Social Media Use by Candidates in Australian Federal Elections

Reykjavík.
The next ECPR 2011 speaker is Rachel Gibson, who focusses on online campaigning in the 2010 Australian federal election. Has the type of Web campaigning that candidates engage in changed over time, and who is using social media for their campaigning activities? And does it matter – in other words, does it convert to support?

Part of this is related to the normalisation vs. equalisation debate – does online campaigning level the playing field between larger and smaller parties, or do the larger, richer parties also spend more funds on online campaigning (and more effectively so)? Is this different again with the move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0? And how effective are these different modes of campaigning in generating support for a party?

Rachel’s study drew on post-election surveys with Australian political candidates from 2001 through to 2010, which usually generate a roughly 50% response rate. Inter alia, this also studies the use of online media as campaigning tools (as well as candidate attitudes towards such use). Use of the Net for election information was already strong for major parties in 2001, and rose further by 2010; minor parties were somewhat slower to adopt, but this has levelled out by 2010.

The relative importance of the Net has risen strongly since 2001, and minor parties rate it especially favourably now (perhaps indicating a move towards a more equalised status). Minor party candidates spend almost twice as many hours per week on Web-based campaigning, in fact (especially on online videos, it seems). Generally, too, the use of personal campaign Websites has increased, with major parties again leading early adoption: even in 2010, major party candidates are twice as likely to have a personal Website. By contrast, minor party candidates are more likely to be present in social media spaces – especially through campaign blogs.

What difference does this make at the ballot box, though? Generally, candidates’ having their own personalised Websites appeared to have a strong correlation with electoral results; while there is also a correlation between Web 2.0 and social media tools and electoral outcomes, this seems – so far – to be outweighed by the effects of simply having an online presence. How such effects come about also needs to be studied further; there may be a ripple effect (via committed political activists) rather than any direct effect on voters.