Elections and Social Media

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.


Author(s):  
Suseela Rao Sayana

Abstract: Social Media, in the present era of electronic revolution has become the means and end of all communication as such the democracies are wondering if social media can be a valid indicator to predict election end-results. Keeping in view the demand and surge in the use of social media like Face Book, Twitter etc. the present exploration work towards the scrutiny whether the social media had any consequence on the 2014 General Elections end-results. A huge number of social media whispers for 120 days from 5th January to 5th March, 2014 of sufficient political parties in India have been considered for the present exploration. It clearly speaks that, social media whispers, occupied paramount importance on the end-results of General Elections 2014. Keywords: Political campaigns, Web technologies, Advertising, Internet, Digital Landscape, Social media tool, Mass communication


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manawwar Alam

In recent years, digital media have become an integral part of political communication during election campaigns. Internet has become an important platform for marginalized and fringed parties, candidates, groups and people to establish an alternative political dialogue to a wider section of society which was earlier not possible for them. Social media has turned a great boom when concerned to connect people. It has enabled us find countless area specific people in one click to target them for a specific programme or scheme. Digital media has changed the pattern of election campaigning. Youth have now joined the campaign and become the part of voting. The Internet provides an arena of informing, involving, mobilizing and connecting activity among the political parties, political candidates, party workers and followers and voters. New digital media has made it easier to get in touch, keep in touch with the party workers, prospective supporters and voters. The internet has become a vehicle through which the opinion of common people can be expressed on matters normally reserved for political leaders. The speed with which digital media communication is being adopted by political parties, representatives and electoral candidates varies according to social, cultural, economic and democratic context. The digital media can enable both politicians and citizens to communicate and serve democratic activities, such as election campaigns. Most of the new media applications and platforms like face book, twitter, multimedia mobile telephones have been used by the political parties and their candidates during elections.


Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 985-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cushion ◽  
Daniel Jackson

This introduction unpacks the eight articles that make up this Journalism special issue about election reporting. Taken together, the articles ask: How has election reporting evolved over the last century across different media? Has the relationship between journalists and candidates changed in the digital age of campaigning? How do contemporary news values influence campaign coverage? Which voices – politicians, say or journalists – are most prominent? How far do citizens inform election coverage? How is public opinion articulated in the age of social media? Are sites such as Twitter developing new and distinctive election agendas? In what ways does social media interact with legacy media? How well have scholars researched and theorised election reporting cross-nationally? How can research agendas be enhanced? Overall, we argue this Special Issue demonstrates the continued strength of news media during election campaigns. This is in spite of social media platforms increasingly disrupting and recasting the agenda setting power of legacy media, not least by political parties and candidates who are relying more heavily on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to campaign. But while debates in recent years have centred on the technological advances in political communication and the associated role of social media platforms during election campaigns (e.g. microtargeting voters, spreading disinformation/misinformation and allowing candidates to bypass media to campaign), our collection of studies signal the enduring influence professional journalists play in selecting and framing of news. Put more simply, how elections are reported still profoundly matters in spite of political parties’ and candidates’ more sophisticated use of digital campaigning.


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.


2014 ◽  
Vol 152 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Macnamara ◽  
Gail Kenning

Following the 2004 US presidential election campaign, which was described as ‘a critical turning point’ in use of social media, and particularly the 2008 Obama campaign, there has been increasing focus on use of social media for political campaigning and what is termed e-electioneering and e-democracy. However, studies of election campaigns between 2010 and 2012 in a number of countries have identified what Steve Woolgar (2002) calls cyberbole in relation to social media for political engagement. With substantive patterns of change in political communication yet to be identified, a quantitative and qualitative study of social media use in the 2013 Australian federal election campaign was conducted using the same methodology as studies of the 2007 and 2010 campaigns to gain comparative longitudinal data. This identified trends in the volume of e-electioneering and the ways in which social media are being used for political communication and democratic engagement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Elemonie

Social media is important nowadays. With the development of technology today, most people want their needs to be fulfilled in an instant. Speed is the key in most cases. In this era all media gets digitized, the Internet also becomes the mode of carriage for all other media, meaning a lot of information is available on the internet. In today’s competitive business environment, under pressure from the digital revolution, the corporate brand with its identity, image, and reputation becomes the center of gravity for valuable and durable relationships between the firm and all interested parties. The researcher has chosen qualitative data for designing this research. Focus of this research it is aimed to understand the social media that has been used by Cathay Pacific Airways to shape its corporate image in the eyes of public. The analysis shows that the active promotion activities through social media has a big influence in the formation of the expected company image. The use of social media as one of the strategies that Cathay Pacific uses as a means of communication can increase customer engagement. Keywords: Corporate Communication; Corporate Image; Social Media; Perception; Airlines.


Author(s):  
Chaang-Iuan Ho ◽  
Jui-Yuan Chu

Since the launch of Facebook (FB) in 2006, social media participation has grown rapidly during the past decade. Although FB and YouTube (YT) still occupy the most prominent positions in the social media landscape, Instagram (IG) is rapidly gaining ground, and now has a market share of 35%. It is not uncommon for users to have more than one account. New social media platforms have been developed and gained some popularity, some major concerns have been raised. Displacement–reinforcement effects, such as changes in attitude and loyalty, may appear in relation to both new and old media. In addition, age appears to influence the platform usage and preference. These matters led us to our research question: Is the Internet generation more likely than other generations to switch from FB to YT or IG? Keywords: Social media choice, generation gap, niche theory


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-43
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan ◽  
Juan Carlos Montes de Oca Lopez

Social media has transformed election campaigns around the world. While it is difficult to determine to what extent social media influence voters' decisions, there is no doubt that social media platforms impact on candidate advertising and public debate during elections. This research, the methodological formulation of which is based on a case study, seeks to investigate the use of social media during political campaigns to collect signatures of support. In the elections of 2018, aspiring candidates for presidential election required a certain number of signatures of support in order to register as official candidates. We collected social media data on a weekly basis from the Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts of seven candidates and contrasted this data with the number of signatures validated by the electoral authority. We found no relationship between the level of support received and the use of social media in the case of any of the candidates. However, we observed candidates who did achieve the required number of signatures and who did receive official presidential candidate status as a result of their high level of visibility. This research contributes methodologically to the current literature and provides empirical evidence regarding independent candidates in Mexico.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-109
Author(s):  
Dren Gërguri

The 2017 general elections in Kosovo are the first to be considered for the high use of Facebook by political parties. Kosovo has nearly 1 million Facebook users, and this is one reason that has pushed all political parties, without distinction, to include Facebook in their electoral strategies. The paper analyses the use of Facebook by political parties in the 2017 general election and deals with the adaptation of Kosovar political parties with this new form of political communication and their popularity on Facebook. Data were collected during the campaign using the software R. In the fourth age of political communication, the web 2.0 has changed political  campaigns and the flow of information now is more dynamic than in the past. The paper presents the flow of information/messages through Facebook, with politicians connecting directly with citizens, bypassing traditional media. Through a quantitative content analysis of the seven parties’ Facebook pages, it is analysed how they used Facebook as a campaigning tool and based on the findings, the mobilisation function was the dominant one. 


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