Political Sites Research Articles

Partisan and/or Gender Homophily: The Influence of Social Identity-Based Elaboration on Political Candidate Evaluation

Employing social identity theory, this study explores the interaction of gender and party variables in political elections. We used an experimental approach with a two (man/woman) x two (Republican/Democrat) design, in which participants viewed a political website, to assess the influence of shared and competing identities in candidate evaluations as well as the mechanisms of influence. Upholding previous findings, we found that a candidate’s partisan identity carried significantly more weight than their gender identity. Extending previous findings, results reveal that shared identities increase feelings of homophily, which biases elaboration about the candidate. This identity-biased elaboration influences attitudes and voting decisions.

The study on role of media diversity and political interest on echo chamber effect

Purpose Social media has made people better informed but also easier to manipulate. By using literature review and observing social media, the authors found a problem about echo chamber effect. The purpose of this paper is to know how the echo chamber affects the people who consume political news and the role of media diversity in it. Design/methodology/approach To conduct this study, the authors used a structured questionnaire on the Qualtrics platform to collect data from 183 participants. The authors collected data using a simple random technique. This study is based on the cross-sectional survey; the data collection period is from October to November 2023. The authors used the SPSS software to analyze the relationships between the variables and test the hypothesis. Findings This study found that, echo chamber is not affected by media diversity. Because of increased political interest, people will be less influenced by echo chambers. In addition, demographic factors affect political interest. People use search engines and social media sites instead of political websites when it comes to the consumption of political news online. People like to communicate with individuals who hold conflicting political views. Originality/value Researchers have not yet been able to gain a clear understanding of whether users are in an echo chamber or not and how they are interacting in that environment. Research on this topic is still going on from different perspectives. This study helped to clarify whether or not more media consumption will affect echo chambers. The possibility of being trapped in an echo chamber exists whether we use a single medium or a variety of media. The novelty of this study lies in the use of the echo chamber scale to investigate a thorough understanding of this word through the use of many factors.

How partisan social identity shapes evaluations of candidate brand elements on campaign websites

ABSTRACT Political parties operate as partisan social groups and partisanship biases the way individuals process political information, form political opinions, and evaluate candidates. Partisans demonstrate favoritism when evaluating fellow party members but discriminate against those in the opposing party. However, the bounds of this partisan intergroup bias are undetermined. Using a constructed political website, an experiment tested the extent of the reach of partisan social identity in biasing evaluations on candidate brand attributes. That limit was not ascertained as partisans evaluated an out-party candidate lower than an in-party candidate on every brand element measured, including personal and nonpolitical attributes. Through a tragic frame, partisans expressed great negative affect toward a candidate from the opposing party and transfer it to his political stances, experience, wife, grandson, and even dog. The results reveal that partisan social identities create divides among social and personal issues and exacerbate affective polarization.

The Online Battlefield: How Conflict Frames in Political Advertisements Affect Political Participation in a Multiparty Context

This article examines how politicians’ conflict framing strategies in online campaign advertisements affect citizens’ political participation in a multi-party context. We rely on a unique combination of innovative research methods to do so, including a four-wave panel survey, a content analysis of Facebook browser-tracking data and a mobile experience sampling survey with data donations. All data were collected during the 2021 Dutch general elections. We find that conflict framing can discourage citizens from engaging in low-effort forms of political participation, such as discussing politics, signing a petition and visiting political websites. The results show that conflict frames can demobilize citizens because they lower enthusiasm and are perceived as less informative. Our study provides insights into the potential unintended consequences of using conflict framing as a campaign strategy in a multi-party setting.

Online Activities and Extremist Attitudes in Adolescence: An Empirical Analysis with a Gender Differentiation

Abstract Radicalization research is dedicated to analyzing factors related to radicalization processes, which in turn can lead to extremism. One factor is frequently discussed: the role of the Internet. This paper examines the relationship between active and passive online activities, including consumption, networking, and posting, and extremist attitudes in the field of Islamism and right-wing extremism among adolescents. Data from a school survey (N = 6,715) show that right-wing attitudes are particularly correlated with consumption of political websites, though this effect is weaker among females. However, posting shows only a small effect and networking shows no effect at all. Islamist attitudes, on the other hand, are related to the extent to which one consumes violent Islamist videos, meets other Muslims online, and posts Islamic content.

