The use of social media in political campaign

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/disciplines/information_systems/egpa/docs/2013/DekkerMoody.pdf

Agenda setting
Agenda setting theory explains what issues and issue definitions reach the policy agenda (Cobb
& Elder 1972; Kingdon 1984; Baumgartner & Jones, 2009[1993]; Jones & Baumgartner 2005).
Studying policy agenda setting is important from the stance of democratic representation. A precondition for democratic representation is that decision-makers attend to the public agenda,
i.e. the set of issues that members of the public perceive as salient and their interpretations of these issues. If the represented and the representatives prioritize and define issues differently, representation does not occur (Jones & Baumgartner 2005: 255). The public agenda is however not uniform or static and it cannot be directly observed by the government. Moreover, governments generally deal with an oversupply of information. Many potential policy issues are at play and they can be interpreted in many different ways. The policy agenda can however only attend to a limited number of issues at a time and has to choose between different issue frames
(Simon 1957).
The public agenda is translated to the policy agenda via the public sphere (Habermas
1989 [1962]). The public sphere consists of different arenas in which policy debate takes place, for example courts, public commissions, councils of government, political party meetings, universities, magazines, newspapers, radio and television (Schön & Rein 1994). Politics and the media are traditionally regarded as bearers of the public sphere, elevating public opinions to the policy agenda (Cobb & Elder 1972). Media and politics are not mere communication channels, but they actively contribute to the creation of shared meaning of what issues are important and how they should be defined (Lievrouw & Livingstone 2002). They influence what issues decision-makers perceive as salient (agenda setting) and how they think about these issues
(framing) (McCombs & Shaw 1972: 176). Issue frames usually entail a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or recommendation for a solution (Entman
1993: 52).
Agenda setting theory has been developed with regard to traditional mass media such as newspapers, radio and television, but remains largely untested with regard to social media
(McCombs 2005; Meraz 2009). Every arena of policy debate has its own rules and discourse tends to conform to the locus where it takes place (Schön & Rein 1994). For many years, traditional media and political representation have been central to agenda setting research.
Scholars analyzed for example newspaper and television publications and political party programs and parliament hearings (Walgrave & Van Aelst 2006). Today, social media have become a new arena of policy debate bringing potentially different agenda dynamics to the table.
In other words, they will have their own agenda logic of prioritizing and framing issues. In the following paragraph I will outline what is known about and expected of social media with regard to policy agenda setting. Social media and agenda setting
‘Social media’ has become a popular buzzword that is used in many different ways. Some use it to refer only to a specific set of social networking sites, while others use it as a very general term including all kinds of digital technologies. In order to use it as a scientific concept, it is necessary to clearly demarcate what social media are and what they are not. I use the concept of ‘social media’ to describe a generation of media with certain technological features and social affordances. Taking into account the definitions of Lievrouw and Livingstone (2002) and Boyd and Ellison (2007), I define social media as online applications with a networked infrastructure that offer users the possibility to share user-generated content. They enable communication that is many-to-many instead of one-to-many – which is typical for traditional or mass media.
The actual forms in which social media exist and are used is not fully determined by technological features, but develops in relation to their social context. Technologies’ social affordances are dependent on how people are able and willing to appropriate technologies
(Gibson 1979; Hutchby 2001). As a consequence, social media exist in different shapes and sizes
(Kaplan & Haenlein 2010) such as social networking sites, weblogs, forums, picture-sharing sites and video-sharing sites. Social network sites are for example organized around personal networks whereas other social media such as particular forums and weblogs and are mostly organized around interest groups (Boyd & Ellison, 2008: 219). The conceptual boundaries between different social media and between what we would and would not call social media are becoming increasingly blurred. Today, social media platforms usually integrate multiple services such as status updates, chatting, photo- and videosharing. Also, many ‘Web 1.0’ applications now have a social component, such as a possibility to leave a review or an additional Facebook page or Twitter account that allows interaction with users.
Based on this conceptualization of social media, I argue that agenda setting power of social media is not inherent to the technology, but to the appropriation of this technology. Social media should primarily be considered as a medium that is able to bring public opinions to the policy debate. They should not be considered as an actor or interest group in itself. At any moment in time social media are communicating a plethora of messages from many different communities of interest. Uitermark (2011) compared the ways in which the online political movement Anonymous operates with a rhizomatic movement: likeminded gather in flexible and short-during communities of interest that split up again as quickly as they were formed. When other issues are at stake, people will gather in different configurations. This probably also applies to other social media movements. Even though social media are not representative of all citizens, by this dynamic they make the public agenda more directly available to government officials
(Hill & Hughes 1999; Jankowski & Van Selm 2000; Margolis & Resnick 2000; Dahlberg 2001;
Papacharissi 2001; Chadwick 2008).

