Normalizing or equalizing? Characterizing Facebook campaigning

Abstract

The article analyzes whether Facebook campaigning is consistent with the Normalization or Equalization hypothesis, drawing on data from the election campaigns for the 20th Israeli Parliament in 2015. We looked at six indicators of Facebook activity (number of fans, number of posts, and scope of engagement [likes, comments, shares, and overall engagement]) of all parties running for the Knesset as well as candidates with realistic electability rankings. We found that a comparison between dominant and peripheral parties across all indicators is consistent with the Normalization hypothesis, but when it is framed in terms of expectations and is forward-looking rather than backward-looking, that is, the difference in Facebook performance is between parties that expect to gain a significant number of seats in the parliament, and those that do not anticipate significant parliamentary achievements.

The Digital Architectures of Social Media: Comparing Political Campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. Election

“…Apart from Kreiss et al’s (2017) study, the application of the affordances concept to politicians’ social media use is rare (see Stier, Bleier, Lietz, & Strohmaier, 2018, for a recent exception from Germany). This is most likely due to the fact that the large majority of studies on social media campaigning are single platform studies (Enli, 2017; Filimonov, Russmann, & Svensson, 2016; Freelon, 2017; Golbeck, Grimes, & Rogers, 2010; Graham, Broersma, Hazelhoff, & van’t Haar, 2013; Jürgens & Jungherr, 2015; Kreiss, 2016; Larsson & Moe, 2012; Lev-On & Haleva-Amir, 2018; Vergeer & Hermans, 2013). Most of the existing cross-platform analyses tend to cast their empirical gaze on citizens’ discussion networks about political issues (Halpern, Valenzuela, & Katz, 2017).…”

New medium, old strategies? Comparing online and traditional campaign posters for German Bundestag elections, 2013–2017

“…The latter is supported by studies showing minor parties’ stronger use of social media platforms (Gibson and McAllister, 2015; Larsson and Moe, 2014). In contrast, single-country studies support the normalisation hypothesis for the Swiss case (Klinger, 2013) and the Israeli case (Lev-On and Haleva-Amir, 2016). Likewise, the cross-national comparative study of Koc-Michalska et al (2016) reveals major parties’ advantages in Web 2.0 campaigning.…”

Silent Partners: How Politicians' Facebook Communication with Constituents is Mediated

“…Studies concerning representatives and social media typically focus on campaigning (Larsson and Svensson 2014). When this is not the case, they tend to concentrate on the products of social media activity such as analyses of texts and images from Facebook pages or differences between parties and politicians in places such as the United States (Glassman, Straus, and Shogan 2010; Golbeck, Grimes, and Rogers 2010; Hemphill, Otterbacher, and Shapiro 2013), the United Kingdom (Williamson 2009), Australia (Grant, Moon, and Busby Grant 2010), Sweden and Norway (Larsson and Kalsnes 2014), the European Parliament (Lilleker and Koc‐Michalska 2013), Brazil (Marques, Alves de Aquino, and Miola 2014) and Israel, where data were collected for this study (Akirav 2014; Haleva‐Amir 2015; Lev‐On and Haleva‐Amir 2018; Livak, Lev‐On, and Doron 2011). Studies dealing with politics and social media have also focused on elected officials' perceptions of social media use (Bürger and Ross 2014; Congressional Management Foundation 2011; Global Centre for ICT in Parliament 2012; Hoff 2004; Tenscher 2014; Williamson 2009; Williamson and Fallon 2011).…”