The roles of the internet and social media in political marketing and voter behaviour

Abstract

This chapter explores the roles of the internet and social media (SM) in political marketing and voter behaviour. We specifically analyse how voters’ use of both offline (television) and online (internet and SM) media to search for political information affects their voting preferences and decision-making. First, we examine how the use of offline and online media for political information differs among various voter groups based on voter demographics. Second, we investigate how the use of offline and online media is linked to voter choice (i.e., voting for a particular party). Our study is based on a voter survey of Finnish parliamentary elections in 2015. The results show a difference in the importance of online and offline media as a source of political information among voters, the role of internet and SM being remarkable only for younger voters (aged 18–24). We find that internet and SM are important source of political information especially for election day voters. In addition, we demonstrate a positive linkage between searching for political information and a voter’s decision to vote for a particular party.