Abstract:Political communication has transformed drastically since the Internet made its way into the political arena. Political parties seem unable to do without a website or a social networking profile any longer, particularly in election campaigns. One of the many approaches to studying online political communication is measuring specific website features political parties, politicians and candidates utilize in order to engage visitors in the political process. Even though the analysis of online political communicat… Show more
“…Although comparably early efforts found differences based on ideological directions (e.g. Gibson, 2004;Kalnes, 2009;Lilleker & Malagón, 2010;Vaccari, 2008a), more recent publications appear to find a decreasing effect of ideology on the online performance of politicians (Lilleker et al, 2011), suggesting an ongoing process of "deideologization" (Schweitzer, 2008)-especially tangible, it would seem, in the context of Twitter use (Vergeer & Hermans, 2013;Vergeer et al, 2012). To test for the influence of incumbency and ideologies on the permanence of Twitter use, the status of the eight party groups to which each representative belongs was noted in the data set.…”
ABSTRACT. Although conceptual efforts have often suggested that the Internet harbors considerable possibilities to revolutionize political participation, empirical studies have often presented rather limited impacts in this regard. Nevertheless, novel online services such as Twitter are still pointed to as having potential to be employed by citizens and politicians alike. Utilizing state-of-the-art data collection methods, this study builds on the suggestions of previous research and gauges the degree to which EU parliamentarians make use of Twitter for so-called permanent campaigning. Specifically, the paper seeks to assess the degree to which Twitter use by European Parliament representatives can be described as being characterized by permanence-a concept related to the professionalization of political campaigns. Thus, by examining these uses outside of election periods, the study provides useful insights into the day-to-day uses of Twitter, contributing to the limited body of work focusing on the everyday online practices of politicians.
“…Although comparably early efforts found differences based on ideological directions (e.g. Gibson, 2004;Kalnes, 2009;Lilleker & Malagón, 2010;Vaccari, 2008a), more recent publications appear to find a decreasing effect of ideology on the online performance of politicians (Lilleker et al, 2011), suggesting an ongoing process of "deideologization" (Schweitzer, 2008)-especially tangible, it would seem, in the context of Twitter use (Vergeer & Hermans, 2013;Vergeer et al, 2012). To test for the influence of incumbency and ideologies on the permanence of Twitter use, the status of the eight party groups to which each representative belongs was noted in the data set.…”
ABSTRACT. Although conceptual efforts have often suggested that the Internet harbors considerable possibilities to revolutionize political participation, empirical studies have often presented rather limited impacts in this regard. Nevertheless, novel online services such as Twitter are still pointed to as having potential to be employed by citizens and politicians alike. Utilizing state-of-the-art data collection methods, this study builds on the suggestions of previous research and gauges the degree to which EU parliamentarians make use of Twitter for so-called permanent campaigning. Specifically, the paper seeks to assess the degree to which Twitter use by European Parliament representatives can be described as being characterized by permanence-a concept related to the professionalization of political campaigns. Thus, by examining these uses outside of election periods, the study provides useful insights into the day-to-day uses of Twitter, contributing to the limited body of work focusing on the everyday online practices of politicians.
“…Previous research shows that in the Dutch European Parliament elections of 2009 the progressive‐liberal party D66 used Twitter most extensively (Vergeer, Hermans & Sams, forthcoming); the Democrats in the US used Facebook during the elections for the House of Representatives in 2006 and 2008 more extensively than did the Republicans (Gulati & Williams, ). Also, the more left‐wing elected candidates for EP were, the more they used informing website features in their campaign websites (Vergeer, Hermans & Cunha, forthcoming). Because the findings regarding whether candidates from left‐wing and progressive or right‐wing and conservative parties are more likely to adopt and use microblogging are still inconclusive, we pose the following research question: RQ 1 To what degree is ideology related to candidates' adoption and microblogging activity?…”
“…Only a handful of studies have so far attempted to encompass broader, pan-European territory and wider range of communication technologies (e.g. Vergeer, Hermans & Cunha, 2013).…”
Section: Comparative Research On Online Political Campaigningmentioning
This paper analyses changing strategies of election campaign communication in a rapidly evolving media environment, characterized by the rise of digital communication channels and online social networks as new tools of political campaigning. Using an expert survey to campaign managers of sixty eight political parties within twelve European nations, representing both old and new EU member states, the study investigates the perceived importance of different types of communication platforms in meeting campaign objectives, especially with regards to differences between new and direct modes of campaigning in comparison to traditional campaign channels. The attributed significance to these various channels is then analysed against a range of variables on macro (country) level as well as meso (party) level. The results suggest that while some differences can be observed in regards to adoption of particular types of social media between individual parties as well as between new and old EU member states (e.g. Facebook is seen as more important in younger democracies), overall we can see a relatively high level of homogeneity in strategies for campaign communication in the sample. The data points to the embedding of new communication platforms within election campaign strategies across most nations and parties; this indicates that the move towards "hypermedia" campaign style, integrating both old and new campaign tools and communication platforms, is now becoming a standard feature of professional campaigning in Europe.
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