clicking responses on social media: analysis of audience...
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Clicking Responses on Social Media: Analysis of Audience Engagement on Posts and Tweets of MNAs of Pakistan
Savera Shami
Some scholars strongly believe that digital public relations through
Social Media is the most emerging form worldwide and it is the
future of Political Public Relations. Many scholars have supported
the idea that the politicians are using social media to build their
political image and are not doing much to create a relationship and
discourse with their voters. This also strengthen the prevailing idea
that regardless of the potential advantages, politicians tend to
hesitate the active involvement of online users (Hoffmann and
Suphan, 2017).The primary goal of this study is to explore a
relationship between the posts and tweets of the Members of
National Assembly of Pakistan (MNAs) and the audience
involvement by investigating the type of Facebook posts and
tweets that generate more audience engagement. The analysis of
audience engagement would help politicians to know what they
should post and what should be avoided if they want to have more
followers and cultivate a lifelong relationship with their audience.
Introduction
Over the last 10 years there has been an enormous increase in the
importance of new technology and hence, the exploration has amplified tenfold.
Some scholars strongly believe that digital public relations through Social Media is
the most emerging form worldwide and it is the future of Political Public Relations.
Social Media has changed the conditions and rules of social interaction. The
dialogical, interactive and relational global properties of digital media have forced
public relations practitioners to abandon their traditional one-way, message-
oriented, asymmetrical and ethnocentric paradigm of practice (Grunig, 2009)).
Since social media stimulates two-way communication, it gives an opportunity to
build-up a dialogue with a larger audience, social media offers possibilities to
cultivate and maintain relationships to the users. The existing literature shows that
politicians, like others, have also been using social media for the purpose of PR and
political communication. Social Media tools are now considered to be extremely
effective means of self-publicity and promotion.Being a direct channel of
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communication, Social Media is making it easier for politicians to bypass the
heavily mediated connections offered by traditional media (Hallahan, Holtzhausen,
Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007) and to “draw the public’s attention”
(Broersma and Graham, 2012) to the issues of their own choice;thereby
empowering the politicians and giving them an opportunity to cultivate the
relationship with the audience through direct communication. It is said that
communication is the spine of political strategy and public relations. Newer
platforms like Facebook and Twitter have made this more flexible, they have
provided new avenues for politicians, including personalized messages and
exchange with the specific communities of interest. Facebook posts and Twitter
feeds have the power to rotate the whole political mood in an upside notation
(Frame and Brochette, 2015). These newer platforms have also given access to
political leaders to personalize their profiles and bring forward information and
shed light on their own views that have the capacity to change the opinion of
masses. That is why, now widespread adoption of social media is challenging the
way traditional media have been used to disseminate news and to debate on most
important social and political issues (Yang, Chen, Maity, & Ferrara, 2016).
The politicians and citizens link and communicate on social media, boost
digital engagement through likes, shares and comments that increase their visibility
in public. The politicians are using social media and posting the content of their
own choice with the intention to form the public opinion and sometimes to lead and
direct the discussion. Most of the literature demonstrate that the central purpose of
political public relations is to consume media channels to convey specific political
issues in order to gain public support for political policies (Froehlich and Rüdiger,
2006). But on the contrary, it has also been observed that states people are
engrossed with their political image and not concerned much about engaging in a
discourse with their voters (Momoc, 2013), while the social media idealists believe
that digital political public relations infer huge involvement of the consumers,
means the audience. Many scholars have supported the idea that the politicians are
using social media to build their political image and are not doing much to create a
relationship and discourse with their votes. This also strengthen the prevailing idea
that regardless of the potential advantages, politicians tend to hesitate the active
involvement of online users (Hoffmann and Suphan, 2017). The internet has
become an increasingly effective tool for the people to not only get political
knowledge, but to become a part of political process itself but unfortunately
communicators tend to use new media in the same way they used the old media
(Grunig, 2009).
In this scenario, various scholars have suggested that it is imperative to
study that how elected representatives present themselves to their voters in order to
increase their chances of getting elected again (Koop and Marland (2012).
