raffael heiss - social media & political campaigning: what drives user engagement? (babel camp...
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Social Media & Poli-cal Campaigning: What Drives User Engagement?
Raffael Heiss University of Vienna
Social Media Use Every day ac0vi0es on social media
ARD/ZDF Online Study, 2013
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Seeking news
Pos0ng Links
Videos
Commen0ng
Looking at Pictures
Checking out other people's ac0vi0es
Personal messages
Social Media Use General news use on social media
Pew Research Center, 2015
40
45
50
55
60
65
2013 2015
% of Users Ge:ng News on Twi>er/Facebook
TwiRer
Social Media Use US Presiden0al campaign
Pew Research Center, 2016
Social media are the most important informa0on source for young people between 18 and 30 years
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Network nightly news
Local TV
Cable TV
News Websites
Social Media
18-‐29 30-‐49 50-‐64
Social Media Use Some cri0cal research findings…
Social media users feel well-‐informed – but they are actually not! (Müller, 2015)
SNS ac0vi0es are slack0vist, do not increase knowledge (Baumgartner et al., 2010)
Low quality of online news (de Vreese et al., 2016) and disinforma0on (Gundecha et al., 2013)
Poli0cians on SM Example Study
Populists work with simple messages, nega?vity and nega?ve emo?ons What other elements can drive user engagement, and hence successful campaigning on Facebook?
Study: User Engagement What drives users’ reac0ons in poli0cians’ Facebook posts
6 Par0es
84 Poli0cians
1949 Posts
Analysis of Poli8cal Actors‘ Facebook Profiles and Posts
Time: 6 months Comments, Likes, Shares?
Differences between profile types
Differences between par0es
Effect of pos0ng ac0vity
Nega0vity, Emo0ons, Humor
Delibera0ve elements
Issues, Mobiliza0on
Study: User Engagement What drives users’ reac0ons in poli0cians’ Facebook Posts
Post Level Profile Level
Study Example Profile level: Profile types & par0es
Comments Likes Shares
Organiza0on (vs. Fan profile)
Private profile (vs. Fan profile) ✔
➖
✖
➖ ✖
✖
No effect of party No effect of profile ac0vity
Study Example Tonality & Emo0ons
Nega0ve Tonality ✔ ✔
Nega0ve emo0ons ✔ ✔ ✖
Posi0ve emo0ons ✔ ✔ ✔
Posi0ve Tonality ✖ ✖
✖
✖
Comments Likes Shares
Study Example What drives users’ reac0ons in poli0cians’ Facebook Posts
Reasoning Non-‐Reasoning
Study Example Delibera0ve elements
Reasoning ✔
Other party actors ✔ ✖
Post length ✔ ✔
References:
Own party ➖ ✖
✖ ✔
✖
✔
➖
Comments Likes Shares
Study Example Issues & Humor
Private issues (vs. Policy) ✖ ✔
Campaign issues (vs. Policy)
✔ ✔
➖
✖
Comments Likes Shares
Humor ✔ ✖ ✔
Study Example Mobilizing posts
Online mobiliza0on ✖ ✖ ✔
Offline mobiliza0on ➖ ➖ ➖
Comments Likes Shares
Study Example Structural elements
Pictures
Media content ✔
Videos
✔
Shared content ➖ ➖
✔ ✖ ✖
✖ ✖
✖
✖
➖
Comments Likes Shares
Learnings On a more general level….
Social media and poli0cal sophis0ca0on not per se contradictory
Great responsibility of those who use the channels for campaigning
How can we advance content management to counter populist tendencies?
References
Baumgartner, J. C., & Morris, J. S. (2009). MyFaceTube poli0cs: Social networking web sites and poli0cal engagement of young adults. Social Science Computer Review. Busemann, K. (2013). Wer nutzt was im Social Web. Media Perspek?ven, 44(7/8), 391-‐399. De Vreese, C.H., Esser, F. & Hopmann D.N. (eds), Comparing Poli?cal Journalism. London: Routledge. Gundecha, P., Feng, Z., & Liu, H. (2013, October). Seeking provenance of informa0on using social media. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM interna?onal conference on Informa?on & Knowledge Management (pp. 1691-‐1696). ACM. Müller, P. (2015): Just feeling being informed? Social Network Sites und tatsächliches und wahrgenommenes poli0sches Wissen. Presenta0on at the DGPUK 2015. Pew Research Center. (2015, July 14). The evolving role of news on TwiQer and Facebook. Pew Research Center. (2016, February 4). The 2016 presiden?al campaign: A news event that’s hard to miss.