Political Campaigns Research Articles

Implementation of digital technologies in political campaigns

Implementation of digital technologies in political campaigns

Prabowo Gibran's Local Language Campaign On The Tiktok Account Fillixpratama

This research analyzes the impact of the local language campaign conducted by Prabowo Gibran through the TikTok account @fillixpratama25, which demonstrates adaptation to digital trends and the preferences of young voters. Unlike previous studies that focused on political image and campaign strategies in other contexts, this research offers a new approach by emphasizing the use of local language on TikTok. The methodology used is a qualitative approach with a constructivist paradigm, utilizing field research methods. Data was collected through direct observation, document analysis, and interviews with relevant stakeholders. Critical discourse analysis by Teun A. van Dijk was used to understand how local language in this campaign builds or undermines social dominance and reflects power structures. The results of the study indicate that the use of local language and a relaxed communication style create emotional closeness with the audience, increase political awareness among young voters, and leverage the viral potential of TikTok to expand the reach of political messages. This campaign combines media ecology theory and social media campaign theory, highlighting how new media transforms the political communication environment and enables more direct interaction between politicians and the public. The conclusion shows that adaptive strategies in using social media with relevant local languages can strengthen the connection between candidates and voters, increase political awareness, and open new opportunities in political communication in the digital era.

Creating elite encounters: The ‘campaign’ as approach for interviewing corporate elites

Qualitative research in economic geography recognizes the value of accessing business elite perspectives, yet identifying, approaching and interviewing elites present researchers with a set of challenges. Both practical and ethical, these challenges can be particularly acute for research involving ‘contentious’ firms and sectors – those facing increased societal scrutiny due to histories of labour exploitation, bribery and pollution and where there are often strong asymmetries in social power. This paper proposes a systematic approach for managing these challenges and successfully conducting interviews with business elites that we term an interview ‘campaign’. We propose the interview campaign as a strategic, organized and nimble approach designed to achieve a specific goal – an elite encounter. We show how instrumentalism and strategic ambiguity are central to the campaign, and how both can be harnessed to navigate an environment characterized by uncertainty, serendipity and structured relations of power. Our ‘campaign approach’ systematically breaks down a complex process into manageable parts without losing sight of the whole, via clear goals, strategic planning and critical reflection. The need for evidence-based research on corporate strategic action in relation to a wide range of contemporary economic phenomena suggests the campaign approach may have value across many areas of economic geography, business studies and beyond. The paper draws upon established social science literatures on elite interviewing and political campaigning, and on our own experience conducting interviews with senior executives in the oil and gas industry.

The impact of marriage equality campaigns on stress: Did a Swiss public vote get under the skin?

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) individuals encounter persistent structural inequalities and discrimination that can lead to detrimental psychological and physiological health outcomes. Amid evolving legal landscapes, little attention has been directed toward understanding the physiological health effects of societal shifts on these communities. This study aims to explore the impact of a national marriage equality vote and associated debates on psychological and biological stress among LGBTIQ+ individuals and cisgender, heterosexual, endosex individuals (termed cis-heterosexual) in Switzerland. We gathered longitudinal survey and biological data collected in hair samples among LGBTIQ+ and cis-heterosexual individuals before, during, and after the 2021 national vote (survey data: NT1T2 = 954; NT2T3 = 880; biological data: NT1T2 = 393; NT2T3 = 354). Preregistered analyses reveal a notable increase in biological stress levels (i.e., cortisol and cortisone levels), but not perceived stress, among both LGBTIQ+ as well as cis-heterosexual individuals who were close to them during the campaign. Results further point out the negative impacts of the campaign against marriage equality (i.e., no-campaign) on LGBTIQ+ individuals' biological stress levels as well as on those of their allies. These effects were, however, moderated by exposure to the campaign for marriage equality (i.e., yes-campaign), indicating the powerful buffering effects of the yes-campaign on the impact of discrimination on individuals' health. However, these positive effects appear to come at a cost, potentially impacting the well-being of individuals engaged in advocating for the yes-campaign. This research underscores the lasting impact of political campaigns on individuals' health.

