Online social networks and micro-blogging in political campaigning: The exploration of a new campaign tool and a new campaign style
Source
Party Politics, 19, 3, (2013), pp. 477-501ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
SW OZ BSI CW
Journal title
Party Politics
Volume
vol. 19
Issue
iss. 3
Languages used
English (eng)
Page start
p. 477
Page end
p. 501
Subject
Communication and MediaAbstract
This study explores how candidates running for the European Parliament (EP) in 2009 used micro-blogging and online social networks – in this case Twitter (www.twitter.com) in the early stage of its adoption – to communicate and connect with citizens. Micro-blogging in general, and Twitter in particular, is one of the new and popular Web 2.0 applications, yet there has been little research focusing on the use of Twitter by politicians. After reviewing different types of campaigning strategies and introducing a new and distinct strategy, this descriptive and exploratory study focuses on political candidates' use of micro-blogging and online social networking (i.e. Twitter) from a longitudinal, social network, and ideological perspective. The results clearly show that most candidates in 2009 still used Twitter reluctantly. Those who used Twitter did so predominantly for electoral campaigning and only sparingly for continuous campaigning. Candidates from progressive parties are the most active users of Twitter as a campaigning tool, whereas conservatives are virtually absent online. Although candidates' first degree networks are still relatively small and unconnected, their second degree networks are quite extensive. Candidates from parties in opposition have more extensive first degree networks than those from ruling parties. Candidates from fringe parties show small online networks.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [238441]
- Electronic publications [122508]
- Faculty of Social Sciences [29483]
- Open Access publications [97504]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.