According to Taylor and Kent (2010) the scholarship in public relations and social
media should spread onto more important issues as most of the attention of the
research has been to study technology interfaces (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), instead
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of subjects involving shareholders, publics, communication, interpersonal issues
etc. In many cases it has been observed that they don’t respond to the audience on
Social Media, thus involving themselves in one-way communication, undermining
the scope of Social Media. If the politicians are interested in generating more
audience and gain social capital, then they must be aware of the fact that what type
of posts and tweets are more liked and shared by the audience. The primary goal of
this study is to explore a relationship between the posts and tweets of the Pakistani
MNAs and the audience involvement by investigating the type of Facebook posts
and tweets that generate more audience engagement. The analysis of audience
engagement would help the politicians to know what they should post and what
should be avoided if they want to have more followers and cultivate a life long
relationship with their audience. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to
explore the level of audience engagement across different purpose, nature and
language of posts or tweets of MNAs which would help in analysing their
relationship cultivation strategy.
1.1. Research Questions
In the light of the literature studied, the following research question have been
formulated:
R.Q.1. Does level of audience engagement differ across different purpose of posts
and tweets of MNAS of Pakistan?
R.Q.2. Does level of audience engagement differ across different PR tactics of
posts and tweets of MNAS of Pakistan?
R.Q.3. Does level of audience engagement differ across language of posts and
tweets of MNAS of Pakistan?
Relationship Cultivation and Management: Review of Literature
The audience engagement reflects the relationship cultivation strategy of
users, as more audience engagement means better relationship and less audience
engagement means not so good relationship with the audience. There are not much
studies on Relationship Cultivation and Management, Karlsson, Clerwall and
Buskqvist (2013) stated that there aren't sufficient studies done on relationship
management in digital political public relations. The authors investigated whether
political parties are utilizing the digital media platform for long-term commitment
and reciprocity using the 2010 Swedish campaign election as a case study. The
result indicates that social media tools are mainly used at the time of the election
and just before that, it was observed that the exchange between the parties and the
voters is weak and insubstantial. There were some differences in frequency of use,
but all parties shared the same activity pattern. The aggregated predictive model
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classified retweeting behavior with a success rate of 76.7%. The number of
followers of the one originating the tweet matters significantly in retweeting
behavior and when the emotion of the tweet is negative it appears to be retweeted
more which is quite the opposite of the previous work (East, Hammond, & Wright,
2007; Wu, 2013). In addition, certain types of tweet content are associated with
very low level retweeting, such as tweets including the originator’s personal life,
whereas the content related to fear appeals or expressions support for others also
get high levels of retweeting. Furthermore, Hoffmann and Suphan (2017) explained
the significance of social media and how it provided new avenues for politicians,
including personalized messages and exchange with the specific communities of
interest. However, regardless of the potential advantages, politicians tend to
hesitate an active involvement of online users. In this scholarship the author studied
the influence and impact of politicians' online boundary management on the use of
social platforms. The connections made by social media profiles could be
entrenched in diversity of social backgrounds ("Contextual collapse"). Professional
communicators faced difficulties in the management of the division between the
professional and the private online self-presentation.
In addition to this, Stanyer (2008) talks about the image politicians create
of themselves to their voters using the Internet. The article talks about various
methods used by the serving study of 106 German parliamentarians, the author
explained the four different types of boundary management schemes and analyzes
the effect of these on the social media usage of politicians to better understand
politicians' online engagement and government officials online self-publicity.
Similarly, Seltzer and Zhang (2010) surveyed the relationship that citizens have
with their political parties, using 2008 presidential general election as a case study.
The author used the telephone survey method to collect data of listed voters (n 1⁄4 508), and he examined the communication between politically significant
connection predecessors, relationship- farming tactics employed by political parties
and results of the relationship to test a model of political organization- public
relationships (POPRs). Time, interpersonal trust, mediated communication,
interpersonal communication, and dialogic communication emerged as significant
predictors of POPR strength. The finding put the groundwork for future
investigation of POPRs.
The review of the existing literature has identified numerous research gaps
and unexplored research areas that are worthy of investigation. So far, many studies
have discussed the importance and significance of social media for political
communication and political public relation but there are not many studies
available which examined the use of social media by the political actors in context
of relationship cultivation and reputation management strategies. Therefore, the
review of the literature mentioned here provides the basis for the research questions
being explored in the study. This study is focused to explore the type of posts and
tweets of MNAs which are getting more audience engagement in order to analyse
the quality of the relationship cultivated with the audience.
