General Election Campaign Research Articles

A Rigged Game? How Candidate, Partisan, and Electoral Factors Shape Elite Support for the Party Nomination Process

The 2016 presidential nominations revealed deep, yet distinct, divisions within each major party. These divisions persisted and permeated the general election campaign and were reflected in voters’ dissatisfaction with the candidates. Movements such as the “Bernie or Bust” supporters and the “Never-Trumpers” indicated that vocal portions of the parties were dissatisfied with the party nominees or the processes that selected those candidates. There were also indications that many party elites were not pleased with the nomination processes or the outcome; yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the extent to which party elites support the nomination process and their party’s nominee and what explains this support. By combining the 2016 Convention Delegate Study and an original dataset of the nomination electoral rules utilized by the states, we assess how candidate, partisan, and electoral factors shape delegate support for the nomination process and nominee. Our analysis reveals that candidate and party-centric explanations better explain delegate views toward the nomination process and nominee than factors related to the electoral context.

Induced seismicity or political ploy?: Using a novel mix of methods to identify multiple publics and track responses over time to shale gas policy change

To date, little research has investigated how public perceptions of policies to ban or restrict fossil-fuel extraction change over time; yet this topic is of crucial importance as countries worldwide seek to transition towards ‘net zero’ economies. This study addresses this gap by focusing on public responses to the 2019 moratorium on shale gas extraction in England, using an analytical framework comprising awareness, interpretations and opinions, and a mixed-method approach combining national survey, social media and local case interviews. Findings show high levels of awareness and support for the moratorium, yet differences between coalitions of interest based on ideology, scale and demographics. Social media analyses reveal a peak in public response across several days during a general election campaign in which different parties took divergent positions on shale gas. Public support for the moratorium – and induced seismicity as the primary reason for its introduction - was evidenced by the national survey, yet coincided with scepticism about its timing, extent and motivation, as indicated by social media activity and local case interviews. For some publics, the moratorium was a ploy to ensure electoral support, embedded in public distrust. This study indicates the merits of a mixed-method approach to understand the psychological and institutional context of public responses to policy change as it unfolds over time, and discusses the longer term implications of politicised attitudes for energy transitions.

Bulldozing Brexit: the role of masculinity in UK party leaders’ campaign imagery in 2019 UK General Election

ABSTRACT Political science asks how women navigate gender on the campaign trail – do they run “as women” or do they exhibit more “masculine” behaviours to increase credibility. The role of masculinity in men’s campaigns has received less attention. Yet, men “play the gender card” too. This paper analyses the use of gender in the campaign imagery of the two male party leaders in the 2019 UK General Election campaign via an examination of their campaign tweets. It finds that the male leaders did, indeed, “play the man card”. Both leaders overwhelmingly used masculine visuals on Twitter during the campaign. Johnson demonstrated elements of “hypermasculinity” exaggerating his strength and dominance in images of traditional, working-class masculinity. Despite calls for more compassionate, read feminine, politics, Corbyn’s campaign remained located in masculine imagery through consistent displays of agency. This paper makes three main contributions to current understandings of gender and election campaigning. Firstly, it offers the beginnings of a framework of types of masculinity in campaigning. Secondly, it adds support to the thesis that men play the gender card, and that it can take different forms. Thirdly, it raises questions about the use of binary frameworks in studying gender’s role in campaigning.

Populism and emotions: Italian political leaders’ communicative strategies to engage Facebook users

Populist ideology and emotions are being increasingly adopted by political leaders as communicative tools to drive attention and gain consent. Populism appears to be intimately related to emotions due to its own emotional charge when appealing to the people or blaming ‘others’. Analysing the Facebook timelines of Italy's main political leaders during the 2018 general election campaign, we found that only negative emotions are associated to populist ideology although they are less frequently adopted by leaders. Emotional appeals, especially negative ones, emerged as a more successful strategy for triggering users’ interactions and reactions than populist ideology. Going negative appears to be the best strategy for gaining visibility on Facebook. Quite unexpectedly, love reactions are influenced by blaming the ‘dangerous others’, while angry reactions are not affected by the presence of populist references. Our results lead us to hypothesise that when emotions run high, populist ideology takes a slight step back.