http://nordicom.statsbiblioteket.dk/ncom/en/projects/social-media-and-agendasetting-in-election-campaigns(7429fcfa-421b-4c12-8419-1a0aa238580e).html

Social media and agenda-setting in election campaigns

Based on empirical studies the research project aims to discuss how the dynamics between social media and mainstream media in political agenda setting imposes changes on the public sphere. A key goal is to examine to what degree traditional power hierarchies and elite domination is challenged by the new forms of communications emerging in the intersection between social media and mainstream media.

The main aim is to analyze the impact of social media on election campaigns from a cross-media and cross-national perspective. The cross-media perspective implies that social media is studied in relation to mainstream media, and thus included in an inter-media agenda setting. A goal is to investigate to what degree journalists in different nations relate to and incorporate social media as editorial raw material. The cross-national perspective refers to an international comparison between four countries: Australia, Norway, USA and Sweden. A key goal is to analyze how politicians in countries of different sizes and with different election systems use social media as a tool of political communication.

The project will combine theoretical perspectives and empirical findings from studies in the field of political communication, with the recent growing interest in participation and user-generated media, which have accompanied the rise of social media and digital technologies. Methodologically, the project combines qualitative and quantitative studies, including social network analysis based on large datasets, content analysis of mainstream media, and interviews with news editors in print and broadcast media.
The research project is divided into five work packages:
USA: Cross-media campaigning in the Congressional and Presidential Election Campaigns, 2012.
Australia: Cross-media campaigning in the Federal parliamentary Election campaign, 2013.
Norway: Cross-media campaigning in the Parliamentary Election campaign, 2013.
Sweden: Cross-media campaigning in the Parliamentary Election campaign, 2014.
Cross-national comparisons, 2012-2015.

http://www.matthewhurst.com/2012/10/agenda-setting-how-social-media-empowers-opinion-leaders-and-influences-voters/
Agenda Setting: How social media empowers opinion leaders and influences voters

Comparing how the Presidential candidates are using new media this year, the 2008 race looks like the social media stone age. Back then Myspace was still the largest social network, Facebook was considered a mainstay for mostly students, and the most followed account on Twitter was then candidate Barack Obama. That campaign was noted for it’s pioneering use of new media, at a time when few politicians had social media profiles, but the benefits were immediately understood and adopted by nearly every campaign since 2008.
I was lucky to have a front row seat to the communications changes taking place that year, both as one of the early adopters of Twitter (when the site had only a million users) and as agraduate student in DC studying public communications. That fall I was enrolled inMatthew Nisbet‘s course in Communication Theory, learning all about agenda setting by the newsmedia and the role of opinion leaders in swaying public opinion. The 2008 elections proved a great working example to apply the theories I was learning.
Pulling together what I was learning about communications theory with my own experiences using social media (especially blogs) and observing its growing influence on politics, I wrote a report explaining the role of new media on agenda setting and opinion leadership. My review of relevant research showed that many bloggers had an active interest in shaping policy agendas, and that both journalists and young americans were increasingly reliant on blogs and online news as their main source for political information. Further research revealed that social media would change the spread of information by opinion leaders, building on real-life social networks and two-step flow of information that academics had observed as a key to influence over political opinion.
By using this academic understanding of communications, it was easy for me to anticipate the growing influence of social media on politics, even as most of the research had only begun to demonstrate the impact of blogs. It seems obvious now, but back in 2008many still thought social media was a fad and most were only beginning to understand the growing role of bloggers in the news cycle. YouTube had only recently made its initial splash into politics, exposing hypocrisy in hidden camera videos during the run-up to the 2006 mid-term elections; in 2012 another hidden camera video (of candidate Mitt Romney) made an impact on public opinion. Already in the 2010 election cycle we saw the growing impact of social media; a case study I worked on demonstrated somecorrelation between online discussion and elections - in 3 out of 4 contests the candidate most mentioned in social media was also the winner in their election.
In 2012 the media landscape has transformed again, and political campaigns embracing new media like never before- instant news and reactions on Twitter, virtual town halls on Reddit, and even smartphone apps for candidates – but the fundamentals of how news is made and shared remain consistent. Blogs continue to play a key role in agenda setting, andTwitter has evolved into an important echo chamber for sharing news (and occassionally misinformation and memes), just as email and message boards had in prior elections researched in my report. As the media used to spread news and promote ideas evolves, it becomes even more important to understand the theories behind communications and interpersonal influence. And as the candidates turn from influencing political opinion to mobilizing voters on election day, not to mention engaging with citizens after elections, they’ll again turn to social media to reach the public.