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3.0. Relationship Cultivation Theory: Conceptual Framework
As this research is based on the analysis of relationship cultivation strategy
of MNAs through audience engagement so the conceptual framework of this
research is revolved around Relationship Cultivation Theory, developed in the
context of public relations. Organizational study has demonstrated that any
organization’s behavior can affect the status of its relationship with the strategic
publics. Organizations cannot merely maintain relationships with the publics, but
must devote time and resources to improve their relationships and/or restore any
damaged relationships. To properly cultivate relationships with their strategic
publics or stakeholders, organizations/persons can integrate a range of relationship
cultivation tactics into their day-to-day communication activities.
Relationship cultivation strategies originated from theories of interpersonal
relations (Canary & Stafford, 1994) specifically romantic relationships (Stafford,
Dainton & Hass, 2000). Public relation researchers (e.g., Grunig & Huang, 2000)
“transformed the concept of relationship cultivation strategies in interpersonal
communication and applied the strategies to Public Relations” (Hon & Grunig,
1999). Relationship cultivation tactics are day-to-day communication activities
employed by organization/persons to improve the quality of its relationships with
various publics or stakeholders and are often considered proactive approaches to
fostering high quality relationships. From a general standpoint of Public Relations,
Hon and Grange (1999) introduced five indicators that are commitment,
satisfaction, relationship quality, trust and control mutuality. The most effective
strategies, which have been identified to produce positive relationship outcomes
(Grunig & Huang, 2000), are “access, positivity, openness, sharing tasks,
networking, and assurances” (Hung-Baesecke & Chen, 2013; Ki & Hon, 2009). In
a study of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Seltzer and Zhang (2010) explored
“the impact of the relationship maintenance strategies of mediated communication,
social activities, interpersonal communication, and online communication
relationship quality with political parties along the dimensions of trust, satisfaction,
commitment, control mutuality, and supportive behaviors”. Ledingham (2011) also
identified the indicators of trust, openness, satisfaction, access, mutual control, and
responsiveness as arguably the most critical in determining relationship quality in a
political public relations setting. It is worth recognizing that this approach goes
beyond defining political public relations as communication to include actions and
behaviors.
Regardless of the scales development to measure the relationship
cultivation plans, a few researches have been conducted to investigate how
organizations integrate these relationship maintenance policies into their visibility
on internet, particularly for religions networks. The viewpoint of relationship
management argues that the major objective of public relations practitioners is to
develop, maintain, and endorse long-term rapport between an organization and
stakeholders, no matter who they are. This dimension is an important exit from
exploitation of public views to the unification of ethical and balanced two-way
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communication. Though, it was not an easily embraced standpoint, public relation
scholars took almost 15 years to accept this concept. This developing model has
made substantial interest among the academic and professional groups because of
the emphasis on relationship management. Broom, Casey and Ritchey (2000)
added that public relations practitioners accept this new dimension to the extent
that now the field is known as relationship management rather than strategic
communications.
Relationship management is not a part of public relations only because it
has been comprehensively combined with the programs of corporate and integrated
marketing communications. Morgan and Hunt (1994) defines the notions of
building trust and pledge with target public. According to Parasuraman, Zeithaml
and Berry (1988), one of the first attempts to check the level of relationships is the
SERVQUAL scales from marketing discipline. These scales quantityor quantifythe
statements presented to stakeholders’ reservations and the party’s tilt to support or
reject them. Keep the introduction of these scales in view, Bull (2003) argued that
relationship management scholars proposed investigation of different aspects of the
public relationship from leadership and culture (Eagle & Kitchen, 2000) to message
construction (Duncan & Moriarity, 1998) and interactivity (Grönroos, 2004). All of
these features affect the cultivation and maintenance of organizational relationships
with public. Tilson and Venkateswaran (2006) restated that “devotional-
promotional communication’ and added “aims to establish and maintain good
clergy–congregant/ devotee relations as well as inspire devotion to the faith” (p.
