Modern Election Research Articles

How Much Tailoring Is too Much? Voter Backlash on Highly Tailored Campaign Messages

Findings on whether voters like or dislike targeted campaign messages have been contradictory. I argue that voters react differently depending on how precisely the targeted messages are tailored to them, and tailoring can potentially become “too much.” I corroborate this claim with the results of a factorial survey experiment among a representative sample of the German voting population ( N = 3,217), which was conducted in the summer of 2021. Taking a novel approach, I measured the effects of close political targeting by asking respondents to rate campaign messages with varying degrees of tailoring. The analysis revealed a backlash effect, which is especially pronounced by men getting ads tailored to their gender. Voters appreciate messages that are moderately tailored to them but dislike highly tailored messages. This holds both for implicitly tailored messages and those that explicitly acknowledge the use of personal data. These results indicate that voters seem to recognize excessively tailored messages and manipulating them is difficult. These findings have important implications for the modern election campaigning’s effects on political behavior and its regulation.

A Consistent Picture? Issue‐Based Campaigning on Facebook During the 2021 German Federal Election Campaign

In times of declining party identification, political parties need to persuade and mobilize their voters from election to election. Setting topics in such a way that voters are convinced to cast their vote has become an essential prerequisite for success in modern election campaigns. Social media are suitable for this, as parties can set their own topics or highlight the topics most important to the voters and communicate them to a large audience in organic posts or target specific voter groups with ads. While tendencies of issue ownership in posts on Facebook are repeatedly shown empirically, there is a lack of studies investigating which strategies parties follow in their investment decisions on Facebook ads. Based on theoretical expectations derived from the literature about digital political marketing and issue prioritization in election campaigns, this article investigates whether parties communicated consistently on Facebook with regard to the issues they set in organic posts, sponsored posts, and ads during the 2021 German federal election campaign. The results of a manual quantitative content analysis (n = 1,029 posts, n = 1,197 sponsored posts, n = 2,643 ads) show that parties focused on issue ownership in their posts. Still, their investments in sponsored posts and ads followed different strategies. Here, most parties highlighted social policy, contradicting issue ownership for some parties. The article provides novel insights into digital campaigning and discusses the extent to which parties can engage audiences beyond their organic reach within party-affiliated audiences.

The Electoral College’s Impact on Presidential Mandates and Agendas

The Electoral College is the method used in every four years to elect the President of the United States. Given that the Electoral College gives the power to elect the president to state-casted votes, the system has in recent years become a source of growing controversy given how two presidents, George Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016, without winning the national popular vote. These elections and the public discourse around them have brought new life to the purpose and impacts of the Electoral College. This paper uses key presidential elections, including those of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, give insight on how the Electoral College should now be understood. In particular, this paper examines the implications of the Electoral College on one fundamental question: Does election to the presidency via the Electoral College route fundamentally affect the ability of a president to govern effectively? Examining these elections, the context around and impact after these elections, and modern United States political history shows that when the Electoral College is not an extraordinary or exceptionally notable part of an election cycle, the Electoral College does not fundamentally affect the president’s ability to command public and political support required to effectively govern. However, when the Electoral College does become a point of focus during a presidential election and in the beginning of a president’s term, it has wide-ranging impacts. In particular, the College can shape the political and public mandate the president has to lead, shaping their overall agenda for their time in office; cause biases to arise towards certain states and conservative politics; and undermine their ability to serve as a unifying figure. With each modern election having an increased focus on the Electoral College, the system is likely to cause increased polarization and tension with each passing election if serious reforms are not undertaken.

Institutional Regulation of the CIS Observer Mission in Election Campaigns and Coverage of Its Activities in the Media

This study is aimed at studying the institutional, organizational and legal problems of interaction between the media and international observers during elections and referendums in the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The issue of countering foreign interference in the electoral process was not considered in the work.Aim. Eliminate methodological problems in defining the content of the term “international observation”, and proving the need to institutionalize the process of covering the activities of international observers in the media.Tasks. Identify the necessary areas of media activity when covering the activities of international observers during elections and referendums.Methods. The state of the modern election monitoring environment indicates the existence of a fine line between the need to ensure openness of electoral processes and the inadmissibility of interference in the internal affairs of states. It is necessary to identify restrictive thresholds for the activities of the media when covering the processes of international observation of elections and referendums and their institutionalization in relevant advisory documents based on the presumed impartiality of both international observers and the media.Results. The study showed that the most important task of the process of legitimizing the electoral process is to ensure its full coverage of the activities of all its subjects in the media. International monitoring media coverage should cover a wide range of issues throughout the entire electoral process from start to finish, including; activities of observers during the official election campaign before the start of voting; on election day and during the vote counting process; in the period after the elections from the moment the official results are announced until the formation of new authorities. At the same time, at all stages, coverage should cover a wide range of issues of the essence of the electoral process and its management; legal regulation of elections and referendums and existing institutional structures to support the process.Conclusions. Media coverage of the activities of international observers should be considered not only as one of the most important modes of political communication, but also as a means of countering selective absenteeism. Objective and impartial coverage of the activities of international observers in the media can undoubtedly contribute to both the internal political mobilization of the population and the international recognition of the state.

