Decentralizing electoral campaigns? New-old parties, grassroots and digital activism

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that new parties display new patterns of digital mobilization. We shed light on this debate: do new party supporters engage in online political activities to a greater extent during electoral campaigns? Do they share political images or quotes on social media, participate in political forums, or exchange political messages with their friends more often than supporters of traditional parties? No. Drawing on a post-electoral survey dataset in Spain, we find that offline extra-institutional political activities are key predictors of the level of online political engagement. Even in the context of a polarized electoral campaign and the emergence of new electoral forces such as Podemos, extrainstitutional political participation drives digital activism to the detriment of institutional variables, such as turnout or partisan preferences. Thus, all parties depend on extrainstitutional activists to boost their online campaigns. Since grassroots activists increasingly influence the communicative strategy of all political parties, we interpret this process within a long-term digital-based post-material transformation of the political culture, with major implications for partisan organization, mobilization, and polarization in many democracies. We contend that the overrepresentation of grassroots activists in producing and disseminating political content in social media may have favored an increase of the visibility and public support of political outsiders in several countries.

The impact of intolerance on young people’s online political participation

“…An alternative approach contends that the digital sphere is useful to mobilise those who otherwise abstain from participation offline (Emmer et al, 2012; Nam, 2012), particularly for young people who lack access to formal political institutions and conventional modes of engagement (Boulianne and Theocharis, 2018). However, crucial for this study, most recent research has found a strong correlation between online and offline forms of political and civic engagement, thus concluding that young people participate in both contexts (Boulianne and Theocharis, 2018; Lobera and Portos, 2020). In line with the ‘normalisation’ approach, the digital sphere tends to reinforce pre-existing structures and inequalities without substantially changing the patterns of political involvement (Bimber, 2002).…”

“….’ (0 = ‘never’; 1 = ‘once every few months’; 2 = ‘at least twice a month’; 3 = ‘at least once a week’; 4 = ‘at least every day or more’). Since the level of intercorrelation between the items is moderate-to-high (.44 < Pearson’s r < .65), we carried out a Principal Component Analysis, which allowed us to construct a weighted additive scale that we used to measure the level of digital political participation (these items are part and parcel of established scales of online political participation; see, for example, Lobera and Portos, 2020). 3 While we use the weighted additive scale as the main dependent variable in the models reported throughout, we alternatively use a dichotomic variable that captures digital participation, depending on whether the respondent has engaged in any of the four previous activities or not (0 = ‘never’, 1 = otherwise; Table 1; see also Appendix 1; Figure A1, Appendix 2).…”

“…Third, certain political attitudes and values, such as left–right ideology, satisfaction with democracy, and political interest, could likewise be important predictors of political activism, both online and offline (Norris, 2001; van Laer, 2010). Also, offline political engagement, in general, and participation in offline unconventional activities, in particular, are associated with increased online political participation (Lobera and Portos, 2020). Finally, we include country fixed-effects in order to account for the specific (institutional, historical, cultural) characteristics of each country that might be correlated with online political activities.…”

“…At least in most European countries, where opportunities for political participation are manifold and costs and restrictions on the circulation of information tend to be low, one would expect that the digital sphere helps reinforce the political participation of those who are already politically active in offline unconventional actions. The digital sphere offers affordances relevant to activism as challengers do not need to be physically present to engage in coordinated action, and the web reduces costs for organising (Earl and Kimport, 2011; Lobera and Portos, 2020). In sum, as the digital sphere is incorporated into routine practices of everyday life, we expect to find a continuation between offline unconventional political engagement and online participation.…”

“…This argument is substantiated theoretically, tested empirically, and found to hold in the form of a strong and significant interaction effect between intolerant attitudes and variables measuring offline unconventional participation, democratic satisfaction, and social capital. By investigating the role of intolerant attitudes on young people’s online political participation, we do not only shed light on a largely unexplored topic (see Feezell, 2016; Lobera and Portos, 2020), but also address a major challenge for contemporary democracies and their prospects. In fact, the relationship between young people and the digital sphere is tightly linked to the ways it affects collective action and mainstream modes of democratic expression.…”