for decision-making dramatically affected the outcome and shows how different voting rules would have led to different choices. Examples include the 2000 U.S. presidential election (Bush vs. Gore, with Nader intervening) and the choice of finalist candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election (Clinton vs. Trump). It also includes a famous vote by 11 wine judges in France in 1976 (sometimes called “Judgment of Paris”), where we have the actual preferences of the judges. American wines won the blind taste-testing, shocking the French and eventually leading to the “democratization of the wine world . . . a watershed in the history of wine.” This chapter shows that even votes by small numbers of people can have significant effects and that the choice of voting method in part determined which wine “won” the contest.

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