Understanding the Modern Election Campaign: Analysing Campaign Eras through Financial Transparency Disclosures at the 2019 UK General Election

Abstract What do modern election campaigns look like? According to the most recent accounts, they are data-driven operations in which extensive data are collected and targeted messages are deployed in efforts to maximize support. Whilst highlighting important new developments, in this article we argue that a focus on novel practices offers a distorted picture of modern campaigns. Presenting a unique analysis of over 22,720 separate items of expenditure made by political parties at the 2019 UK general election, we demonstrate that whilst there is some evidence of a ‘fourth’ era of campaigning, these novel practices do not define campaigns. Taking a more holistic approach that examines how campaign activities are blended and entwined, we offer unprecedented insight into the nature of modern campaigns, revealing variation in parties' campaign strategies. We also introduce a new dataset for those interested in party campaigns and call for others to pursue a more holistic analysis.

POLLSTER APPROACH VERSUS SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO CONDUCTING ELECTORAL RESEARCH

The purpose of the study is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of pollster and sociological approaches to electoral research.The article shows that conducting electoral research in modern election campaigns is carried out equally by pollster (for purely political purposes) and sociological (for scientific and sociological purposes) technologies. It has been proven that optimal results can be achieved by combining pollster and sociological approaches to electoral research. It was determined that today the organization of an effective election campaign requires equally sociologists-pollsters and sociologists-analysts, the result of whose work is respectively collected empirical data and an analytical product, scientific expertise.It has been demonstrated that pollster and sociological approaches to conducting electoral research differ not only in the concepts of public opinion and the styles of its research, but also in the subject field. The electorate as a subject of electoral research acquires different content for different approaches. The pollster approach is more likely to understand the electorate as a circle of voters who vote for one or another party or candidate for an elected position and, in fact, are supporters of a certain political force or personality, while representatives of the sociological approach mostly consider the electorate as a collection of all citizens who vested with the right to vote and who exercise or do not exercise it under specially created conditions. It is argued that the integration of the subject fields of electoral polling and electoral sociological research will allow more effective and productive use of analytical potential in the election campaign, since such an organization of patronage work will help not only to record the results of electoral research, but also to predict the trends of electoral choice, the flow of votes, the reactions of electoral groups to specific political events. The availability of systematic ideas about the types of voters and their personal profiles will help to meaningfully approach the understanding of the electorate.

Watching the digital grassroots grow: assessing party members’ social media campaigning during the 2021 German Bundestag election

ABSTRACT Party member mobilization is part of a modern election campaign, just like social media are. This article enhances prior research on the strategic inclusion of grassroots campaigning from a top down perspective by adding insights from the individual perspective of the rank-and-file party members. Evidence is built from a party member panel survey conducted among four German parties: CDU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Die Linke. Based on quantitative data analyses, first, the article scrutinizes the share of online campaigners among members and the importance of digital campaigning for the toolbox of electioneering. Social media are essential campaign tools even if only about half of campaigners actively participates in such activities. Still, only a small group of campaigners categorically rules out engaging via social platforms. Secondly, the article analyzes which groups of members are more likely to participate in social media campaigning, showing that higher age, being male and holding a university degree is associated with a lower probability to participate in such activities. Additionally, these newer forms of campaigning are rather used by highly engaged members who are familiar with party routines. Hence, social media campaigning requires skills and resources, despite its flexibility and accessibility.