115). Despite the availability of the wide range of communication channels,
organizations build relationships with target audience in similar patterns reflected
by the process of relationship development between two persons.
Following a quick idea of cultivation plans by Hon and Grunig (1999),
asked for supplementary investigations of relationship management and complete
explanation of the face to face approaches that might be applied to the
organizational contexts. This perspective of Dialogic Theory (Kent and Taylor,
2002) is accustomed with the prevailing thoughts on the function of
communication in making relationships, where these constructive relationships
between an organization and its shareholders are built through communication with
the help of public relation practitioners (Ledingham, 2003). One exclusive
advantage of using social media networks in public relations practitioners is their
ability to involve many citizens in two-way communication even in the low budget
structure (Duggan, 2013). In addition, Bruning (2002) stated that “To effectively
manage relationships, it is critical that practitioners conceptualize of
communication with key public members (rather than simply a transfer of
information), and use communication to support an ongoing relationship”.
As Relationship Cultivation Strategy is a part of public relations and this
study is focused on the relationship cultivated by MNAs of Pakistan with their
audience by analyzing the shares, likes and comments on their Facebook posts as
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well as retweets, replies and likes on the tweets, thus relationship cultivation
strategy provides an ideal framework for this study. Like many other researches,
this research does not aim to develop or follow any scale to measure the
relationship cultivation plan. This study has been conducted to investigate how
MNAs integrate the relationship cultivation strategy to enhance visibility and
popularity on Social Media because MNAs need to develop, maintain, and endorse
long-term rapport between them and their audience to increase their social capital
and achieve political objectives.
Research Methodology
The main objective of this study is to examine the audience reaction on the
Facebook posts and tweets of MNAs of Pakistan. For this purpose, the Facebook
pages and Twitter accounts of 34 MNAs are selected through multi-stage sampling.
The data was gathered about the official accounts from National Assembly’s
Speaker office to avoid the possibility of selecting someone’s fake account.
According to the list given, initially 84 members stated that they use both Facebook
and Twitter, afterwards when Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of 84 members
were opened, it was found out that many of them were not active users. So, 40 out
of 84 were selected but at the end this number was confined to 34 because six
political actors didn’t allow to collect data from their Facebook and Twitter
accounts.
To investigate that what type of posts and tweets generated more number
of comments, shares, likes and replies, the reaction on every post and tweet, posted
during November, 2016 is analyzed. In order to measure the audience engagement,
the content analysis of posts and tweets was also done as a primary study to divide
them into three categories based on purpose, language and PR tactic. These three
categories are further divided into sub-categories which are as follows:
i. Purpose: (Political, Personal, Educate the Audience, Call for Action,
Response on any Issue)
ii. PR Tactic: (Self-Promotion, Party Promotion, Opponents Attack,
Self-Promotion + Opponent Attack)
iii. Language: (Insulting, Appreciation for Self, Appreciation for Others,
Critical) The audience engagement is further divided into following categories:
Category Sub Category
Audience engagement Likes, Shares, Comments (Facebook)
Replies, Retweets, Likes (Twitter)
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Moreover, this study is focused on a non-election time and the selected
month was almost in the middle of the previous five-year democratic regime (2013-
2018), this was a time whenMNAs were not much preparing for elections and
using Facebook and Twitter to share content about their daily routines and
activities.
The two coders were trained to code the data, they were guided about the
categories and indicators. The reliability was checked statistically after pilot study
and Cronbach's Alpha was 0.9, which was more than 0.7.
5.0. Findings & Discussion
One of the basic objective of this study is to look at the level of audience
engagement in order to investigate the type of posts that generate more comments,
likes and shares and the type of tweets that generate more retweets, likes and
replies. Thus, the results and findings deal with the audience engagement including
likes, shares and comments on Facebook posts and likes, replies and retweets on
Tweets. The Kruskal Wallis test is applied to measure the highest ranks and the
significant difference in level of audience engagement across purpose, language
and PR tactic.