Intersecting inequalities in women’s political inclusion in Kenya

ABSTRACT Sub-Saharan Africa has become known for its growing number of women political decision makers, and its progressive policies and laws such as gender quotas. Yet we still do not know enough about how politically active women themselves perceive the challenges and opportunities of being women in politics, and how their experiences differ because of intersecting inequalities. Inspired by the intersectional approach and literature on women and politics in Africa, this article examines politically active women’s perceptions and experiences of electoral politics in Kenya. Through their own stories, it describes how diverse Kenyan women experience political inclusion and exclusion not only as women, but also simultaneously through the complex combinations of such intersecting identities and structural social positionalities as ethnicity and class. Taking party nominations, political campaigning, and electoral violence as examples, the article illustrates how intersecting patterns cross-cut electoral processes. By identifying barriers to their political inclusion, politically active women explain how things should not be, and in doing so, they participate in imagining and outlining new ways of conducting politics in Kenya.

RANCANG BANGUN APLIKASI MANAJEMEN SIMPATISAN SEBAGAI OPTIMALISASI PEMENANGAN PEMILU LEGISLATIF

In the effort to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of political campaigns for legislative elections, the development of information technology plays a critical role. This research focuses on designing and developing a supporter management application specifically tailored to assist legislative candidates in managing and analyzing their supporter data. The application is equipped with key features such as supporter registration, coordinator management across various administrative levels (RT, RW, District), automated WhatsApp messaging for direct communication and as a form of appreciation, and a quick count feature to facilitate vote tallying. Additionally, the application offers comprehensive data analysis capabilities, allowing legislative candidates to understand supporter characteristics based on various categories such as age, occupation, and education level. This analysis feature is crucial for formulating more effective and targeted campaign strategies. The development method employed is the waterfall method, which includes stages of requirements analysis, system design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. This application has been used by legislative candidates in the DPRD of Tangerang Regency in the 2024 local elections and has shown positive results by enhancing supporter engagement and loyalty through structured and systematic communication. The application is expected to be an effective and reliable tool in supporting legislative election campaign strategies, contributing significantly to a more transparent and participatory democratic process

Political Advertising and Data-Driven Campaigning in Australia

There have been breathtaking accounts of the use of data in political campaigns for microtargeting and message testing, among other practices. Most of these examine presidential campaigns in the US. But evidence speaking to the use of data-driven campaigning (DDC) beyond the US is rather thin. Here I examine the use of DDC in Australia, focusing on political advertising specifically. I interview 15 campaign practitioners, asking about several indicators of DDC, including (a) the extent of ad targeting, (b) tailoring of ads to specific audiences, (c) the use of data analytics in ad targeting/tailoring, (d) efforts at online fundraising, and (e) ad testing. I find considerable variation in the use of DDC that stems from differences in resources, different campaign philosophies, and uncertainties about the data. I also find an important role for marketing agencies in supplementing DDC capabilities.

Understanding Voter Resistance to Political Campaigns: Evidence from National Elections of Pakistan

Political marketing literature acknowledges the pivotal role of marketing campaigns in building political support, yet a notable gap exists in understanding voters’ resistance to political campaigns. This paper argues that voters’ resistance can be managed if their attitudes are understood. Grounded in the Tripartite theory of attitude that conceptualizes attitude as a complex relationship between cognition (voter’s apathy, skepticism and cynicism), affection (voter’s dissatisfaction and frustration) and conation (voter’s resistance to political campaigns), the study tests a model for understanding resistance to political marketing. An empirical investigation of 454 participants from 2018 national elections in Pakistan, utilizing a structured questionnaire for data collection and employing structural equation modeling analysis techniques, reveals that skepticism and dissatisfaction significantly fuel voters’ resistance to political efforts. These factors engender disbelief, erode trust, and diminish interest in political candidates and their parties. Based on these findings, we draw implications for advocating citizen engagement over a sole reliance on advertisements to mitigate negative voter attitudes toward political campaigns.