COMMUNICATION OF POLITICIANS WITH THE AUDIENCE: TOOLS AND SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS

The political image, its formation, use and analysis are studied. Current approaches and methods of creating and effectively using a political image during communication between politicians and citizens are considered. The main goal is not only to generalize knowledge in this area, but also to identify key factors affecting the effectiveness of campaigning for political candidates. A historical review of the political image is carried out, starting from the first manifestations to modern trends. The author examines the importance of political image in modern election campaigns and its role in shaping public opinion and voters' decisions. Next, the influence of the individual brand of political figures on campaign effectiveness is investigated. The author draws attention to the need for consistency and appropriateness of the actions and speeches of political figures in order to achieve successful use of the political image. The article also analyzes modern tools and technologies that help political figures create and manage their image. The author examines the influence of social networks, television, advertising and other media channels on the formation of a political image. In the conclusion, the author sums up the results of the research and draws conclusions about the importance of political image in the modern political arena. The article provides useful guidelines for political actors and consultants, helping them to understand and use political image in their work.

Internet technologies: from an auxiliary tool of politi-cal promotion to the most significant component of election campaigns

The purpose of the study is to analyze the main functionality and role of modern Internet technologies in election campaigns. The research methodology is based on the application of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalisation, systematisation) and special methods and approaches integrated from the science of social communications, information science, political science, and sociology. Such methodological interdisciplinarity enables considering the subject of research as a multifunctional phenomenon included in a complex system of informational social interaction. The scientific novelty consists in expanding ideas about the latest Internet technologies as the most important informational component of a modern election campaign. Conclusions. The presence in cyberspace of a large share of active ‘political’ audience, and, accordingly, potential voters, as well as the facts of the success of electoral campaigns on the Internet contribute to the expansion of the presence of digital technologies, in particular the Internet, in election campaigns. Thus, Internet technologies have become an integral universal, communicative core of modern election technologies, having evolved from an auxiliary tool of supporting the strategy of political promotion into the most significant independent component of election campaigns. Currently, within the latter ones, the following Internet technologies are most actively used: production and replication of political information using websites, social networks, blogs, Internet media; special mobile applications; e-voting; electoral fundraising; crowdfunding; online broadcasts on YouTube; tools to attract volunteers; monitoring, analysis, and design of electoral dynamics (Big Data technologies), and electoral crowdsourcing. Keywords: Internet technologies, elections, social networks, electoral fundraising and crowdsourcing, e-voting.

Parties’ voter targeting strategies: What can facebook ads tell us?

Digital political advertising on social media is an integral part of modern election campaigns. It gives political parties a powerful new tool to target voters, but which voters do they pursue? Tapping into an ongoing debate about party strategy, we examine whether parties seek to maintain their existing demographic and regional strongholds, or whether they aim to expand their voter coalitions. While the (intended) audience of other campaign activities is often unknown, data from the Facebook ads archive provide information on their recipients’ gender, age, and subnational region. Our analysis across five countries, which further brings in recent survey and electoral data, suggests that coalition maintenance is the dominant party strategy for demographic groups. Parties that receive more support from a given gender or age group run ads that reach more members of that demographic group. Consistent with the literature that shows a gender and age gap in voting, left-wing parties are more likely to advertise to women than right-wing parties, and green parties disproportionately reach younger voters. The results for geographic groups are mixed. We do find that parties in majoritarian electoral systems pursue a narrower regional audience than their counterparts in proportional systems. This study is one of the first to explore the potential and limitations of Facebook ad audience data to speak to a targeting literature in need of more comparative research on multiparty systems.

Оценка регионального цифрового менеджмента партии «Cправедливая Россия – За правду» в электоральном цикле 2021 г.

The article presents the results of applied political research based on the use of modern methods and tools of social media analytics. In the course of the study, the task was to determine the reasons for the partial realization of the electoral potential of the renewed party «Fair Russia – For the Truth» during the election campaign of 2021. The authors believe that the identified regional differences in the quality of digital party management determine the general shortcomings in accompanying party activities in the digital space. Taking into account the increased role of online tools in the modern election campaign, as well as the expanded opportunities of social media in the process of building communications with target groups, the authors put forward a number of recommendations for scaling the electoral support of the party.

Social media and election under covid-19 pandemic in Malang regency Indonesia

Since COVID-19 is a global epidemic that threatens the safety of mankind, reducing the risk of transmitting the virus is an important issue in the implementation of elections in Indonesia. The purpose of this study is to describe the impact of the use of social and mass media on the implementation of elections. This research was conducted in Malang Regency using a qualitative descriptive approach. Data collection was carried out through limited interviews, observation, and document analysis gathered from books, journals, and election documents. The results of the study show that (1) election information and campaigns are mostly done through social and mass media; (2) most of the public can receive information and campaign issues conveyed through the mass media; (3) elections can run well and smoothly. These findings indicate that the use of social and mass media for socialization and campaigning during a pandemic is quite effective. This finding is very important to reduce the spread of COVID-19, as well as to encourage the implementation of a more modern election.