5.1. Level of Audience Engagement across purpose of using Facebook and
Figure 1: Level of Likes on Facebook and Twitter Across Different Purpose As far as Facebook likes are concerned, the test results in Figure 1 show
that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook likes across the
different purpose categories, χ2(4) =16.594, p = 0.002 which is less than .05. With
this significant difference, the highest mean rank is for call of action, which means
that the audience like the posts most in which MNAs have asked to follow them or
their party and take some practical step, e.g. voting for the party or to attend some
rally. At second number the audience like the posts which tend to educate the
audience about any development or give any information to make people aware.
The posts related to the political activities of MNAs have third highest mean rank,
010002000
Personal Political Educate Call for
Action
Response on
Some Issue
Likes
Likes Across Purpose
Mean Rank Facebook Mean Rank Twitter
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then comes personal posts and lowest rank is for posts which contain response on
some issue by MNAs. In case of Twitter, the test shows that there is a significant
difference in the level of likes on tweets across the different purpose categories,
χ2(4) =22.641, p = 0.000, with the highest mean rank for call for action, second highest for response on some issue, at third place people like the tweets which are
meant to educate the audience, interestingly political tweets stand at fourth place
and lowest mean rank is for tweets containing personal content. The graph shown
in Figure1, clearly reflects that the audience engagement is not much different on
both the platforms, on Facebook, the audience like posts which have some call for
action and same is the situation on Twitter, this may strengthen the observation that
Facebook and Twitter can be perfect platforms to motivate the audience, so MNAs
must use these platforms if they want the audience to take some desirable
action.Another point, needs to be mentioned here is that overall the audience
engagement is higher on Twitter as compared to Facebook. A notion already
discussed in various studies that twitter is more ideal vehicle for self promotion,
proves correct here too and it can be inferred that the audience prefer Twitter on
Facebook to connect with MNAs. There is a clear difference in likes on the posts
and tweets to give some response on any issue, means the audience also want
MNAs to use Twitter if they want to clarify or respond to anything,may be that is
considered more official, whereas Facebook is considered more of a personal
platform. It can be observed from the findings that the respondents are more
interested in education posts rather than political or any other type. This can also
challenge the well-established fact that producers produce what consumers want;
no such link is established here. The producers (MNAs) are producing more
political content which they want to share with the public irrespective of the fact
that what the consumers (audience) want to read and share.
Figure 2: Level of Shares and Retweets Across Different Purpose
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Personal Political Educate Call for Action Response on
Some Issue
Shares/ Retweets
Shares/Retweets Across Purpose
Mean Rank Facebook Mean Rank Twitter
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Furthermore, the test result shows that there is no substantial difference in the
level of Facebook shares across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =13.526, p =
0.009. The highest mean rank of shares goes to educate the audience, second
highest mean rank is for call of action, posts related to political activities get third
highest mean rank then comes response on some issue and lowest share is of
personal posts (Figure 2), which means people don’t share much of the personal
posts of MNAs which makes a lot of sense. Here also, to educate the audience has
the highest mean rank, which demonstrates that education posts are shared more on
Facebook as compared to the other types of posts.As far as retweets are concerned,
the test shows that there is a significant difference in the level of retweets across
the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =73.203, p = 0.000 which is less than .05, with a highest mean rank for call of action, second highest for response on some
issue and the third place is for the tweets which aim to educate the audience.
Interestingly, tweets based on the political activities of the MNA are shared much
less and lowest mean rank is for personal tweets.
Figure 3: Level of Comments and Replies Across Different Purpose
According to the results shown in figure 3, there is no significant
difference in the level of Facebook comments across the different purpose
categories, χ2(4) =11.72, p = 0.20. According to the graph highest mean rank is for,
to educate the audience, interestingly here the political posts have second highest
mean rank means people like to comment on these posts more than personal, call
for action and the tweets containing response on some issue by MNAs. Thenceforth
come the replies, the test pointed out a major difference in the level of Twitter
replies across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =47.46, p = 0.000, with a highest mean rank for call for action, second highest mean rank for response on
some issue, third highest mean rank is for political tweets, means audience don’t
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Personal Political Educate Call for Action Response on
Some Issue
Comment/ Replies
Comments and Replies Across Purpose
Mean Rank Facebook Mean Rank Twitter
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reply on the political tweets much whereas comments on political posts on
Facebook has second highest mean rank. Fourth highest mean rank is for tweets
having personal content and lowest mean rank is for the tweets which are aimed to
spread some education and awareness related content.