Les caractéristiques fonctionnelles et stylistiques du discours publicitaire français dans les médias économiques et politiques modernes

The article examines the functional and stylistic features of French advertising discourse in modern economic and political media. The relevance of this issue stems from the fact that advertising texts are closest to the impact pole on the conditional message-impact scale. The advertising discourse is analyzed using the material of advertisements, articles, notes, interviews, and extended announcements in the French media of economic and political focus, and drawing on the example of contextual and media advertising retrieved from French economic and political websites. The paper attempts to comprehensively study advertising discourse with due consideration of the determining role of the functional and stylistic factors, analyze the main functions of advertising discourse, and highlight the main directions of research on advertising. Special attention is paid to the pragmatic orientation of advertising, which manifests itself in specific linguistic categories. The analysis of the linguistic material shows that modern advertising discourse in the French media of economic and political focus makes ample use of expressive means designed to exert an efficient impact on the recipient. Among the most commonly used means, metaphor, metonymy, anaphora, hyperbole and antithesis are at the top of the list. Figures of higher expressiveness and emotional coloring are shown to demonstrate a high frequency of use in advertising. These include rhetorical questions, rhetorical addresses and rhetorical exclamations. Figures of double meaning, such as language games based on linguistic ambiguity, are also successfully used in French advertising discourse.

Web Archiving Local Election and Government Websites

Local election and political websites are highly ephemeral due to their nature, especially for losing candidates. Thus, they are highly vulnerable to loss from the historical record. A survey during Spring 2019 of previously captured web archives on the Archive.org website showed a scarcity of captured websites for local governmental and political elections in Michigan. The University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library currently captures websites related to the Governor, Michigan senators, and some congress members. However, less high-profile candidates were not being captured. As such, many websites from the 2018 midterm elections are vulnerable to loss. Furthermore, 2020 held a presidential election as well as many local elections, and with these campaigns, political websites hosting valuable candidate information were put up on the web for a limited time. Preserving content from these websites could be of great value for future researchers.

The Prevalence of Political Discourse in Non-Political Blogs

Though political theorists have emphasized the importance of political discussion in non-political spaces, past study of online political discussion has focused on primarily political websites. Using a random sample from Blogger.com, we find that 25% of all political posts are from blogs that post about politics less than 20% of the time, because the vast majority of blogs post about politics some of the time but infrequently. Far from being taboo topics in those non- political blogs, political posts got slightly more comments than non-political posts in those same blogs, and the comments overwhelmingly engage the political topics of the post, mostly agreeing but frequently disagreeing as well. We argue that non-political spaces devoted primarily to personal diaries, hobbies, and other topics represent a substantial place of online political discussion and should be a site for further study.

Quality of the discussion of asthma on twitter

Introduction Patients obtain a large amount of medical information online. Much of this information may not be reliable or of high quality. We investigated what influences the discussion of asthma on Twitter by evaluating the most popular tweets and the quality of the links shared. Methods We used Symplur Signals to extract data from Twitter examining characteristics of the top 100 most shared tweets and the 50 most shared links that included the hashtag #asthma. Information on each site was assessed using an Asthma Content score, and validated DISCERN scores and HONCode criteria. Results The top 100 asthma-related tweets were shared 10,169 times and had 16,044 likes. Healthcare organizations posted 49 of the top 100 tweets, non-healthcare individuals posted 20, non-healthcare organizations posted 16 and clinicians posted 14. Of the top 100 tweets, 62 were educational, 11 research-related, 10 political and 15 promotional. The top 50 links were shared 6009 times (median number of shares 92 per link (range 60-710)). Links most commonly (42%) led to educational content while 24% of links led to research articles, 22% to promotional websites, and 12% to political websites. Educational links had higher Asthma Content scores than other links (p < 0.005). Overall, all three scores were low for all types of links. Only 34% of sites met HONCode criteria, and 14% were assessed as high quality by DISCERN score. Conclusion The top tweets using the hashtag #asthma were commonly educational. The majority of top links on Twitter scored poorly on asthma content, quality, and reliability.