Kebijakan Hukum Pidana Penanganan dan Pengelolaan Sampah Kampanye Dalam Pemilihan Umum Di Indonesia

Environmental problems that are not realized by the Indonesian people are the handling and management of waste during the general election campaign held by legislative candidates and executive candidates in campaigning for themselves in the future government. Piling up garbage at the end of the campaign should be the responsibility of these candidates. This research aims to make strict legal rules and to socialize the regulations that are obeyed by candidates who will campaign in the future so that they can protect the environment. The research method used is normative legal research. This research is descriptive analytical. Data collection techniques are carried out by means of literature study and also by conducting direct interviews with informants. Research Results Show the importance of legal regulations regarding waste management during general election campaigns. So that the environment remains clean and beautiful. The conclusion is to make strict legal rules and so that the parties socialize these regulations are obeyed by candidates who will campaign in the future so that they can preserve the environment

Political Branding Tsamara Amany Alatas Selama Masa Kampanye Pemilu Legislatif 2019 di Media Sosial

Social media is a means of disseminating information in marketing candidates or political parties. Politicians do branding through text and images in order to shape people's perceptions of themselves. Political branding on social media can be observed from the choice of words used and the issues discussed. This study aims to analyze Tsamara Amany Alatas' content on her personal social media accounts during the 2019 general election campaign. This study used qualitative method, and text analize. The researcher adjusted the content uploaded on Instagram and Twitter with the political branding and brand personality that Tsamara formed on his social media accounts. As a result, Tsamara performed all the criteria for successful branding according to the criteria adapted by Needham. Tsamara offers programs that she will strive for clearly, has distinguishing characteristics as a young lady who is brave and ready to be fired by constituents if she is performing poorly, ready to fight for aspirations and ready to be watched, become a symbol of PSI values, and convince constituents that she can trusted in fighting for aspirations. Tsamara has also formed a brand personality as a young politician who is honest and ready to be transparent to constituents, has high empathy especially for women, is brave, smart and has a technical understanding of constituent problems, and is tough. There are differences in the types of content that Tsamara produces on her Instagram and Twitter social media accounts. Tsamara's Instagram content focuses on forming her political brand, while Twitter content focuses on responding to social and political issues at the time and interacting with supporters. This difference is in accordance with the differences in the superior features of the two social media. Twitter is more interactive, allowing Tsamara to interact and discuss, while Instagram makes it easier for Tsamara to focus on delivering political messages to find voice support for her.

Clear Blue Water? The 2019 Party Manifestos

AbstractBrexit may have dominated the 2019 general election campaign, but it wasn't the only issue at stake. The political parties published wide‐ranging manifestos, while their appeals also rested on established ideological reputations. This article analyses the content of the 2019 manifestos and uses the latest Manifesto Project estimates to explore ideological movement in the British party system. It reports the changing policy emphases in Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos and the ideological positions of these and other political parties in 2019. It further presents new measures for parties’ positions on the cosmopolitan‐traditionalist dimension of party competition, an increasingly important divide in electoral politics. The article shows that the ideological gap between the Conservatives and Labour opened up further in 2019. It also shows how the parties’ distinctive ideological profiles, as well as their positions on Brexit, gave voters a clearer choice than in recent elections.

Assessing the Impact of Political Involvement on the Reliability and Validity of Virtualized Real-time-response Measurement

Abstract How does political involvement impact on data quality of virtualized Real-Time-Response (RTR) Measurement? The article addresses this issue, drawing on a large field study (n = 5660) conducted during the 2017 German general election campaign. Since it is unclear how heterogeneous characteristics of individuals influence data quality of RTR-Measurement from audiences surveyed outside the lab, we assess the impact of political involvement on the reliability and validity of virtualized real-time-response data. We show that political involvement shapes reliability and validity systematically but to a degree that does not compromise established standards of data quality. Thus, we conclude that virtualized RTR outside the laboratory with limited means of control is an appropriate method to survey heterogeneous samples in large N-field studies and therefore offers new paths of data collection.