Above are the results of audience engagement and the language used in the
comments on the posts and tweets.
Level of Audience Engagement Across PR Tactic Through Facebook and
Figure 4: Level of Likes Across PR Tactic
There is also a significant difference in the level of Facebook likes across
PR tactic, χ2(3) =53.612, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank
for self-promotion + opponent attack, at second place are the posts for self-
promotion, third highest mean rank is for opponent attack and the lowest mean
rank is for party promotion. Interestingly, self-promotion + opponent attack has the
highest mean rank, means these posts were liked most by the audience. The result
of Kruskal Wallis test shown in Figure 4 explains a significant difference in the
level of likes on Tweets across the PR Tactic for image building, χ2(3) =74.970, p = 0.000, which is less than .05, with a highest mean rank for party promotion,
second highest for self-promotion + opponent attack, third place is for opponent
attack and lowest mean rank is of self-promotion. Interesting to observe here that
the highest mean rank goes to party promotion.
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Self-Promotion Party Promotion Opponent Attack Self-Promotion
+Attack
likes
Likes Across PR Tactic
Mean Rank Facebbook Mean Twitter
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Figure 5: Level of Shares and Retweets Across PR Tactic
In addition to this, according to the findings in figure 5, there a significant
difference in the level of Facebook shares across the PR tactics used for image
building, χ2(3) =34.099, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank
of for self-promotion + opponent attack, second highest number of posts shared
contain the content to attack or degrade, thethird highest mean rank is for self-
promotion and lowest mean rank is for party promotion. Here, also, the highest
mean rank is of self-promotion + opponent attack which shows that this type of
posts are shared most by the audience on Facebook. As far as Twitter is concerned,
according to the results, the test presents a noteworthy difference in level of
retweets across image building, χ2(3) =122.082, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank for self-promotion + opponent attack, second highest
mean rank for party promotion, opponent attack is at third place whereas lowest
mean rank is of self-promotion. Interestingly, the most retweeted tweets by the
audience are related to self-promotion + opponent attack.
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Self-Promotion Party Promotion Opponent Attack Self-Promotion
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Shares/Rewteets
Shares and Retweets Across PR Tactic
Mean Rank Facebbook Mean Twitter
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Figure 6: Level of Comments and Replies Across Different PR Tactic
There is also a significant difference in the level of Facebook comments
across PR tactic, χ2(3) =53.612, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest
mean rank for self-promotion + opponent attack, at second place are the posts for
self-promotion, third highest mean rank is for opponent attack and the lowest mean
rank is for party promotion (Figure 6). Interestingly, self-promotion + opponent
attack has the highest mean rank, means these posts have highest number of
comments by the audience. The result of Kruskal Wallis test shown in Figure 6
explains a significant difference in the level of replies on Tweets across the PR
Tactic, χ2(3) =74.970, p = 0.000, which is less than .05, with a highest mean rank for party promotion, second highest for self-promotion + opponent attack, third
place is for opponent attack and lowest mean rank is of self-promotion. Interesting
to observe here that the highest mean rank goes to party promotion.These results
show that the audience are more interested in the posts and tweets in which MNAs
are promoting their positive self and negative others.
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Self –Promotion Party Promotion Opponent Attack Self- Promotion +
Attack
Comment/ Replies
Comments and Replies Across PR Tactic
Mean Rank Facebbook Mean Twitter
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5.3. Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Language used on Facebook
and Twitter
Figure 7: Level of Likes Across Language
The test shows that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook
likes across the language used, χ2(4) =205.505, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank of posts using insulting language for others, then self-
appreciation followed by the posts having appreciative language for others, then
comes sarcastic and the lowest mean rank is of criticism on others (Figure7). In this
graph again insulting language for others has the highest mean rank, which
suggests that the most of the audience like the tweets that contain insulting
language. The results show that the posts with insulting language for others get
highest shares, likes and comments which means that these posts generated highest
audience engagement. As far as Twitter is concerned, there is a major difference in
the level of likes across the different language categories, χ2 (5) =16.239, p = 0.006, with a highest mean rank for appreciation for others, then the tweets
criticising others followed by sarcastic/taunting language. Fourth highest mean
rank is for appreciation for self and the lowest mean rank is of the tweets using
insulting language for others.
