Introduction: Social Media, Political Marketing and the 2016 U.S. Election

Author(s):  
Christine B. Williams
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 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 ◽  
pp. 562-593
Author(s):  
Nyarwi Ahmad

Though the use and development of the Internet, World Wide Web and social media and their impacts on politics have been robustly investigated, specific attention has not yet been paid to explore the impact of adaptation and use of social media by political actors and organizations on the knowledge production and generation of political marketing. In order to fill this knowledge gap, a conceptual framework to explore modes of knowledge production and generation of political marketing has been proposed. The transcendental realism approach postulated by Bhaskar (1998, 2008) and the meta-theoretical assumptions of political marketing proposed by Henneberg (2008) were adopted. A content analysis of 320 articles of Journal of Political Marketing published in between 2002 and 2015 was carried out. This work reveals that the adaptation and use of the Internet and social media have been accounted for in producing and generating the operational or the rudimentary-conceptual or the established-conceptual knowledge of political marketing.


Author(s):  
Nyarwi Ahmad

Though the use and development of the Internet, World Wide Web and social media and their impacts on politics have been robustly investigated, specific attention has not yet been paid to explore the impact of adaptation and use of social media by political actors and organizations on the knowledge production and generation of political marketing. In order to fill this knowledge gap, a conceptual framework to explore modes of knowledge production and generation of political marketing has been proposed. The transcendental realism approach postulated by Bhaskar (1998, 2008) and the meta-theoretical assumptions of political marketing proposed by Henneberg (2008) were adopted. A content analysis of 320 articles of Journal of Political Marketing published in between 2002 and 2015 was carried out. This work reveals that the adaptation and use of the Internet and social media have been accounted for in producing and generating the operational or the rudimentary-conceptual or the established-conceptual knowledge of political marketing.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 5997
Author(s):  
Byungho Park ◽  
Moon Young Kang ◽  
Jiwon Lee

The success of Barack Obama’s 2008 U.S. presidential campaign led politicians and voters all over the world to pay attention to social media. Including Donald Trump for his upcoming 2020 re-election, many politicians around the world have used social media for their political campaigns. While some social media can deliver information in various forms (i.e., video, audio, and interactive content), some popular ones, such as Twitter, are still focused mostly on plain text messaging. With political marketing using simple text messages via social media, there is a need to examine ways of creating messages that ultimately help shape voters’ perception of politicians and eventually win the election. Based on communication science, this study attempts to test the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing by examining whether this model can be applied to the simplest form of mediated message, which is plain text. In order to do so, structural features of text messages exchanged on social media engaged in political campaigns, namely linguistic formality and network-mediated human interactivity, are manipulated in an experiment. Findings suggest that linguistic formality and human interaction in plain text messages influence perceived friendliness, truthfulness, and dependability of the message source (politicians), as well as the receivers’ (constituents’) behavioral intent to vote for the message source in an upcoming election. This implies that politicians should pay more attention on sustainable political marketing through appropriate manipulation of structural features in social media messages.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-180
Author(s):  
D. Klyuchevskiy

The purpose of this article is to analyze the experience of using social networks as a political marketing tool in the US presidential elections. This article partially touches upon the global topic of marketization and digitalization of both the political process in general and at the level of the US presidential election. The paper highlights the changing role of social media as a policy tool, which today has become not only a tool for distributing content, but also one of the tools for analyzing data from the electorate. The author explores the possibilities of social networks, their strengths and weaknesses and development prospects in the field of political marketing. The work touches upon the role of social networks in the formation of «Electronic Democracy», their impact on the candidate's image and the relationship with the personalization of politics in the United States. The main method in the article is comparative analysis. The result was the definition of the role, key features of the mentioned social networks in the field of modern politics. A certain theoretical contribution is seen in the argumentation of the following observations: the speed of interaction between the candidate and the voter through social networks has increased, in addition, the area of image-making has been partially «digitalized». It was revealed that technologies of information influence on American voters, which positively influenced the results of the 2016 presidential election for the Republican candidate, lowered D. Trump's ratings during the 2020 elections.


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