Implementasi Peraturan Komisi Pemilihan Umum Tentang Kampanye Pemilihan Umum Tahun 2019 di Kabupaten Gianyar

One of the stages of the 2019 election is the implementation of the election campaign in which the General Election Commission has issued PKPU Number 23 concerning the 2019 General Election Campaign as a legal basis for the implementation of the election campaign in Indonesia. The objectives and benefits of the research refer to the formulation of the problem. The research method that the writer uses is descriptive qualitative. Research shows that the implementation of the General Election Commission’s regulations regarding the 2019 General Election Campaign in Gianyar Regency is generally going well, this is evidenced by the implementation of the 2019 election campaign stages have followed provisions and regulations that have been established, and election organizers can both facilitating election participants in accordance with what is mandated by the general election commission regulations regarding the 2019 election campaign. There are several factors inhibiting the implementation of the general election commission regulations regarding the 2019 election campaign, including the size factor and policy objectives, the human resource factor possessed by the election organizers. and election participants, the characteristic factors of the executing agent, the attitudes or tendencies of the implementers, the inter-organizational communication factors and the activities of the executors, and finally the economic, social, and political environmental factors that exist in Gianyar District.

Interaction (Election Campaigning Communication)

Interaction (Election Campaigning Communication)

Why National Media Systems Matter: A Longitudinal Analysis of How UK Left-Wing and Right-Wing Alternative Media Critique Mainstream Media (2015–2018)

ABSTRACT In recent years, the growth of new alternative media has brought greater editorial choice and diversity to political coverage in many advanced democracies. But their coverage of mainstream media and portrayal of professional journalism has been subject to little academic attention. This study examined the role alternative political media play in advancing public debate about the value and editorial standards of a national media system. Drawing on a longitudinal content analysis of UK alternative media between 2015 and 2018 (N = 3452), we found that mainstream media was often crticised—particularly in left-wing sites—and that disapproval of professional journalism intensified over time, most strikingly during the 2017 general election campaign. We also discovered that BBC news was often singled out for its political reporting, with criticism directed at its perceived bias and lack of impartiality. Overall, we argue it is the dominant characteristics of mainstream media in national media systems that help shape the editorial agenda of alternative media and the nature of criticism directed at professional journalism. We conclude that more comparative research is needed about how alternative media represent professional journalism, and whether they are influencing people’s understanding of politics and public affairs.

Disinformation in Facebook Ads in the 2019 Spanish General Election Campaigns

As fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties’ Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain—precisely the issue of Catalonia’s independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that ‘traditional’ parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their ‘new’ counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum.

Topics to talk about. The effects of political topics and issue ownership on user engagement with politicians’ Facebook posts during the 2018 Hungarian general election

ABSTRACT This study investigates the political topics that triggered user engagement on candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign on a full dataset of politicians’ communication by using automated content analysis approaches. We have limited knowledge on what topics spread well on Facebook. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the engagement-triggering effects of prominent topics of the 2018 Hungarian election campaign. It hypothesizes that salient issues (immigration and corruption) and campaign-related posts will obtain more user reaction, while policy topics and mobilization-related content will be less engaging. The effects of issue ownership on user engagement are also tested. For this, the study draws upon an extensive dataset that includes all Facebook posts of each candidate (511 candidates 38030 posts) running for MP positions, posted between the official starting day of the campaign and Election Day. Topics are identified by dictionary-based and supervised learning methods that allow us to categorize a larger set of data than earlier works. The results show that corruption, development policy, and campaign are the most popular topics with users. The most interesting finding, however, is related to the reversed issue ownership effect on user engagement.

Who and what is their ‘people’? How British political leaders appealed to the people during the 2019 election

In recent years, many scholars, mainly those focusing on populism, have analysed the role of ‘the people’ in politics. This has allowed us to understand how many political actors emphasize the central position of this term. Today, ‘the people’ has different meanings depending on how politicians use it in specific contexts. In this paper, the reference to ‘the people’ was measured using the following question: How do political leaders use the word ‘people’? The analysis was conducted on Twitter through the study of the accounts of the foremost political leaders in the UK during the 2019 general election campaign. The results highlight three key attitudes related to the use of ‘people’: a direct and immediate relationship between a leader and a wide people; a calling to a specific people, described as a strong and cohesive group; an appropriation of the voice of the people, grouping people without borders into the classic contraposition between a pure people and the corrupt elite.

