Social media echo chambers and satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections

There is widespread evidence that individuals select information that supports their convictions and worldviews. This behavior yields the formation of echo chambers – environments in which an individual’s own political beliefs are repeated and amplified and dissenting opinions are screened out. Recent research demonstrates that social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter can facilitate this selection into homogenous networks. Using data from a representative nation-wide online survey, we consider the degree to which respondents’ social media networks resemble virtual echo chambers. We then analyze the effect of these social media echo chambers on satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections. Our findings reveal that virtual echo chambers boost democratic satisfaction among Republicans but they do not have an effect on system support by self-identified Democrats. Our paper therefore adds to a growing literature linking online behaviors to mass attitudes about politics.     

When Treatments are Tweets: A Network Mobilization Experiment over Twitter

This study rigorously compares the effectiveness of online mobilization appeals via two randomized field experiments conducted over the social microblogging service Twitter. In the process, we demonstrate a methodological innovation designed to capture social effects by exogenously inducing network behavior. In both experiments, we find that direct, private messages to followers of a nonprofit advocacy organization’s Twitter account are highly effective at increasing support for an online petition. Surprisingly, public tweets have no effect at all. We additionally randomize the private messages to prime subjects with either a “follower” or an “organizer” identity but find no evidence that this affects the likelihood of signing the petition. Finally, in the second experiment, followers of subjects induced to tweet a link to the petition are more likely to sign it—evidence of a campaign gone “viral.” In presenting these results, we contribute to a nascent body of experimental literature exploring political behavior in online social media.     

Baby Boom or Bust? the New Media Effect on Political Participation

A considerable number of studies have investigated the influence of new media on political attitudes and behaviors. However, much of this research focuses on young people, ignoring other age cohorts, particularly Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964). To fill this gap, this research examines the influence of attention to specific forms of traditional and online media on Baby Boomers’ online and offline political participation during the fall 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. Drawing on a Baby Boomer survey panel, responses were collected during the 2012 general election to analyze the empirical relationship between attention to traditional and online media sources and political participation. Data analyses reveal that Boomers’ attention to traditional media sources, particularly television, did not increase their offline and online political participation. Instead, various forms of offline and online participation were consistently heightened by Boomers’ attention to presidential candidate websites. In addition, attention to Facebook for campaign information was positively linked to online engagement. Boomers’ attention to blogs, Twitter, and YouTube were associated with only certain types of online and offline activities.     

Can Social Media Predict Election Results? Evidence From New Zealand

The importance of social media for election campaigning has received a lot of attention recently. Using data from the 2011 New Zealand general election and the size of candidates’ social media networks on Facebook and Twitter, we investigate whether social media is associated with election votes and probability of election success. Overall, our results suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between the size of online social networks and election voting and election results. However, the size of the effect is small and it appears that social media presence is therefore only predictive in closely contested elections.     

Negative Campaigning in the Social Media Age: Attack Advertising on Facebook

Recent studies examine politicians’ decisions to use social media, as well as the content of the messages that these political actors disseminate on social media platforms. We contribute to this literature by examining how race competitiveness and a candidate’s position in the race relative to her opponent affect their decisions to issue attacks. Through content analysis of nearly 15,000 Facebook posts for tone (positive or negative), we find that while competitive races encourage both candidates to issue more negative posts, candidates in less competitive races embrace attack messages with more or less frequency depending on whether they trail or lead their opponent. We find that social media negativity is much more likely to be a desperation strategy employed by underdog candidates in less competitive races. We also run separate models examining the factors that drive policy and personal attacks. While underdog candidates are more likely to engage in issue attacks, candidates in competitive races are significantly more likely to use Facebook to make personal attacks.     

