THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN IN STORTING 2021

The article examines the phenomenon of the influence of social networks on election campaigns using the example of Norway. For an introduction to the context of the electoral situation in Norway, the author describes the election programs of the main Norwegian political parties. Methods of content analysis and discourse analysis are used to better understand network voter mobilization. The author provides a review of the literature on this topic in order to substantiate the need for the applied methodology. The analysis of the share of Internet users in different countries has been carried out. The most popular social networks have been identified and the networks that are best suited for political mobilization and are used in Norway have been identified. The author carried out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the official Facebook accounts of the Norwegian parliamentary parties during the election campaign in 2021. The study revealed the main trends in the behavior of political parties and their voters on the Facebook social network. The author concludes that all political parties in Norway use social networks as one of the main channels for mobilizing supporters. In addition, this tool allows parties to respond to current topics and changing voter sentiments.

Religion and Electoral Competition in Senegal

This chapter explores the role that religion plays in political competition in Senegal. It shows that since Senegal’s independence, religious parties have been few and rather marginal. On the other hand, religious leaders (marabouts) from different Muslim brotherhoods, especially the Mourides, have played an important role in assisting politicians in voter mobilization, acting as vote brokers, and occasionally issuing vote orders. Yet the analysis of electoral data over several decades shows that this type of mobilization has not resulted in sectarian electoral cleavages and religion is not a strong predictor of vote choice. Starting with the country’s first president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, who was a Catholic, Muslim religious leaders have supported politicians across religious and brotherhood lines, creating fluid political competition. The chapter attributes this absence of sectarian cleavages to the role of religious leaders on the eve of independence and the existing incentive structures that made alliances with politicians across sectarian lines more beneficial.

The American Cyrus: How an Ancient King Became a Political Tool for Voter Mobilization

During the 2016 presidential election, Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump presented him as a modern version of the ancient King Cyrus of Persia. To many conservative Christians, the comparison offered a justification of voting for a candidate whose character supposedly was at odds with their Christian virtues. Subsequent to his inauguration, the idea of Trump being an American Cyrus continued to develop and circulate. It is the aim of this article to deepen the understanding of Cyrus as a political tool in the West and explain how he ended up as a means to mobilize American voters. With an emphasis on the last 250 years, the article looks at how various personalities have been compared to Cyrus or presented as modern Cyruses. Based on these examples, it develops a typology, arguing that the modern Cyrus can be best understood as different types and subtypes, of which several have been applied to Trump. The article demonstrates how the various subtypes have separate evolutionary lines, which in turn can be attributed to different goals and functions.

Youth Voter Mobilization Through Online Advertising: Evidence From Two GOTV Field Experiments

An increasingly fragmented media environment poses a challenge to campaigns and political organizations trying to persuade young voters, as young people increasingly eschew television for online video streaming and represent a growing cell-phone-only population, which is more costly to reach. As a result, each cycle campaigns are spending more on online advertising. However, the effectiveness of this outreach is an open question with disparate findings in the literature (Bond et al. 2012, Broockman and Green 2012). To test the effectiveness of this outreach for voter mobilization, we partnered with a national organization, Rock the Vote, to conduct a seven-state, 731,568-person GOTV experiment using advertising on Facebook during the 2012 presidential election, which involved nearly four million advertising impressions, and a 14-state, 93,053-person replication during the 2013 general election. Across both experiments, we find no evidence that voter turnout in the treatment group was greater than the control group. While exploratory analysis from the 2012 experiment suggested the ads were effective among those who had a demonstrated a prior history of clicking on online advertising, the follow-up 2013 experiment failed to confirm this finding. These results suggest that while online advertising can reach young voters, it may not be a panacea for encouraging them to vote. This research also underscores the importance of replications of even large-scale experimental findings.

Election Violence and Voter Turnout in 2019 General Elections: What Role for Political Parties?

This study examines the incidence of electoral violence and its resultant effects on voter turnout in the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, with the role of political parties as the focal point of discussion. A review of election data shows; voter turnout has been on the decline from 69% in 2003 to 35% in 2019. While a handful of factors could be responsible, the study ascribes its prevalence to the antic’s political parties (incumbent and opposition) and politicians who deliberately deploy violence as an electoral strategy. To account for the relationship between, political parties, electoral violence and voter turn-out, the study builds on theories of voter mobilization in and advanced and emerging democracies. Against this, it concludes in the absence of enduring party-voter relations in Nigeria, political parties and politicians alike, resort to vote buying, mobilization of political thugs and in other times deployment of state coercive apparatus to intimidate opponents all of which culminates into electoral irregularities which has the potency to instigate electoral violence. This in turn has in amongst others adversely affected voter turn-out as rightly observed over five electoral cycles.

Encouraging College Student Democratic Engagement Through a Collaborative Voter

Drawing on challenges I experienced when teaching a political communication course, I designed an upper-level undergraduate course with the objective of developing students’ civic competence and democratic engagement. The major class assignment, which is the focal point of this best practices essay, was a four-step collaborative voter mobilization project designed and executed by undergraduate students. I use research, classroom conversations, and student observations to discuss four best practices for encouraging students to participate in electoral politics: (a) fostering political efficacy, (b) peer-to-peer learning, (c) experiential learning, and (d) learning through reflection. This essay breaks a four-step collaborative voting mobilization project down into easily implementable steps for those seeking to inculcate attitudes and behaviors that foster democratic engagement whether that be in schools, universities, or within the broader community.