Elections and New Media

Elections and New Media

By: Will Bevin-Nicholls and Reza FallahBy: Will Bevin-Nicholls and Reza Fallah

Introduction• Internet use has grown from 16 million users in

1995, to 2,749 million users in 2013 - and is continuing to grow.

• Because of this it has become a key tool in elections all over the world, from India to the U.S.A.

• Social media has allowed a flow of information more quickly, and widely than ever before.

• The internet has changed political participation - it is now a lot easier to reach a wider audience.

US Elections 2012

Source: http://i.huffpost.com/gen/822499/thumbs/o-PRESIDENTIAL-ELECTION-2012-facebook.jpg

US election 2012 digital activities overview 4-17 June 2012

Source: http://www.journalism.org/2012/08/15/how-presidential-candidates-use-web-and-social-media/

Obama’s total Facebook page likes: 31.1m vs. Romney’s total Facebook page likes: 10.2m

But its not about numbers, its about performance

US election social media performance

• Obama’s campaign has made far more use of direct digital messaging than Romney’s.

• The economy may have dominated both candidates’ digital messaging, but it was not what voters showed the most interest in.

• Neither campaign made much use of the social aspect of social media.

• Obama’s digital strategy targets specific voter groups (18 different constituency groups, as it did four years ago,) to a greater degree than Romney’s (9 groups since August).

• Romney Makes Smart Use of Facebook Marketing.

• Obama appears on ‘AMA’ (Ask Me Anything) section on Reddit but dodges tough questions.

The Obama 2012 re-election campaign

• A database was created containing information about potential voters.

• Potential voters were invited to join the Obama re-election site via Facebook and Facebook-Connect.

• The Obama Campaign employed the use of new software known as Vote Builder.

• By the end of the campaign, Obama had 22.7 million Twitter followers and 32.2 million

• Facebook likes, compared to Romney’s 1.8 million followers and 12.1 million Facebook likes.Obama's 31.1 (in 2012) million Facebook fans.

The Obama 2012 re-election campaign

By the end of the campaign, Obama had 22.7 million Twitter followers and 32.2 million Facebook likes,

compared to Romney’s 1.8 million followers and 12.1 million Facebook likes.

The Obama leadership campaign

• Young people dominate social media, but even if no one under the age of 30 had voted for Obama, he would have still won in every state but two.

• The 'I voted today’ badge on Facebook during the leadership elections increased voting turnout buy around 5% - around 1 million extra votes.

• The most effective way of increasing turnout is face to face canvassing, which increased turnout by about 8%.

Source: http://paytonandco.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/socialitical-logo-final.png

Indian general election 2014

Indian general election 2014

• There are 62 million Indians on the social media, some 97 per cent of them are on Facebook.

• The number of social media users is likely to grow to about 80 million by mid-2014

• social media could have a “high impact” on 160 of the 543 constituencies in the next election

• Candidates use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Google Hangout

• Shashi Tharoor: “I think it can be a game influencer, but I wouldn’t go beyond that at this stage … social media happens to offer an additional way, not a substitute for any of the traditional means of campaigning." Is he right?sources: http://www.charleneli.com/2012/10/obama-vs-romney-in-social-media-whos-using-it-best/

http://www.journalism.org/2012/08/15/how-presidential-candidates-use-web-and-social-media/

The 2010 UK General Election

Source: http://media.salon.com/2010/05/uk_election_update_tory_lib_dem_coalition_back_on_track-1280x960.jpg

The 2010 UK General Election

• Named the 'social media election'.

• A higher turnout was contributed to social and digital media – particularly amongst 18-24 year olds.

• Social media helped party activists to organize more efficiently. Software imported from the

• U.S helped to create three times more face to face contact than the previous year.

• Twitter became a core tool for both politicians and the media.

• 600 candidates became active on Twitter with 198 members of the new parliament active still.

• The Election normalized the use of social media as source material.

The 2010 UK General Election

• Although television remained the dominant medium – young people got most of their news

• online. This increased its importance to newspapers and broadcast news.

• People felt social media provided a more transparent election campaign.

• The rise of Political Blogs...

• ...And Facebook.

Conclusion

• Social media is a key to success in modern elections

• Politics is becoming more and more involved with social networking

• Its not about numbers

• Facebook is not the dominating network in this area

Thank you!Thank you!