Political Microtargeting – on the Possibility of a Polish Version of the American Cambridge Analytica Scandal from 2016

The use of political microtargeting, a technique of political market segmentation based on an algorithm that allows personalising campaign materials catered to individual voters, is on the rise with political campaigns across the world. Trump’s 2016 campaign provides an example of it being used in an ethically-questionable way that entails personal data infringement. The article looks at the possibility of using it in a similar way in Poland. To this end, the author presents a comparative analysis of a number of elements that make up the political landscapes of the United States and Poland.

The Usage of Twitter (Now 𝕏) Amplifiers in the European Elections of 2019

The aim of this study is to investigate how amplifiers are used in Twitter (now called “X”) during election campaigns. Specifically, the main purpose is to identify the role and engagement of Twitter amplifiers in the 2019 European elections, the visibility of political parties and leaders, and the way in which automated tools are used to manipulate public opinion by influencing voting decisions. The countries considered in the study are two economic powers of Western Europe, France and Germany, as well as two countries of the European South, which are affected by the economic and financial crisis, Greece and Italy. The countries from Southern Europe were included in the sample as they are often used by mass media as political campaign tools. This paper emphasizes the Twitter platform through which the data collection was implemented using the official API of the social networking tool, focusing on the 2019 European elections. We collected data on 88 party leaders and MEP candidates between 10 May and 30 May 2019, as well as on 44,651 accounts that retweeted them. We concluded using 237,813 election-related tweets and used network theory to analyze and visualize the data. The results demonstrate that all political parties use amplifiers to promote their tweets, and some use the same amplifiers between different countries.

The Swedish business elite and the gift explosion of 1947

ABSTRACT In 1948, the social democratic government of Sweden imposed new wealth transfer taxes including an estate tax. Events have been characterised as the definite breakdown of the co-operation between social democracy and organised business. This article attacks the topic from the perspective of the reproduction of the business elite through the inheritance and the gift. The tax reform triggered an epidemic of generosity. In 1947, gift tax revenue was 20 times higher than the annual averages before and after. We have studied the individual actors of the Swedish business elite as donors and concluded that 76 couples of the business elite transferred 25.2 msek to above all their children. The joint political campaign of organised business against the reform raised 24.8 msek. The result complicates and questions previous assumptions concerning the motives of the business elite for protesting against the tax reform.

HAPI: An efficient Hybrid Feature Engineering-based Approach for Propaganda Identification in social media.

Social media platforms serve as communication tools where users freely share information regardless of its accuracy. Propaganda on these platforms refers to the dissemination of biased or deceptive information aimed at influencing public opinion, encompassing various forms such as political campaigns, fake news, and conspiracy theories. This study introduces a Hybrid Feature Engineering Approach for Propaganda Identification (HAPI), designed to detect propaganda in text-based content like news articles and social media posts. HAPI combines conventional feature engineering methods with machine learning techniques to achieve high accuracy in propaganda detection. This study is conducted on data collected from Twitter via its API, and an annotation scheme is proposed to categorize tweets into binary classes (propaganda and non-propaganda). Hybrid feature engineering entails the amalgamation of various features, including Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), Bag of Words (BoW), Sentimental features, and tweet length, among others. Multiple Machine Learning classifiers undergo training and evaluation utilizing the proposed methodology, leveraging a selection of 40 pertinent features identified through the hybrid feature selection technique. All the selected algorithms including Multinomial Naive Bayes (MNB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree (DT), and Logistic Regression (LR) achieved promising results. The SVM-based HaPi (SVM-HaPi) exhibits superior performance among traditional algorithms, achieving precision, recall, F-Measure, and overall accuracy of 0.69, 0.69, 0.69, and 69.2%, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed approach is compared to well-known existing approaches where it overperformed most of the studies on several evaluation metrics. This research contributes to the development of a comprehensive system tailored for propaganda identification in textual content. Nonetheless, the purview of propaganda detection transcends textual data alone. Deep learning algorithms like Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) offer the capability to manage multimodal data, incorporating text, images, audio, and video, thereby considering not only the content itself but also its presentation and contextual nuances during dissemination.

