Does social media enhance party responsiveness? How user engagement shapes parties’ issue attention on Facebook

Representative democracy presents politicians with an information problem: How to find out what voters want? While party elites used to rely on their membership or mass surveys, social media enables them to learn about voters’ issue priorities in real time and adapt their campaign messages accordingly. Yet, we know next to nothing about how campaigns make use of these new possibilities. To narrow this gap, we use a unique data set covering every Facebook post by party leaders and party organizations in the run-up to the 2017 Austrian parliamentary election. We test the hypothesis that party actors are more likely to double down on issues that have previously generated higher levels of user engagement. We also theorize that responsiveness is conditional on major/minor party status and pre-campaign issue salience. The analysis shows that parties’ issue strategies respond to user engagement, especially major parties on low-salience issues. This represents some of the first empirical evidence on how social media can enhance parties’ issue responsiveness.Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung (BMBWF)Peer Reviewe

Disseminating legislative debates: How legislators communicate the parliamentary agenda

While a rich literature addresses legislative agenda-setting in multiparty democracies, relatively little is known how members of parliament disseminate the legislative agenda beyond the parliamentary floor. Drawing on content analyses of 110 legislative debates and 5,847 press releases from Austrian MPs (2013–2017), we test whether legislators are more likely to send press releases on issues that are salient to their party (party agenda-setting) and to other parties in the party system (systemic salience). MPs should also communicate more on issues that fall within their area of expertise (issue specialization) and when they have given a speech on that issue during the legislative debate (intra-party delegation). While we find empirical support for all these expectations, communication of the legislative agenda largely rests on each parties’ issue specialists and their speakers in plenary debates. Importantly, there is no significant discrepancy overall between the actual parliamentary issue agenda and the agenda communicated by party MPs.Austrian Science Fundhttps://doi.org/10.13039/501100002428servicestelle für mobilitätsprogramme des österreichischen bundesministeriums für bildung, wissenschaft und forschung, kulturkontakt austriahttps://doi.org/10.13039/100015057Peer Reviewe

Disseminating legislative debates: How legislators communicate the parliamentary agenda

While a rich literature addresses legislative agenda-setting in multiparty democracies, relatively little is known how members of parliament disseminate the legislative agenda beyond the parliamentary floor. Drawing on content analyses of 110 legislative debates and 5,847 press releases from Austrian MPs (2013–2017), we test whether legislators are more likely to send press releases on issues that are salient to their party (party agenda-setting) and to other parties in the party system (systemic salience). MPs should also communicate more on issues that fall within their area of expertise (issue specialization) and when they have given a speech on that issue during the legislative debate (intra-party delegation). While we find empirical support for all these expectations, communication of the legislative agenda largely rests on each parties’ issue specialists and their speakers in plenary debates. Importantly, there is no significant discrepancy overall between the actual parliamentary issue agenda and the agenda communicated by party MPs

The 2017 Austrian snap election: a shift rightward

The article presents the background, the election campaign and the results of the 2017 general elections in Austria

AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Manifestos 2008 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The AUTNES dataset on party manifestos covers the manifestos of the relevant parties that competed in the Austrian national elections 2008. All natural sentences within the manifestos are part of the dataset. The units of analysis are standardized statements derived from these natural sentences by means of a set of unitizing rules. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to party manifestos. The subject actor is usually the party, but it can also be another actor being cited in the manifesto. There are two types of objects: issues and object actors. Issues are recorded by coders selecting from the AUTNES issue coding scheme the one issue that fits the content of the statement best. One object actor can be recorded per statement, each with their name (if an individual is present) and organizational affiliation. The issue predicate numerically records whether the subject's position towards the issue (if present) is one of (conditional) support, (conditional) rejection, or conveys a neutral stance. Similarly, the object actor predicate numerically records whether the subject's position towards the object actor is one of support, rejection, or conveys a neutral stance. In addition to the basic subject–predicate–object structure we code character traits for all subject and object actors as well as the party record and pledges. Variables: sentence (the text of the natural sentence); statement derived from the natural sentence; page number of the manifesto where the natural sentence can be found; organizational affiliation of the subject actor (usually the party); name of the subject actor if an individual; attributes of the subject actor; issue predicate (the relation between subject and issue); issue category selected for the statement; statement refers to regulation of the issue on the European level; reference to a party's own or a political opponent's past behavior or achievements at different levels of governance (national level, land level, international level, historical); pledge (subjective pledges: promises whose evaluation requires a value judgement, objective pledges: promises that can be objectively tested); object actor predicate (relation between subject and object actor); organization of the object actor (usually the party); name of the object actor if individual; characteristics of the object actor (attributes: competence, character, leadership, appearance); year of election for which the manifesto was published; party authoring the manifesto; title of the manifesto. Additionally coded was: ID number for each observation; sentence-ID