Тенденції розвитку виборчих технологій в Україні в умовах становлення інформаційного суспільства

The article says that in Ukraine in recent years there has been a rapid development of political technologies, including the electoral ones. This was the result of a profound reform of the political system. In order to gain power, political forces began adopting the experience of other democracies and borrowing technologies that could help them succeed in the election process. Although election technologies are a relatively new phenomenon, they are designed to ensure the most important area of interaction between the state and civil society through the election procedure - the transfer of power to the members of society through the elections. The article says that an important place among other election technologies is occupied by information ones, as they can be an effective tool for managing the consciousness of the masses, therefore the peculiarity of the modern election process is technology and digitalization of preparation methods, organization and conduct of election campaigns. Skillful use of information technology has allowed take the relationship between candidate politicians and potential voters to a new level, transforming them into a partnership. It is mentioned that modern opportunities let address voters directly, but not everyone in general. The efficiency of political slogans increases when they are not addressed to all people at once, but are distributed depending on the target groups of individuals, their interests and needs. The article highlights the statistics on social networks, which have turned into an effective tool for the struggle for voters in 2019 in Ukraine. It is said that the Internet as the means of obtaining information in 2018 for the first time ahead of television. The advantages of information technologies as an effective election tool are given. The expansion of the scope for using information technologies in the political environment is projected, by means of which there will be a systematic communication between the politicians and the electorate.

Electoral forecasting using a novel temporal attenuation model: Predicting the US presidential elections

Electoral forecasting is an ongoing scientific challenge with high social impact, as current data-driven methods try to efficiently combine statistics with economic indices and machine learning. However, recent studies in network science pinpoint towards the importance of temporal characteristics in the diffusion of opinion. As such, we combine concepts of micro-scale opinion dynamics and temporal epidemics, and develop a novel macro-scale temporal attenuation (TA) model, which uses pre-election poll data to improve forecasting accuracy. Our hypothesis is that the timing of publicizing opinion polls plays a significant role in how opinion oscillates, especially right before elections. Thus, we define the momentum of opinion as a temporal function which bounces up when opinion is injected in a system of voters, and dampens down during states of relaxation. We validate TA on survey data from the US Presidential Elections between 1968 and 2016, and TA outperforms several statistical estimates, ARIMA models, as well as the best pollsters at their time, in 10 out of 13 presidential elections. We present two different implementations of the TA model, which accumulate an average forecasting error of 3.04 points over the 48-year period. Conversely, statistical methods accumulate 7.48 points error, and the best pollsters accumulate 3.64 points. Overall, TA offers increases of 23–37% in forecasting performance compared to the state of the art. We show that the effectiveness of TA does not drop when relatively few polls are available; moreover, with increasing availability of pre-election surveys, we believe that our TA model will become a reference alongside other modern election forecasting techniques.

The role of electronic management in developing the electoral process E-voting (template) An applied study on the electoral process in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

This study is summarized in showing the role of modern means of technology and communication and their effect on developing the electoral process where through it we dealt a new concept which is the digital democracy as a major entry to the electronic voting. We realized that the modern means of technology and communication will perform a serious role in forming a new and modern election law that keeps pace with the informational and technical leap that the world witnesses and led to a radical change in many common concepts such as democracy, digital citizenship and replacing paper and ballot boxeswith the idea of electronic voting providing to surround it with insurances that some of them related to legal texts which strengthen it and others related to informational security and culture to reinforce trust of all in the new image of the traditional voting.

Scandalous Design: How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections

Given the role of social media in the modern election, scholars should not only study how platforms function for political actors; we should also study how platforms function as political actors. This essay therefore introduces the concept of scandalous design, which refers to programmatic changes in how social media operate in response to scandal. On the one hand, scandals can encourage changes in the architectural design of social media as products—that is, how platform providers introduce or manipulate features to mitigate the consequences of scandal. On the other, the concept of scandalous design recognizes the agency of these platforms as companies, who alter their organizational protocols in pursuit of furthering their business interests and generating goodwill with governments. The essay’s main argument is that deconstructing platforms’ responses to scandal can provide an empirical glimpse into how social media companies position themselves as political actors. I break down scandalous design into four typological groups: the introduction and manipulation of platform features, and changes to platforms’ analog and digital protocols. The typology is buttressed by recent empirical examples from elections in the United States, European Union, India, Brazil, and China. Without cognizance of how platforms’ operation—both digitally as products and politically as actors—evolves in response to scandal, scholars risk overlooking a key mechanism that contextualizes social media’s role in contemporary elections.