Quality Dimensions of Political Parties’ Website Services That Satisfy Voters in the Political Marketing

The present research investigates the quality dimensions of the Greek Parliaments’ political parties’ websites in an off-campaign period, one year before the legislative elections 2019. The hypotheses are based on political marketing background theory with emphasis on variables from different e-service quality models and effective web-design dimensions. The authors use a sample of 400 voters to make the survey. Respectively, the useful content and esthetic design were the most significant dimensions of the voters’ perception about the political websites’ quality. Theoretical discussion and managerial implications on how to organize the political websites’ services to attract more voters are provided based on the research findings.

HOW RELIABLE ARE THE MOST COMMONLY SHARED ASTHMA LINKS ON TWITTER?

SESSION TITLE: Wednesday Abstract Posters SESSION TYPE: Original Investigation Posters PRESENTED ON: 10/23/2019 09:45 AM - 10:45 AM PURPOSE: Patients obtain a large amount of medical information online. However, much of this information may not be reliable or of high quality. Our goal was to assess the reliability and quality of links related to asthma. METHODS: The 50 most highly shared links on Twitter containing the hashtag #asthma in 2018 were examined for type of link, how often shared, and frequency of shares by stakeholder group (healthcare organizations, clinicians, non-healthcare individuals, and non-healthcare organizations). Quality and reliability of information on each site were assessed using DISCERN scores, HONCode criteria, and Asthma Content scores, collected independently by two investigators. RESULTS: In 2018, the top 50 links were shared 6009 times (median number of shares 92 per link, range 60-710 shares per link). Links most commonly (42%) led to general educational content while 24% of links led to research articles, 22% to promotional websites, and 12% to political websites. Most of the sites had low Asthma Content scores (median 3; 25-75% IQR 1-8; possible range 0-17). Only 34% of sites met HONCode criteria for high understandability, accessibility, and trustworthiness. Most of the websites (54%) had low quality information by DISCERN scores, while only 14% were assessed as high quality. General education links had higher Asthma Content scores than other links (P<0.005), although overall the scores were low for all types of links (median 7 (25-75% IQR 2-11) vs median 3 (25-75% IQR 0-4)). There were significant differences in which articles were more often shared by different stakeholder groups. Research article links were more likely to be shared by clinicians (OR 14.0; 95% CI 2.6-75.2), and had the highest HONCode scores (median 7 (25-75% IQR 5-7) vs median 5 (25-75% IQR 3-6); P=0.01). Promotional article links had the lowest HONCode scores (median 3 (25-75% IQR 2-4) vs median 6 (25-75% IQR 4-7); P=0.0004). HONCode, Asthma Content scores & overall DISCERN scores had high degrees of correlation. Links with high HONCode scores were more likely to be shared by clinicians, while links with high Asthma Content scores were more likely to be shared by healthcare organizations. Links with high overall DISCERN scores were more likely to contain general educational content. Links highly shared by individuals had lower DISCERN reliability scores, including several links with biased and potentially fraudulent content. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the most commonly shared links on Twitter using the hashtag #asthma scored poorly in terms of asthma content, quality and reliability. Higher quality links more frequently contained general educational information and were mostly shared by healthcare organizations and clinicians. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Highly shared links on social media are not the best source of information on medical topics. DISCLOSURES: No relevant relationships by Christopher Carroll, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Neha Dangayach, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Viren Kaul, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Jay Peters, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Kathleen Sala, source=Web Response shareholder relationship with HylaPharm Please note: $20001 - $100000 Added 06/14/2019 by Steven Simpson, source=Web Response, value=nothing, yet Consultant relationship with Aimmune Please note: $1001 - $5000 Added 03/01/2019 by David Stukus, source=Web Response, value=Consulting fee Consultant relationship with Before Brands Please note: $1001 - $5000 Added 03/01/2019 by David Stukus, source=Web Response, value=Consulting fee No relevant relationships by Tamas Szakmany, source=Web Response

An Analysis of Jargon Used in Political Website

The objectives of the study were to describe the forms, meanings, and functions of Political Jargon Which were found in Political Website. This study mainly aimed to describe the jargon used in political news of CNN politics as the Political Website. The writers used a qualitative descriptive method in classifying and analyzing the data. After investigating the forms, meanings, and functions of jargon in CNN politics on 1st -30th May, 2016, the writers found several findings. The political jargon in this website can be analyzed in forms were 53 words, 15 phrases, 5 abbreviations and there was no acronym, in the lexical meanings categories there were 58 denotative meanings and 15 connotative meanings from 73 data and the functions of Political Jargon were a belongings to a specific group, to communicate and signal for identification of political group. In conclusion, the jargon used to convey the meaning and to communicate to the readers, in this context as a signal in politics fields. So, the readers will be familiar in using some terms of political jargon in everyday speech.&#x0D; Keywords: Jargon, Political Website, Meaning