Platform kinship and the reshaping of political order in the Somali territories

Abstract Numerous studies show that digital technologies facilitate diaspora engagement in homeland affairs. However, communities in home countries also adapt digital platforms to harness diasporic support and drive socio-political change. Despite a rich literature on ‘digital kinship’, there remains a limited understanding of kinship's broader political and developmental impact, especially in (post)conflict regions. This article draws on fieldwork in the Somali territories to argue that a distinctive model of governance, platform kinship, is emerging as an alternative to existing state and international development programmes. Focusing on WhatsApp, it highlights how the platform's specific features are adapted to Somali segmentary clan structures, enabling kinship groups to bridge digital divides, preserve oral traditions and uphold egalitarian principles. Platform kinship has state-like effects. Through an ecosystem of WhatsApp groups, geographically dispersed kin mediate disputes, coordinate development projects, fund political campaigns, and respond to conflicts and crises. However, it also empowers new actors, including youth, politicians and business elites, while marginalizing elders. Furthermore, because platform kinship strengthens the clan as the central political unit, it can deepen divisions between kinship groups and undermine state-building projects and conceptions of national identity. This has important implications for policy-makers and academics working on digital governance, development and peacebuilding.

Art performance as a political communication tool in Indonesia: beyond the stage

PurposeThis retrospective phenomenological case study examines the experiences of 18 politicians who participated in a political campaign using performing arts and artists in a regional heads and legislators in Indonesia. Also, the role of Gandrung art as a performing art is becoming a political communication tool for political actors in Indonesia.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a retrospective phenomenological case. The informants recruited were 18 politicians who have local, regional and national political levels. The participants were interviewed about their experiences of campaigning using traditional performing arts as a form of political communication. Data collection techniques used in this study include interviews and photo documentation during the campaign process to triangulate findings.FindingsBased on a case study analysis and through thematic analysis, this research reveals three emerging themes which indicate that performing arts function as political communication tools in three significant ways: (1) as a form of artistic expression for conveying political messages through movement and the use of dancer costumes; (2) as a medium for showcasing cultural identity and representation as a form of concern for the local culture of voters; and (3) as a means to garner mass appeal and propagate political propaganda.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has two limitations. First, the study only interviewed a small number of participants. Thus, generalization for wider contexts of politicians is not possible. Second, the study focuses on examining the voice of politicians and analyzing it using thematic analysis.Originality/valueThere is a scarcity of research that specifically focuses on uncovering the perspectives of politicians who employ performing arts as a political communication tool. This study contributes to the understanding that art performance is inherently non-neutral, highlighting how performing arts can actively engage in political communication by conveying messages, shaping cultural identity and influencing public opinion in the context of Indonesia.

Free to represent you and me: Gender attitudes and women's share of parliament, 1995–2021

Women are under-represented in political leadership roles, comprising only a quarter of national parliament members across the world. This is surprising, given women's comparatively high level of education and labor force participation. Why has women's political leadership lagged behind other indicators of gender equality? In this study, we revisit the importance of gender attitudes and examine the extent to which they shape women's share of parliament. Prior studies either examine gender attitudes by relying on cross-sectional research designs with small samples or adopt proxy measures that serve as crude indicators of gender ideology. We overcome these limitations by directly measuring gender attitudes from the World Values Survey and European Values Study, while adopting a panel design with a larger sample of countries and a more comprehensive set of controls. Drawing from our dataset of 275 observations across 101 countries during the 1995–2021 period, we find that our attitudinal measure, gender egalitarianism, wipes away most of the observed differences in women's share of parliament between world regions. Moreover, when we add two-way fixed effects, we find that a one-unit increase in a country's gender egalitarianism score is associated with an increase in women's parliament share by about four or five percentage points. Finally, we address concerns about endogeneity by replicating our results using two-stage least squares models with fixed effects. Overall, our findings suggest that gender ideology helps account for the growing success and persistent obstacles faced by women political candidates across the world.

