Political Para-Social Relationship as a Predictor of Voting Preferences in the Israeli 2019 Elections

Abstract

The idea that the success of media personae in attracting audiences and maintaining their loyalty depends on the creation of a pseudo-friendship, known as para-social relationships, has been a mainstay of mass media research for more than half a century. Expanding the scope of para-social relationship research into the political realm, the notion that political support could be predicted based on the intensity of para-social relationships between voters and political figures was demonstrated in a recent study. The current exploration tests the predictive power of Political Para-Social Relationship (PPSR) in the context of the April and September 2019 Israeli election campaigns. Findings from online panel data ( n = 1,061) demonstrate that PPSR toward Netanyahu was a positive predictor of voting for Netanyahu’s Likud party and a negative predictor of voting for opposition leader Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party in both campaigns. The opposite was true for PPSR toward Benny Gantz. The PPSR constructs also predicted shifts in party support from the February to October (post-election) waves of the study, and loyalty toward the parties. In all models, the PPSR constructs were among the strongest predictors of political support.

Online Fake News Opinion Spread and Belief Change: A Systematic Review

“…Trust is, therefore, a psychological construct, and it was one of the central drivers of opinion formation [79,80] and belief change for the works reviewed in this dimension [52]. Trust in celebrities, namely, parasocial relationships [65], and social network INFLs was exploration topics. It was seen that INFLs can significantly affect people's opinions on different issues [52,54] and that trust in the information source is an essential driver of belief change.…”

The Presence of Political Parasocial Interaction in the Websites of U.S. Senators

“…As politicians find more ways to connect with the public, the public grows more receptive to prioritizing personality over politics. 28 Hence, the biography section is an opportunity for senators to express their commitment to family, in the process attributing themselves with widely favored traits such as hard work and humility. Nearly all websites mentioned senators' family members by name, some even including pets to further endear the user to their political persona.…”

Populismo de extrema derecha y redes sociales: ¿el futuro de la democracia en juego?

“…Es el caso de algunos de los perfiles que se identifican en TikTok relacionados con la extrema derecha española. En este sentido, y como fase final de la investigación del proyecto DATAPOP, hemos analizado algunos de estos perfiles para observar hasta qué punto sus estrategias pueden fomentar la interacción parasocial y la creación de vínculos emocionales con la audiencia, factor mediador en el proceso de formación de actitudes políticas y de toma de decisiones (Tsfati et al, 2022). En líneas generales, se ha podido observar que en la mayoría de los casos el contenido de estos perfiles se adapta a las dinámicas de TikTok, ya que siguen los códigos y el lenguaje propios de la aplicación.…”