Do Online Advertisements Increase Political Candidates’ Name Recognition or Favorability? Evidence from Randomized Field Experiments

Internet advertisements are an increasingly common form of mass communication and present fresh opportunities for understanding enduring questions about political persuasion. However, the effects of online ads on electoral choice have received little scholarly attention. We develop a new field experimental approach for assessing the effects of online advertisements and deploy it in two studies. In each study, candidates for legislative office targeted randomly selected segments of their constituencies for a high volume of Facebook advertising. Recall of the ads, candidate name recognition, and candidate evaluations were measured with ostensibly unrelated telephone surveys after weeklong advertising campaigns. Voters randomly exposed to the ads were in some cases more likely to recall them but no more likely to recognize or positively evaluate the candidates they depicted. From a theoretical standpoint, these findings suggest that even frequent exposure to advertising messages may be insufficient to impart new information or change attitudes.     

The comparative effectiveness of populist rhetoric in generating online engagement

Worldwide, voters are supporting populist candidates who promise to upend “politics as usual.” Despite all we know about populism, we still do not know how individuals respond to populist content during campaigns, particularly compared to other common content in liberal democracies. This paper adapts framing theory to an online electoral context to argue that populist campaign messages will generate more online engagement compared to three alternative conceptions of the relationship between the people and the elites: pluralism, technocracy, and neutral messages. The paper adapts Snow and Benford's seminal 1988 theory of resonance to studies of populist communication and assess whether populism resonates more with online social media users. An original dataset using the campaign Tweets of 22 national-level actors across five countries is used to test the theory: Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Italy, and Spain (N = 1777). The findings suggest that citizens on Twitter engage with populism more than its alternatives in certain contexts.     

What Does Credibility Look like? Tweets and Walls in U.S. Presidential Candidates’ Visual Storytelling

This study considers the social media visual messaging of four candidates in the 2012 U.S. Republican presidential primary campaign. The analysis is guided by symbolic convergence theory, its method of fantasy theme analysis, and visual rhetoric theory. Using a schema of visual attributes, this study analyzes a rhetorical strategy of candidates' campaigns: the pictorial “public diary” found on their official Facebook and Twitter pages. It reveals how the credibility character traits of trustworthiness and expertise appear in the candidates' visual narratives, what messages dominate, and how candidates differ in succeeding or failing to visually communicate credibility. This study has important implications for how political management can use images in crafting and assessing messaging strategies in a competitive environment.     

Normalization on the politicians’ messages level,equalization on the citizens’ discussions level: the 2015 Israeli elections campaign on Facebook

ABSTRACT

The question whether online social networks allow political challengers equal access to incumbents (equalization) or perpetuate the gaps between candidates (normalization) during an election campaign is central to political science studies. While so far, studies have relied on top-down analyses of citizens’ engagement with politicians’ messages to address the issue, we complemented this method with a bottom-up approach via analysis of independent citizen discussions of the different contenders on Facebook during the 2015 Israeli elections campaign. This approach is particularly relevant to social networks, where citizens are not only consumers but also producers of political information. Our study revealed that, whereas PM Netanyahu's posts attracted the most engagement, indicating normalization, on the citizen discussions realm contenders Herzog and Livni attracted more mentions, as well as Shares, Likes and participants than did PM Netanyahu. In addition, contender Bennett's posts managed to generate more Likes than PM Netanyahu, indicating equalization on the bottom-up level. These optimistic results highlight citizens’ discussion realms as a platform characterized by a more desired democratic discourse than that which can be found on politicians’ pages and emphasize the importance of including this realm in future analyses of equalization versus normalization.     

Understanding the Social Media Strategies of U.S. Primary Candidates

This paper examines the social media strategies of candidates seeking their party’s nomination for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We use textual analysis to understand what candidates focused on. We assess eight themes covered in Twitter posts. For example, Clinton focused on GUN CONTROL, while Sanders focused on climate change. Using Facebook data, we introduce a topic modeling approach, latent Dirichlet allocation, to the political marketing literature. This allows us to uncover what topics the candidates focus on without researcher intervention and, using a dynamic model, show how this changes over time. We note that Clinton’s focus on Trump increases toward the end of the primary campaign.     