Hate Speech Pattern of Youtube Viewer Comments on Najwa Shihab Channels in the 2019 President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia General Election Campaign Discussion

Hate Speech Pattern of Youtube Viewer Comments on Najwa Shihab Channels in the 2019 President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia General Election Campaign Discussion

Euroscepticism of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party during the 2015 general election campaign

Euroscepticism of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party during the 2015 general election campaign

Form of Hate Speech Comments on Najwa Shihab Youtube Channels in The General Election Campaign of President and Vice President of The Republic of Indonesia 2019

Emerging and spreading hate speech online was a growing phenomenon in social media on youtube. Najwa Shihab was a youtube channel that contains shows and comments on political issues in Indonesia, one of them was the 2019 presidential election campaign. The form of hate speech in comments in the Najwa Shihab Channels was forming grammatical construction and construction of the meaning of one hate speech with other utterances. The purpose of this study was to analyze the illocutionary speech acts on hate speech and to analyze hate speech based on the rule of law in Indonesia. The analysis resulted in hate speech on the Najwa Shihab youtube channel audience comments in the General Election campaign in the discourse of the President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia in 2019. The approach that used in this study was a theoretical approach, namely a forensic linguistic approach by utilizing pragmatics for data analysis, and a methodological approach, namely a qualitative descriptive approach. The data on hate speech that was analyzed was a fragment of the audience's comments on two programs, namely Mata Najwa and Catatan Najwa. The results showed that there were nine forms of hate speech. Two forms of hate speech were considered to be the style of speech that was widely used by the public in delivering comments on social media. The forms of the speech were "Form of Hate Speech, Assertive Speech - Insult" and "Form of Hate Speech, Assertive Speech - Defamation". The existence of this form of speech can be a reference for the community to process opinions first before conveying it on social media. It's legally can be used as an offense in cases of hate speech.

The Brexit policy shock: Were UK services exports affected, and when?

We analyse the impact of the Brexit announcement shock on UK exports of commercial services, using a synthetic control method (SCM) to create a counterfactual based upon other countries’ exports. Our analysis considers two alternative scenarios: in the first, the shock was based upon the referendum date of 23 June 2016. We do indeed find significant evidence of a treatment shock based upon this date, as exports after this date are approximately 7% below the synthetic counterfactual. This is driven by ‘other commercial services’: the smaller tourist sector actually had a positive shock. If we repeat the analysis with an earlier treatment, it becomes clear that divergence was already starting in the first half of 2015, around the time of the general election campaign, although services exports had a clearer shock after June 2016, roughly doubling the discrepancy. This finding supports the suggestion that there was already some fear of Brexit before the referendum result, and indicates the importance of considering an earlier start date in studies of the Brexit shock.

Tandem in General Election Campaign 2019: A Strategy Supported by Political Parties and Political Patronage

This study examines the Tandem  campaign's impact in a general election as a strategy, supported by the party, and political patronage in Indonesia. Tandem is a campaign for more than one candidate. The investigation finds that tandem not only has the parallel model in numbering tandem with candidates from the People‘s Representatives Council (DPR) and the Regional People’s Representatives Council (DPRD), but the zigzag model also applies because of agreement from candidates. This pattern is supported by the political party, so the parliamentary threshold can be achieved, accounting for 4 % in DPR and 15 % in DPRD. During Regional Leaders Election (Pilkada), a political party can promote its candidate for a regional leader without paying another candidate from another party. Tandem can grow political patronage, and the candidates for DPR can be patrons of the DPRD candidates. This is because DPR members have many resources while candidates for DPRD as clients understand no further than the condition in their electoral district and social-political behavior, or they can even serve as broker-vote buyers. We hypothesize that this is a part of finding a solution to political costs in general elections.Â

Political Knowledge and Misinformation in the Era of Social Media: Evidence From the 2015 UK Election

AbstractDoes social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.