Bro, foe, or ally? Measuring ambivalent sexism in political online reporters

ABSTRACTThe Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) measures hostile (overt antagonism towards women) and benevolent (chivalry) sexism. Previous research shows that political ideology contributes to ASI. Yet little attention has been given to increasingly popular political websites in terms of measuring sexism. Furthermore, recent firings of news professionals over accused sexual misconduct reveal the seriousness of sexism in the news industry. This study surveyed political online reporters (N = 210) using ASI and predicting sociodemographic and organizational factors. Results show benevolent sexism levels mostly similar for all factors, but not hostile sexism. Those working for conservative websites had higher levels of hostile sexism, but website partisanship had no significance for benevolent sexism. Men reported higher levels of hostile sexism and protective paternalism, but not complementary gender differentiation. Overall, individual levels of conservatism also predicted hostile sexism, but not benevolence. The pervasiveness of benevolence jeopardizes women’s progression in the workplace. High levels of hostility ultimately endanger newsrooms, as well as negatively impact political coverage of gender related issues.

The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions

Many democratic nations are experiencing increased levels of false information circulating through social media and political websites that mimic journalism formats. In many cases, this disinformation is associated with the efforts of movements and parties on the radical right to mobilize supporters against centre parties and the mainstream press that carries their messages. The spread of disinformation can be traced to growing legitimacy problems in many democracies. Declining citizen confidence in institutions undermines the credibility of official information in the news and opens publics to alternative information sources. Those sources are often associated with both nationalist (primarily radical right) and foreign (commonly Russian) strategies to undermine institutional legitimacy and destabilize centre parties, governments and elections. The Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump in the United States are among the most prominent examples of disinformation campaigns intended to disrupt normal democratic order, but many other nations display signs of disinformation and democratic disruption. The origins of these problems and their implications for political communication research are explored.

The best practices of online presidential communication in democratic states Romania, Republic of Moldova and Russian Federation

The Presidential Communication is defined as the dissemination, by the president or the presidential institution, of the public or national interest information. The interactive model, with its connotation of public deliberation renovated form, is the most egalitarian and democratic model of presidential political communication.&#x0D; Currently, in most European democratic states, the "true public deliberation" is favored by political websites which allow the two-way communication and the three-way communication. Among the most interactive elements of the websites the researchers have identified the following: active email to political leader or contact forms, e-subscriptions, forums, site search engine.&#x0D; Presidency website is the main form of new media involved in the presidential political communication of the Republic of Moldova. Mapping the website, content analysis, interpretation of results - are the methods which have been used for the purposes to assess the effectiveness of communication between Head of State and citizens from the online environment. Contrastive analysis of new media, applied for the presidential communication by Nicolae Timofti, Klaus Iohannis, Vladimir Putin, has served to determine the best practices and to develop recommendations for optimizing online presidential communication of the Republic of Moldova.

Content analysis of new means of communication in contemporary democratic states

The previous period of United States presidential elections of 1996 has redirected the relevant scientific research to investigate the correlation online communication - political sphere. Consequently were formulated various paradigms and the most discussed was the democratic paradigm, according to which the representation serve as a basic principle of modern democracy. The study of the level of influence of new communication technologies on political sphere became, for a number of scientific investigations carried out in USA, Canada and later in some European countries such as France, Italy, the UK (in 2000 and since 2007 in Romania), an important objective of empirical research. In most cases, the first stage of the investigation of online political communication has been marked by some methodological problems such as: the changeable nature of web space, the necessity to elaborate new indicators able to represent basic aspects of studied reality, the temporal validity of the data. The elaboration of A Model of Cyber –Interactivity by Sally J. McMillan has contributed to overcome these difficulties and has demonstrated the effectiveness of content analysis as research method used for the study of Web Space dynamic reality. Later, the research team from the University of Rochester (Paul Ferber, Frantz Foltz, Rudy Pugliese) have perfected the two-way interactivity model (elaborated by Sally J. McMillan) and have it completed with three-dimensional model of interactivity for the purpose of quantitative investigation of political websites and to argue that these forms of new media correspond to the ideals of cyberdemocracy.