http://www.academia.edu/1510408/The_Use_of_the_Internet_and_Social_Media_in_U.S._Presidential_Campaigns_1992-2012

Distribution of Information
Clinton’s campaign took advantage of the Internet by creating a website that contained candidate biographies, their positions on policies, and the full text of speeches given by candidates (Hendricks and Kaid 4). He has referred to himself as “the president at the dawn of the Internet age” and emphasized that only around 50 websites existed online at the time when hetook office in 1992 (Korjen). Although his was the first website produced by a presidential candidate, it did not allow for engagement with citizens. In fact, web browsers did not actually exist at this time and Clinton’s online campaign was effectively limited to text-centered applications (Klotz 67). Overall, Clinton’s communications strategy still largely relied on traditional means of reaching the public through television, mass mailing, telephoning, etc. and only used the Internet as an information-sharing portal (Anderson 2). This basic use of the internet was innovative for its time but only allowed for one-way communication and lacked interaction with constituents.

http://socialmediatoday.com/diarmaid-byrne/338242/evolving-use-social-media-political-campaigns
Distribution of Message
1. Control communication using social media
No politician can control how the media uses and spins his message. One way around this is using social media channels to distribute the message. Also, with a large community eager to listen it is important to speak directly to them. Obama used YouTube to announce his reelection campaign. Twitter is a far more popular tool now than in 2008, and Obama’s campaign team have given it more importance by setting-up separate Twitter accounts for all 50 states to target state-relevant messages to supporters 2. Adapting to the increasing social integration and sharing features
Obama’s campaign team have included social features on www.barackobama.com, allowing users to log into the site with their Facebook accounts, making it easier to invite friends and share updates. The campaign team has also added an official Facebook app “Are You In”. 3. Smartphones and mobile apps
The official White House mobile app is a crucial element in building his community and communicating directly with supporters with alerts about speeches that can be watched live from the app, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and updates from the official blog

Recently, a great example of using social media to communicate directly to a community and leverage sharing features was by the Social Democratic party in Zurich. Rather than only broadcast their policies, the party used Facebook as a platform for voters to suggest ideas and vote on ideas that they would like to be put into practice. Once the candidates got elected they took the most popular ideas from Facebook and passed them as legislation. The video is here. Hopefully this inspires other parties to try similar campaigns.

http://asniku.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/final-essay-should-social-media-used-for-political-campaigns/