НЕКОТОРЫЕ ПОДХОДЫ К ИССЛЕДОВАНИЮ ПОНЯТИЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЙ ИМИДЖ И СЕТЕВОЙ ИМИДЖ

The article discusses various approaches to the study of political and network image. With the advent of modern election campaigns, it has become clear that image is an inevitable part of a successful campaign. The political image as an object of research began to appear in political science, sociological and communication studies since the 50s of the twentieth century. The political image in modern conditions is becoming such an important factor, politicians who seek to gain power or keep it must be reckoned with it. In modern socio-political conditions and the reduction of ideological differences between political parties and their leaders, their image, through which their authority is reflected, is becoming an increasingly important factor determining the difference between candidates and political parties. For the modern voter, the political image becomes more important than the ideological positions of the candidate and the party. If political parties concentrate on the “average” voter and do not show serious ideological differences, differences in election programs, the image of a political leader becomes the most important factor. Voter confidence depends on image. It is important to determine the audience for whom the political image is being created. A traditional audience is one that has long followed a particular political unit or politics as a whole. The success of the political image and the candidate depends on strategic research, which, among other things, shows what the image of the candidates should be like in these elections. The political image should be aimed at creating voters' confidence in the political leader and developing confidence in the competence of the politician, in his ability to solve pressing problems of society. The political image serves simple purposes - to “win the hearts of citizens” and mobilize their electoral support. But it is not enough to form the image of the candidate, it must be conveyed to the voter without distortion. The modern world has long entered the digital age, where information is distributed through electronic media at a very high speed. Internet technologies for the formation of a political image are beginning to become increasingly important. In the last decade, this issue has become urgent.

Big Data Analytics and Transformation of Election Campaign in India

Data consulting services to political campaign is a fast-developing area in Indian political scenario. Data driven political campaign has started in a big sense by the US Presidential election were the campaign managers of Barack Obama has used the big data for his election campaign. Since then election campaigns started to develop bigger data bases in many of the nations including India. It was in 2014 General election were BJP has relayed more on big data and the campaign managers to develop the political strategies to win the election. The sweeping victory of BJP in this election has opened new big doors to political marketing in India. It is the techniques of Big Data Analytics that help the campaign managers to analyses the bigger databases and come out with the most suitable strategies to win the votes. The techniques of such micro targeting political campaigns were unimaginable and alien to the biggest democracy of the world because of the highly diverse big population of this nation. This paper is a humble attempt to understand the significant nature Big Data Analytics in modern election campaigns in India.

All in the game: Effects of opinion polls on party coverage in the 2013 German election campaign

Opinion polls form an important part of modern election coverage but might also shape amount and tone of other subsequent coverage about political parties. We propose to use and elaborate on Patterson’s generic storylines to help account for different findings in prior research, by pointing to the importance of race context. A manual content analysis (N = 3755) of the 2013 German Bundestag election campaign is used to empirically test our framework, using a multilevel model that separates effects of 36 polls on coverage of five different parties in 11 different outlets. Results show that the amount of party coverage for the front runner party increased after drops in its ratings, and the challenger party received more negative coverage after increases in its poll ratings. Media coverage did not follow a bandwagon trend but played an independent and counteracting role within the election campaign.

The problem of the interrelation of the Internet and politics in modern Russian researches

In this article, we present a review of the modern discussion about the role of the Internet in politics among Russian researchers. We identify the main areas of modern research on this issue: the phenomenon of censorship in the Internet, the role of the Internet in election campaigns, the manipulative capabilities of the Internet, the interconnection of the Internet with ethnopolitical processes. We pay attention to the dispute over the impact of the Internet on the democratic institute and process and as well as on the growth of civil activity. We note that Internet communications are only tools for implementing change, an important condition for the realization of the potential of the World Wide Web is the nature of the political regime. We defined aspects of the problem of the role of the Internet in politics which should be considered further: the Internet as a factor of influence on ethnopolitical processes, the role of virtual reality in erasing the boundaries of ethnicity and the development of extremism and nationalistic sentiments, Internet communications as tools of modern election campaigns, features of influence (positive and negative) of the Internet on the growth of civic activity, media manipulation technology in the Internet, models of censorship in the Internet in modern states and others. We draw the conclusion that scientific research on various aspects on the issue of the interrelation of the Internet and politics continues in Russian science, but the debate about the role of the Internet in politics has not been completed. The lack of consensus on many issues is largely due to the fact that the introduction of Internet communications into politics is a complex and multifaceted process, so its scientific understanding also gives rise to many discussions.