典型宣传效应"短期化"现象透视

文章分析了典型宣传效应短期化的原因，如宣传环境的相对恶化，典型宣传过于突出政治性，宣传没有注重对位，同时提出了一些建议，如营造激励上进的舆论环境，坚持政治性与文化性的统一，找准典型宣传和受众思想的“结合部”。     

The logic of anti-Zionism: Soviet elites in the aftermath of the Six-Day War

Despite the opening of Soviet archives, and the surge in scholarly interest in anti-Zionism, scholars have not used declassified archive documents to shed new light on Soviet anti-Zionism in the wake of the Six-Day War. Based on such documents, Gjerde’s article challenges a view of post-1967 Soviet anti-Zionism that has been prevalent since it emerged during the Cold War: that it represented a ‘disguised’ form of antisemitism that Soviet leaders used as a political tool. To the contrary, Gjerde argues, the archive documents suggest Soviet anti-Zionism was more than a propaganda invention. Within higher Soviet echelons, a particular logic existed that fostered a view of ‘Zionism’ as an immense, conspiratorial threat to the Soviet Union. In one sense, this logic grew out of a more general tendency to view nonconformity as conspiracy: the Soviets had established extremely narrow boundaries for what constituted acceptable Jewish identity; and, when some Soviet Jews began to voice nationalist sentiments after the Six-Day War, Soviet leaders saw this expression of nonconformity as essentially a hostile act, warranting severe counter-measures. This is not to say Soviet anti-Zionism was not antisemitic but rather that to explain it merely as a propaganda tool is to ignore much of the complexity of its emergence.     

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Methods? Methodological Games and Role Play

In terms of gamification within political science, some fields—particularly international relations and American politics—have received more attention than others. One of the most underserved parts of the discipline is research methods; a course that, coincidentally, is frequently cited as one that instructors hate to teach and students hate to take. Given the well-documented merits of games in promoting student engagement and the key role of methods as a building block to student understanding of political science, this article attempts to rectify this oversight by introducing three games—Zendo, Murder Mystery, and the Archeologist’s Quandary— geared at teaching key concepts and approaches in research methods.     

Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy

Gordon Tullock is one of the most important of the founders and contributors to Public Choice. Two innovations are typical ??Tullock Challenges.?? The first relates to method: the measurement of subjective well-being, or happiness. The second relates to digital social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and to some extent Google. Both innovations lead to strong incentives by governments to manipulate the policy outcomes. In general, ??What is important will be manipulated by the government.?? To restrain government manipulation, one has to turn to Constitutional Economics and increase the possibilities for direct popular participation and federalism or introduce random mechanisms.     

儿童电视广告的诉求对象分析

儿童广告主要是指为儿童用品所做的广告,儿童电视广告就是指以电视为传播媒介的儿童广告。儿童作为儿童用品的主要消费者,有消费的能力,却没有购买消费品的财力。所以,儿童电视广告不能单独以儿童为诉求对象,有时也要以儿童的家长作为诉求对象,或者把两者共同作为诉求对象。从儿童的生理、心理特征,以及产品类别两个角度对儿童电视广告的诉求对象进行了分析。     

Introduction: Ideology,Propaganda, and Political Discourse in the Xi Jinping Era

The ideology, propaganda, and political discourse of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have continued to function as key elements of the political system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the post-Maoist period since 1978. In the first term of the Xi Jinping leadership (2012–2017), the CPC, for instance, elaborated on its guiding ideological concepts, devised inventive ideational framings of phenomena usually perceived as tangible (such as the “New Normal”), engaged in complex intellectual debates on crucial topics (such as “eco-civilization”), intensified and diversified its argumentation patterns and discursive strategies, and consolidated ideational governance over some citizens’ individual values, beliefs, and loyalties. Furthermore, it is often no longer possible to differentiate between the CPC’s internal and external propaganda, as seemingly exclusively domestic ideational and discursive issues increasingly correlate with international phenomena. However, the trends in the Xi era do not present paradigmatic shifts, but rather an overall reassertion-cum-innovation of previous Maoist and post-Maoist uses of ideology, propaganda, and political discourse, primarily aiming at strengthening one-party rule.     