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Figure 8: Level of Shares and Retweets Across Language
A Kruskal Wallis test is applied to test the difference of level of audience
engagement across language used in Facebook posts (Figure 8), and the test
displays that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across
the language used, χ2(4) =138.471, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank score for insulting for others, second highest for self-appreciation, at
third place is appreciation for others followed by sarcastic and the criticism on
others which have the lowest mean rank. In the graph the insulting language for
others has the highest mean rank, explaining that posts with insulting language for
others get the highest shares. As per the result, there is a ssubstantial difference in
the level of retweets across the different Language categories, χ2(5) =35.648, p = 0.000 with highest mean rank for appreciation for others, second highest mean rank
is of criticism on others followed by the tweets containing sarcastic/taunting
language, and the appreciation for self. Lowest mean rank is of the tweets
containing insulting language for others.
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Shares/Retweets
Shares/Retweets Across Language
Mean Rank facebook Mean Rank Twitter
Clicking Responses on Social Media: Analysis of Audience Engagement on Posts and Tweets ...
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Figure 9: Level of Comments and Replies Across Language
According to the results, there is difference of level of audience
engagement across language used in Facebook posts, the test results (Figure 9)
show that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook comments across
the language used, χ2(4) =171.353, p = 0.000, which is less than .05, with the highest mean rank for insulting others, second highest for self-appreciation, third
place is for appreciation for others, then sarcastic and lowest mean rank is for
criticism on others. According to the findings, insulting language for others has the
highest mean rank that reflects that the posts with insulting language havethe
highest comments. The findings of the test regarding the difference of level of
audience engagement differ across language, show that there is significant
difference in the level of replies across the different language categories, χ2 (5) =32.432, p = 0.000, with highest mean rank for sarcastic/taunting, second highest
mean rank is for appreciation for others, third place is for criticism on others
followed by insulting for others and the lowest mean rank is for appreciation for
self.
Conclusion
From the findings discussed in this study, it can be safely concluded that
MNAs are generating different audience engagement across different purpose,
language and PR Tactic but they are certainly not aware of the fact that what type
of posts and tweets are getting more audience engagement otherwise they would
have posted more political content to fulfil their political agendas.
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Comment
Comments and Replies Across Language
Mean Rank facebook Mean Rank Twitter
Pakistan Vision Vol. 20 No. 2
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It is thought-provoking to find here that in case of Facebook, the highest
number of likes, shares and comments are on posts containing self-promotion plus
opponent attack and the second highest are on self-promotion. While looking at the
result of difference in level of audience engagement across PR Tactic through
Twitter, the highest number of likes are on the tweets related to party promotion
and second highest likes are for self-promotion plus opponent attack. There is also
a significant difference in the level of replies on Tweets across the PR Tactic, with
the highest mean rank for self-promotion + opponent attack, and interestingly the
second highest replies are on tweets which are shared to attack the opponents.
While talking about retweets across different PR Tactic there is also a significant
difference, and on Twitter also self-promotion plus opponent attack tweets are
retweeted the most. Thus, it could be stated that the MNAs are generating same
audience engagement on both platforms, content having both flavors i.e. positive
self and negative others are appreciated by the audience. These findings are
partially consistent with the previous studies which showed that politicians and
political institutions predominantly employed Twitter for campaigning, self -
promotion and to spread information.
It could be said that as MNAs are using Facebook to share about their
political activities, so by communicating positive self and negative others, they are
gaining more audience engagement on Facebook, hence their political purpose is
fulfilled.
It is also unhealthy trend on social media to share and like the posts more
which are having insulting and abusive language for others on Facebook. These
types of posts can generate more audience engagement, relationship can be
cultivated with the audience but that may not be a very long lasting and positive
relationship. By doing so, MNAs can enhance their visibility but it would
ultimately affect their popularity. The situation is different on Twitter where
insulting language is at fourth place, this also reflects the mindset of the people
using Facebook and Twitter, they consider Twitter for serious and constructive
discussion more.
Clicking Responses on Social Media: Analysis of Audience Engagement on Posts and Tweets ...
293
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