Are Women Politicians Kind and Competent? Disentangling Stereotype Incongruity in Candidate Evaluations

AbstractAcademia and political campaigners conventionally cast gender stereotypes as an electoral liability for women in politics. Incongruent stereotype expectations place women in a double-bind where they either fail the social demands of political leadership or they breach gender norms related to femininity—with potential backlash due to stereotype violation in both cases. Two decades of research offer conflicting conclusions regarding the role of stereotype incongruity in candidate evaluations and its electoral consequences for women in politics. This paper theoretically revisits and empirically tests core assumptions of stereotype incongruity as a driver of gender biases in political communication. In a series of four online survey experiments, this study examines incongruity in trait expectations (study 1), trait inferences (studies 2 and 3), and trait evaluations (study 4). Results show that voters expect and infer incongruity in candidate traits for women and men politicians only in few but notable cases. Moreover, voters punish candidates of both gender groups similarly for displaying stereotypically undesirable traits but reward female politicians more strongly for displaying desirable communal traits. The findings have important implications for the understanding of persistent biases that women face in electoral politics.

(Un)leashed potentials: an activist-centered perspective on the political mobilization of motorcycle taxi drivers in eastern DRC

ABSTRACT The re-emergence of competitive elections in Africa has sparked new interest in political mobilization on the continent. Much of this literature focusses on political actors and the strategies they use to mobilize. If the campaign activists are reviewed at all, they are often categorized by their ethnic or religious affiliation. Thereby, abilities and potentials for political participation, which are important within conceptual literature on political mobilization, are side-lined. This article uses an activist-centered perspective to review the political mobilization of motorcycle taxi drivers, eastern Congo. Based on empirical research in 2020 and 2021, it evaluates the mobilization potentials of the so-called motards and their deployment during political action. The article finds that motards possess unique potentials for participating in political campaigns due to their mobility and large social networks but only partially deploy them. While their mobility potential is widely utilized, the mobilization of their social networks is hampered by a lack of allegiances and infrequent contacts with politicians. Based on the research findings, the article advocates expanding the perception of political mobilization in Africa by reflecting on the preconditions of mobilizability such as enabling potentials, interactions with activists and aligned political strategies.

Борьба против идеализма в квантовой химии в СССР и дискуссии XXI в.

At the end of the last century and at the beginning of this century, a number of historical and methodological papers was published on the ideological and political campaigns that took place in the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This article continues this historical and scientific line. It examines an ideological attack on one of the early quantum chemical theories, the theory of resonance, which took place in Soviet science in the 1949–1951’s (more broadly, the expression “antiresonance campaign” can be rewritten as follows: “a campaign to fight against idealism in quantum chemistry” or “the struggle for ideological correctness of Soviet quantum chemistry”), provides an overview of the literature on the history of criticism of chemical and physical theories in the course of these ideological and political campaigns and highlights two ideological dominants of these campaigns: the struggle against physical idealism and the struggle against so-called cosmopolitanism. It is noted that the anti-resonance campaign followed other ideological, or better to say ideological-political, events conducted by the leadership of the Soviet Union. The campaign is also interesting as a cultural phenomenon of the late Stalinist era with its bizarre symbiosis of scientific, rational and mystical values. It allows us to better understand the situation in Soviet natural science, which used ideological rhetoric and nevertheless retained creative potencies, as well as why quantum chemistry, which included the theory of resonance, was not defeated like genetics, why it, having lost pace of development, was preserved as a scientific area.

Activated History: The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna

We show that history stored in collective memories and activated by political campaigns can create xenophobia and radicalization. Turkish troops besieged Vienna in 1529 and 1683 and pillaged individual Austrian villages, killing and kidnapping in the process. Attacked places remember those events well but never expressed aversion to Muslims until far-right populists started to campaign against Turks and Muslims in the mid-2000s. We find anti-Muslim sentiments and far-right voting surge in previously attacked places after the populist campaigns were launched, and Turkish communities decrease in response. Historical narratives in political campaigns can mobilize both beliefs and actions. (JEL D72, D83, J15, N43, Z12, Z13)

Reflecting on the changing use of social media in political campaigns: Lessons from Indonesia’s 2024 election

Reflecting on the changing use of social media in political campaigns: Lessons from Indonesia’s 2024 election