OVERVIEW / DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION The development of technology has changed patterns of interaction and communication among individuals. Many people use the internet to obtain information, discuss and share about some issues. In addition, most people are familiar with social media as media to interact or communicate with their friends, families, and colleagues’ today. Social media facilitates humans to distribute knowledge, experiences, ideas, and opinion among the users through electronic media such as Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and You Tube. (Stieglitz, Brockmann, & Dang-Xuan , 2012). Regarding the data in 2012, there are more than 900 million people who are members of the Facebook network and another social media is Twitter with more than 500 million people as users. (Forbes, 2012)
The development of social media has increased significantly in many countries. Regarding the political sector, social media influences patterns of political communication. According to Mcnair, cited in Riaz, political communication is the purpose of communication about politics. It means that politicians communicate with their voters with verbal and non-verbal communication, verbal communication is written argument and non-verbal communication means visual appearance, such as clothes, hairstyle and logo designs. (Riaz, 2010)
Today, many politicians or candidates use social media to obtain public support during campaigns and election times. It has enormous power because the internet has increased dramatically in young generations, especially for potential voters. They think social media has a real potential to disseminate messages quickly and across a wide area. Besides, they can reach the public easier than using traditional media, such as television, magazines, or newspapers.
On the other hand, there are issues about the weakness of social media. Some people argue that social media will be dangerous if political actors cannot utilize social media properly. This essay will consider arguments for the advantages and disadvantages using social media, covering in the characteristics of the message, the pattern of interaction and social and economic issues
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MESSAGE
A political message has significant power to gain sympathy from potential voters during election campaigns. Some politicians believe that the effectiveness of the message is an indicator to measure their success in elections. Therefore, they choose major media which is known by the wider community, such as television, newspaper and radio to transfer their political messages. Nevertheless, the emergence of the internet has strengthened the traditional print and electronic media. As a result, political actors decide to use social media to strengthen the effect of their message, which are delivered thorough other media.
The characteristics of the message in traditional print or electronic media obviously differ with the message in social networks. There are some advantages of spreading information in online campaigns. The first advantage is the message can be disseminated by candidates quickly and across a wide area (Brown, 2012). Additionally, online posting is efficient, because it provides discretion for candidates when spreading political messages, posting achievements, making statements or giving a response and publishing press releases in the short time. It is really efficient when spreading information to the society (Marchant, 2000). According to Brown (2012), President Barack Obama’s in 2008, maximized social media to communicate his messages faster and encourage people to donate. Surprisingly, this method was successful and received sympathy and funds from American society. Obama created around fifteen social networks, such as Facebook, Youtube, MySpace and others, which facilitated him to deliver potential messages to his potential voters.
Figure 1 Social Signals 2008 Election in the United States Source : David Anggoti, retrieved 12 September 2012,http://www.searchenginejournal.com7
Figure one illustrates how many citizens in the United States were members or followers of both candidates in social media. Obama had more Facebook supporters at 2.444.384 people than McCain at 627,459 people. In addition, Obama still was superior instead of McCain supporters in MySpace and Twitter. President Obama gained support from social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and You Tube. On the other hand, Senator McCain, who did not have social media as his strategy to gain financial support or spread information in order that he was not be able to achieve the same support as his rival. Finally, Obama won both the social media fight and election easily.
The usage of social media does not just give benefits for politicians or candidates, but voters can obtain proper knowledge and information about them properly. According to Marchant (2000) people can do research or look for information deeply about their favorite candidates. The most important factor is the candidate’s supporters can encourage their friends to vote and express their opinions related to their favorite candidates. Furthermore, voters can write messages, comments, publish and share information with their followers in Twitter (Kushin and Yamamoto in Smith, 2011). As a result, the political messages can spread quickly.
Furthermore, Wilson (2011) states voters have other advantages, they can access important data related to politicians or political parties, accept news, make political donations, give personal opinions in a short time. Therefore, easy access to get messages can raise political interest and activism.
However, there is a weakness of spreading messages through social media. According to Kucinich, cited in Smith (2011), Twitter as a social media just provides 140 characters and can distract political campaigns, when the candidates make mistakes in social media, it is so difficult to counter those mistakes because the incorrect messages travel faster and all people have already read those messages. Moreover, according to Pew report, 56% of respondents face difficulties to distinguish the correct information from on the internet.
