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Social Media and Election Campaigns (completed)

The project analyzed the impact of social media in election campaigns in the USA (2012), Norway (2013), Australia (2013), and Sweden (2014).

Many different flags Autralia, Norway, Sweden and other countries. Hastags usa, research, politics, norway and others. Illustration.

About the project

Focusing on election campaigns in four stable democracies; The United States, Australia, Norway, and Sweden, the project used a cross-national and cross-media approach to investigate to what degree social media changes political communication.

Three key findings

  • A key finding in our studies is that social media is used by politicians for the purpose of political marketing rather than for engaging in dialogue with the voters, and as such social media is used as one-way communication tools rather than interactive personal communication tools.
  • A second key finding is that social media impacts on politics in an inter-media agenda setting, meaning that the postings on social media relate actively to current debates in mainstream media, and vice-versa; the mainstream media actively reports on social media debates.
  • Third, we found significant national differences between social media use in politics and their impact on politics, for example the Nordic region compared to the USA. Factors that impact on social media use in politics include size of population, political culture, and media system.

Funding

The project was funded by The Research Council of Norway (NFR).

Duration

2012-2015.

Publications

2018

2017

2016

  • Bruns, Axel, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbø, Anders Olof Larsson & Christian Christensen (2016). The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics. Routledge.  ISBN 9781138860766.  538 s.
  • Enli, Gunn & Anja Naper (2016) Social Media Incumbent Advantage: Barack Obama  and Mitt Romney's Tweets in the 2012 US Presidential Election Campaign. In Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbø, Anders Olof Larsson & Christian Christensen (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics
  • Larsson, Anders Olof & Skogerbø, Eli (2016). Out with the old, in with the new? Perceptions of social (and other) media by local and regional Norwegian politicians. New Media and Society.  ISSN 1461-4448. . doi: 10.1177/1461444816661549
  • Larsson, Anders Olof, Bente Kalsnes & Christian Christensen (2016). Elite Interaction - Public service broadcasters’ use of Twitter during national elections in Norway and Sweden . Journalism Practice.  ISSN 1751-2786.
  • Larsson, Anders Olof & Christian Christensen (2016). From showroom to chat room SVT on social media during the 2014 Swedish elections. Paper published online before print in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies  1354856516644564.   

  • Larsson, Anders Olof & Hallvard Moe (2016) From Emerging to Established? A Comparison of Twitter Use during Swedish Election Campaigns in 2010 and 2014. In Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbø, Anders Olof Larsson & Christian Christensen (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics.

  • Kalsnes, Bente (2016) The social media paradox explained: comparing political parties? Social media strategy vs. practice. Social media + Society 2(2) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116644616

  • Kalsnes, Bente (2016) The power of likes: Social media logic and political communication. Phd.-thesis. University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication.

  • Kalsnes, Bente (2016) Epostens triumf i amerikansk valgkamp. Agenda Magasin, 07.11.2016.

  • Skogerbø, Eli, Axel Bruns, Andrew Quodling & Thomas Ingebretsen (2016) Agenda-Setting Revisited: Social Media and Sourcing in Mainstream Journalism. In Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbø, Anders Olof Larsson & Christian Christensen (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics

  • Bruns, Axel (2016) Big data analysis. In Tamara Witschge, C. W. Anderson, David Domingo & Alfred Hermida (eds.) The sage handbook of digital journalism.

2015

2014

2013

 
 
Published Oct. 26, 2020 10:51 AM - Last modified Nov. 26, 2020 3:33 PM

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