Israeli Representatives' Use of and Attitudes Toward Web Applications

In the last decade, there has been a major increase in the technology that enables representatives and voters to connect with one another. Representatives can use email, their political party's website, personal websites, Facebook, e-newsletters, weblogs and Twitter simultaneously to bypass the traditional political media. The author asks, what are the usage patterns of these web applications? What are the characteristics of the representatives who use these technologies? What are their attitudes about their use? Most previous studies have concentrated on one perspective (representatives or voters) or used one research method (questionnaires, interviews, hard data). This article is unique in that it combines several research methods: interviews with representatives regarding their attitudes toward the new technology and hard data from the Israeli Knesset's website regarding the MKs' use of web applications. The findings demonstrate that the Israeli representatives are no different than their colleagues in other parliaments. Young MKs and junior MKs are more likely to use web applications than older MKs and those with more seniority. However, coalition MKs use web applications differently than opposition MKs. Furthermore, the representatives have positive attitudes toward the use of web applications and consider them useful for communicating with the voters.

In the name of national security: articulating ethno-political struggles as terrorism

ABSTRACTThe discourse of terrorism is one of the most powerful political discourses of our times. More often than not, its labels and assumptions – including the division of the world into sharp dichotomies of ‘free’ and ‘civilized’ states vs. ‘evil’ and ‘barbarian terrorists’ – go unquestioned in related political speeches, media reports, and public deliberation. These unquestioned assumptions, however, become problematic when the signifier ‘terrorism’ is used to depict an armed struggle of ethno-nationalistic groups for independent self-governance. This is because struggle against ‘terrorism’ justifies a completely different arsenal of response strategies, which might lack legitimacy when countering separatism. This problem becomes apparent when states respond to separatism by manipulating the fear of terrorism to justify undemocratic actions in the name of national security. Using as a case study the post-Maidan confrontation in the East of Ukraine and analyzing related coverage by three political websites, this paper discusses how the discourse of terrorism has been formed within the public sphere of Ukraine.

Developing and Testing a Magazine Website: The Chartist

Online magazine websites are one of the major traditional platforms for publishing various magazine contents through various means of public computer networks, such as the bulletin board system, in order to share historical artefacts, online newspapers, blog features, and several forms of political occurrence online. Due to increased competitiveness in the world market, several developers are experiencing numerous challenges, for website development. These challenges can be broadened in diverse editorial and end users issues, requiring an abrupt and effective strategic development and testing to positively address these issues in order to assist developers in creating robust platforms during website development. This paper shows the development and testing process of a political e-commerce magazine website named “The Chartist”, which included the development of the checkout page, download article button, saved article page and gallery page, using dream weaver, flash and ASP.Net during the design phase.

Ready for e-electioneering? Empirical evidence from Pakistani political parties’ websites

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of political party websites for e-electioneering and their impact on the outcome of the elections. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical data for the study were collected from the websites of 11 major political parties of Pakistan using modified version of the coding scheme used by Gibson, Rommele and Ward for the evaluation of functionality and delivery of websites. Data were analysed using web content analysis method to achieve the objectives of this study. The study also ranked the party websites based on points scored for functionalities and delivery. Findings – The study found that although Pakistani political parties have started using their websites for communication with their voters during the general elections but they have not utilized the full potential of the website functionalities for e-electioneering. Research limitations/implications – The study focused on content analysis of political party websites of Pakistan only. However, comparisons were made to other studies where possible to contextualize the results of this study in international perspective. It is suggested to replicate this study after ten years to study the changing behaviour of political parties. Practical implications – Political parties might like to improve their websites in the light of findings of this study to spread their message more effectively to larger voter base. Social implications – Findings of the study will help in improving the readiness of political parties for e-electioneering and improved websites will help voters in making an informed decision during election. It will overall improve the electoral process in the country where democratic system is not very strong. Originality/value – With the advent of internet, political parties are using their websites during elections for various purposes. This study, first ever in Pakistan on the topic, provides empirical evidence on the use of political party websites during May 2013 general election in Pakistan and presents its impact on the outcome of the election. The study will be valuable for political science researchers especially those focusing on Asia and Pakistan.