In addition, information in the internet is enormous, so political users may also get overloaded information. As a result, they find it difficult to filter information and get valuable information related to the political actors when using a “search engine”. Furthermore, candidates who use online campaigns will increase incidents of candidate irritation, because political opponents can exploit social media to deliver negative campaigns. Consequently, it causes a threat of unfair strategies for political campaigns (Wilson, 2011).
THE PATTERN OF INTERACTION The ease of interaction is another benefit when using social media for political campaigns. It is a belief that many candidates have websites, blogs or social media to communicate or interact with their supporters and get their response (Riaz, 2010). He also said the politician has benefits because they accept criticism, advice, and opinions from voters and will reply directly. Additionally, Brown (2012) said that when candidates have a personal account in Twitter, the political actors and people have a shorter gap, so both of them can interaction personally.
Two way communication has been implemented in social media, while in other media, such as television and newspapers, the candidates only communicate with their potential voters through one way communication and there is no interaction between them. Marchant (2000) argues that online postings are really efficient so the candidates can make a statement or response.
Another benefit is voters can take a part from the political process as well as they can get precise information directly from candidates. More favourable is they do not be present at public speeches to listen political messages as well as to get the same perceptions of the political choices from candidates in one area. Therefore, candidates can utilize short time campaigns properly to deliver information about meaningful messages. Then, giving opportunities to the voters involved in discussions about some issues at anytime and anyplace with social networks on the internet (Wilson, 2011). Most importantly, Chen, Kushin and Kitchener, cited in Stieglitz, Brockmann and Xuan LD (2012) state the young generation have inspiration about political issues after communicating by using social networks as the communication media.
On the other hand, It has been argued that social media, like Facebook is basically a safe forum for communication with followers, but the candidates still must be vigilant of their Facebook status or comment because unless candidates are filtering every comment while interacting with voters, something could be published that is not true or does not represent their political mission, so the candidates should pay close attention when they communicate with their public. (Pearson and O’Connel, cited in Smith 2011)
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES The last advantage why social media is really common to deliver campaign messages because it is cheaper than other media. According to Hayness (2008) new media such as the internet has less expense, open to all people and it runs 24 hours for updates of all information. He also states that campaigns in the virtual world through social media are cheaper and more powerful than mobilization campaigns directly. In addition, candidates can make advertising less costly and also broadcast them on the internet continuously such as in blogs and You Tube. Those statements are strengthened by Wilson (2011), he argues social media has the ability to accelerate the news, spread reports to the potential voters in certain demographic areas, so it needs a low advertising cost.
Moreover, candidates find it possible to use this tool for fundraising. According to the New York Times, cited in Haynes (2008) during the first six months of 2007, three presidential candidates from the Democratic Party in the United States, Edwards and Obama raised more than 28 million dollars from online donations. According to Smith (2011) through social media like Facebook, Twitter and You Tube, political actors will continue to communicate with supporters and will obtain donations as a form of support for the candidates.
Moreover, traditional campaigns costs are expensive because the material should be printed. In contrast with online campaigns, politicians can effectively cut printing and delivery, so the cost will be zero. (Wilson, 2011).
Although it cannot be denied that true social media is cheap, but social media cannot reach all voters. Raiz (2010) argues that only the wealthy can access the internet. Besides that, in some developing countries there is a lack of technology and limited internet connection. Usage of social media cannot be implemented in some countries because of the regulations set by their governments. According to Wilson (2011) China, North Korea, and Vietnam as a communist and authoritarian states are recognized for limiting internet access and controling internet users.
In addition, social media is only popular for the young generation based on OECD (2009), cited in Stieglitz, Brockmann, and Xuan argue that young people spend more time getting information in the internet than watching television or reading news papers. Based on data in Wilson (2011), 95 % of young Japanese have access to the internet. They use the internet to get news, information, and communicate. Therefore, social networks cannot reach old people as potential voters.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, although there are several drawbacks of using social media in political campaigns. In my opinion, social media is still a powerful media to spread political messages, because candidates can use these tools to receive sympathy and trust from voters. Social media connects thousands of volunteers or potential voters. It provides quickly and accurate information. In addition, the usage of social media reduces the cost of political campaigns. Importantly, the last benefit is internet users are increasing now, therefore it is really effective to use this media in today’s technological era.
References
Anggoti, D., 2011. No Debate About It. [Online]
Available at: http://www.searchenginejournal.com7
[Accessed 15 September 2012 ]. Bhuiyan, S., 2012. Social Media and Its Effectiveness in the Political Reform Movement in Egypt. Middle East Media Educator,vol. I , retrieved 1 August 2012,

References: Anggoti, D., 2011. No Debate About It. [Online] Available at: http://www.searchenginejournal.com7 [Accessed 15 September  2012 ].  Bhuiyan, S., 2012. Social Media and Its Effectiveness in the Political Reform Movement in Egypt. Middle East Media Educator,vol. I , retrieved 1 August 2012,