Passage to cyberactivism: how dynamics of activism change

The boost to activism to which the internet has largely contributed has been underlined by financial and image issues growing from hacker attacks and the online promotion of activist groups. Emergency corporate counteractions with regard to these cyber threats have not analysed this new phenomenon. The state of the research in this area has consistently remained at the period before the development and widespread use of the internet. Cyberactivism, therefore, is a cyber phenomenon without a clear meaning or a clear definition. In order to understand cyberactivism, it is important to understand that it is much more than simply about hacking and activists' online promotion. It is a new phenomenon, growing out of activism but changing the pressure on corporations. With the internet, new dynamics of issue selection have been established and a different aggregation within groups has taken place. A new organisational set‐up among activist groups puts new pressure on corporations, which must develop new strategies concerning online rules. Cyber actions are originated by individuals triggering a spontaneous relationship between many users. The pressure is no longer the result of a long aggregation into association, but of an immediate and spontaneous network of relationships. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Policy or person? What voters want from their representatives on Twitter

Social media have the potential to transform democracies as they allow for direct contact between representatives and represented. Politicians can use social media to show their policy positions but they can also give insight into their private lives. Based on survey experiments in Germany and Switzerland we show that social media messages about politicians’ private lives rather deter voters. Instead, we find that voters prefer candidates that communicate policy positions. The effect of a policy-oriented communication style on Twitter can even lead to appreciating a politician from a different party in Switzerland, which has an electoral system that gives a strong incentive to cultivate a personal vote.     

‘Loose tweets sink fleets’ and other sage advice: social media governance,policies and guidelines

While social media represents a broad range of benefits to organisations and institutions, such as enhanced brand engagement, it also presents challenges and risks to reputation and security, such as confidentiality breaches. Employee use of popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, both at work and about work has resulted in organisations developing social media policies and guidelines as part of contemporary governance practice. This paper investigates this recent approach to corporate governance by examining 20 social media policies and guidelines from a sample of corporate, government and third sector organisations that are active social media users. It develops a basic framework for social media governance based on the 13 common themes that emerge from the sample, including confidentiality, disclosure and the public–private divide of social media usage. It draws on social contract theory and considers its importance to the field of social media governance. Key implications for managers who are tasked with developing and implementing social media policies and guidelines are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Examining Strategic Narratives in Chinese Official Discourse under Xi Jinping

Research suggests that over the last two decades China has undergone dramatic changes in its communication climate. The former mono-glossic environment has made way for a plurality of voices, now debating (non-sensitive) political, social and economic issues on online fora. While this has contributed to a more consultative state-society relationship, the leadership still wields the conductor’s baton over the ensemble of voices to ensure adherence to the main melody. The uneasy coexistence of transformation and conservatism is especially salient when it comes to propaganda and soft power, which the Chinese authorities fully deploy to disseminate their vision of the ‘China story’ abroad and to legitimize continued CCP rule at home. This paper examines the various strategic narratives that cumulatively constitute this ‘China story’, designed for the international as well as domestic audiences. It looks into divergences/convergences with the political discourse of previous generations of leadership by examining argumentation patterns and discursive strategies used in speeches and texts produced by top-level officials and their ‘core’ leader, Xi Jinping. While, on the surface, new slogans, such as ‘the Chinese dream’, the ‘New Normal’, the ‘Four Comprehensives’, the ‘Community of Common Destiny’ appear to be Xi Jinping’s hallmark, and cumulatively contribute to the all-encompassing official doctrine of ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, no paradigmatic ideological change emerges from the narratives. Yet, the strategies utilised to spread ‘the China story’ are more diverse, the conductor’s baton is held more tightly, the main melody is chanted more loudly and the echoes are carried further abroad over the mountains and seas via the new Silk Road initiatives to present an alternative world order of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’.