Campaigns, Political Mobility, and Communication

We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the platform choices of candidates would exist. Our game with financing of political campaigns exhibits two equilibria, depending on whether a majority of interest groups runs to support the leftist or rightist candidate. The equilibria generate a variety of new features of campaign games and may help identify the objective functions of candidates empirically.elections, campaign contributions, interest groups

Campaigns, Political Mobility, and Communication

We present a model of elections in which interest group donations allow candidates to shift policy positions. We show that if donations were prohibited, then a unique equilibrium regarding the position choices of candidates would exist. With unrestricted financing of political campaigns two equilibria emerge, depending on whether a majority of interest groups runs to support the leftist or rightist candidate. The equilibria generate a variety of new features of campaign games and may help identify the objective functions of candidates empirically.elections, campaign contributions, interest groups

Book review: campaign communication and political marketing

James Moran reviews an extensively well-researched and thorough book dealing with every level and stage of political campaigning

Partisan Asymmetries in Online Political Activity

We examine partisan differences in the behavior, communication patterns and social interactions of more than 18,000 politically-active Twitter users to produce evidence that points to changing levels of partisan engagement with the American online political landscape. Analysis of a network defined by the communication activity of these users in proximity to the 2010 midterm congressional elections reveals a highly segregated, well clustered partisan community structure. Using cluster membership as a high-fidelity (87% accuracy) proxy for political affiliation, we characterize a wide range of differences in the behavior, communication and social connectivity of left- and right-leaning Twitter users. We find that in contrast to the online political dynamics of the 2008 campaign, right-leaning Twitter users exhibit greater levels of political activity, a more tightly interconnected social structure, and a communication network topology that facilitates the rapid and broad dissemination of political information.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, 6 table

Dancing to the Partisan Beat: A First Analysis of Political Communication on TikTok

TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service, whose popularity is increasing rapidly. It was the world's second-most downloaded app in 2019. Although the platform is known for having users posting videos of themselves dancing, lip-syncing, or showcasing other talents, user-videos expressing political views have seen a recent spurt. This study aims to perform a primary evaluation of political communication on TikTok. We collect a set of US partisan Republican and Democratic videos to investigate how users communicated with each other about political issues. With the help of computer vision, natural language processing, and statistical tools, we illustrate that political communication on TikTok is much more interactive in comparison to other social media platforms, with users combining multiple information channels to spread their messages. We show that political communication takes place in the form of communication trees since users generate branches of responses to existing content. In terms of user demographics, we find that users belonging to both the US parties are young and behave similarly on the platform. However, Republican users generated more political content and their videos received more responses; on the other hand, Democratic users engaged significantly more in cross-partisan discussions.Comment: Accepted as a full paper at the 12th International ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci 2020). Please cite the WebSci version; Second version includes corrected typo

The consumption of political communication within a marketised society

It is a recognised fact that a key feature of modern post-industrial democracies is that they are also highly marketised, consumer societies. The implications are that citizens face a multitude of highly persuasive messages on a daily basis from a range of commercial, charitable not-for-profit and political organisations. Studies of the effectiveness of advertising and marketing communications suggest an increased sophistication in the decoding of such persuasive communication and note to some extent, and within certain sectors, a shift towards the more subtle tools of public relations using social media and ICT. The consumerisation and sophistication of the marketplace has been a key driving force behind the marketisation of politics. Political marketing is a highly contested definition, in terms of whether it refers to the development of a product (party brand, leader and policies), whether it is the communicational aspects of political behaviour that have become marketised and professionalized, or whether perspectives of marketing can simply used to explain phenomenon such as voter choices or evaluations of parties and their communication. This paper adopts a mixture of all three perspectives and approaches the subject of the decoding of political communication by suggesting that political communication is perceived as part of the clutter of the consumer society. Using data collected during a research project conducted in the weeks following the 2001 and 2005 UK General Elections, we find that there is an increasingly consumerist perspective used to evaluate political messages. Therefore promises made are often judged using a range of values and expectations that fit within our understanding of consumerism; however there are equally a range of values and expectations that are markedly different. Understanding the complexities of the voter-consumer, and the extent to which there is both a conflation and separation of the two spheres of life aids a more detailed understanding of how politics needs to be communicated and what political marketing, as a practice, should endeavour to achieve

Communication practices of the Karen in Sheffield: Seeking to navigate their three zones of displacement

This study investigates communication practices of a newly arrived Karen refugee community in the UK who, as well as establishing themselves in a strange country, seek to keep in touch, campaign politically and maintain identity collectively through communication and contact with their global diaspora. We look at the technologies, motivations and inhibiting factors applying to the communication by adult members of this community and construct the idea of three zones of displacement which help to model the particular contexts, challenges and methods of their communication. We find that overall, they are using a wide range of internet-based technologies, with the aim to 'keep-in-touch' (personal contacts) and to 'spread the word' (political communication). This also includes archaic, traditional and hybrid methods to achieve extended communication with contacts in other 'zones'. We also identify the importance of the notion of ‘village’ as metaphor and entity in their conceptualisation of diasporic and local community cohesion. We identify the key inhibitors to their communication as cost, education, literacy and age. Finally, we speculate on the uncertain outcomes of their approach to digital media in achieving their political aims

The effect of new technologies on civic participation models

The development of new technologies will enable decentralization and freedom of communication for large numbers of people, by overcoming the barriers that once rendered direct participation of society unfeasible. The continued development of information and communication technologies (ICT) makes it possible for people to participate in political life. Today, the use of e-tools is becoming a way of adapting democracy to the needs of contemporary states and strengthening civil society. The aim of this paper is to answer questions about the essence of ICT and forms of civic engagement through electronic forms of participation. The author seeks answers to the following questions: How does ICT influence political processes? How do electronic communication systems create the conditions for the political engagement of citizens? Can the use of information technologies have a real impact on participation

One State, Two States, Whatever Everybody Wants

Speaker Miri Eisin lectured about the current political climate of Israel and Palestine.College of Communication