AUTNES Content Analysis of Campaign Facebook Pages 2017 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The AUTNES dataset on party Facebook pages contains information on parties’ Facebook posts during the six weeks of election campaign for the Austrian general election in 2017. We retrieved posts for all relevant parties and their top candidates. Each post constitutes a unit of analysis. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to party Facebook pages. The subject is the party or candidate that operates the Facebook page and is coded with the name (if an individual is present), organisational affiliation and appearance in the coding unit (text only, picture only, text and picture). There are two types of objects: issues and object actors. Issues are recorded by coders selecting from the AUTNES issue coding scheme the dominant policy issue and the dominant campaign issue in the coding unit. The issue predicate numerically records whether the subject’s position towards the policy issue is one of support, rejection, or conveys a neutral/ambivalent stance. Up to ten object actors are recorded from each coding unit in the same way as the subject actor, supplemented with an evaluation by the subject actor (positive, negative, or neutral), as well as references to campaign or policy issues. In addition to the basic subject–predicate–object structure, we code several additional variables: variables describing the Facebook page, the coding unit and user interactions. Variables: Variables referring to Facebook posting: URL; type of Facebook page (party or candidate page); timestamp (date when the posting was published); text of the posting; number of interactions and date of their collection; technical problems with coding; content of the posting: continuous text, picture, video; variables referring to the author of the Facebook page: author’s organisation; author’s name; mention of the author in the posting; variables referring to issues: campaign issue; predicate; policy issue; reference to policy issue at the EU level; variables referring to object actors: object actor presence; object actor’s name; object actor’s organisation; appearance; predicate; reference to the coded campaign issue and to the coded policy issue; number of additional object actors that were not coded; variables referring to pictures: pictures of individuals that were not coded as object actors

AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Leader Statements 2002 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The AUTNES coding of leader statements covers all public statements and actions of leaders of relevant parties in the six weeks before the 2002 election, as documented in Austria’s two leading quality newspapers (Der Standard and Die Presse). Leaders are defined as party leaders and top candidates (i.e., those heading the party’s national election list). All natural sentences within the newspaper articles mentioning the leaders are part of the dataset, but the units of analysis are standardized statements derived from these natural sentences. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to leader statements. Here, subjects are always party leaders or top candidates (with a few exceptions). We record the link between subjects and two kinds of objects, namely issues and object actors. Issues are coded using the comprehensive AUTNES list of issue categories. Object actors are recorded with their name (if an individual is present) and organisational affiliation. The predicate numerically records whether the subject’s position towards the issue or the object actor is one of (conditional) support, (conditional) rejection, or conveys a neutral/ambivalent stance. We record four supplementary variables: character traits for all object actors, leader records for subject and object actors, and justifications for issue statements. Variables: ID; year of the election campaign; newspaper (Der Standard, Die Presse); date of newspaper publication; page of the newspaper; title of the newspaper article; sentence in the newspaper article; presence of relevant party leader statement; statement extracted from the sentence; organisational affiliation of the quoting actor; name of the quoting actor (if individual); organisational affiliation of the subject actor; name of the subject actor (if individual); predicate (relation between subject actor and issue (or object actor if present); issue coded for the party leader statement; reference of subtitle to regulation or policy at the European level; justification of issue statements (economy, welfare state: expansive / protective, environment, security, education, governance, ethnic-national, religious, universalistic, not classifiable); reference to subject actor’s record or object actor’s record if object actor present (national level, Land level, international level, historical); organisational affiliation of the first object actor; name of the first object actor; characteristics of the object actor (attributes: competence, character, leadership, appearance, not classifiable)

AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Press Releases (OTS) 2008 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The AUTNES coding of party press releases covers all press releases that were issued by parties gaining at least two percent of the votes in the national election in 2008. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to press releases. The subject is the person or party that features as the sender of the message in the title of the press release. There are two types of objects: issues and object actors. Issues are recorded by coders selecting from the AUTNES issue coding scheme the one issue that fits the content of the press release’s title best. The issue predicate numerically records whether the subject’s position towards the issue is one of support, rejection, or conveys a neutral/ambivalent stance. This procedure (coding of predicate and issue) is repeated for the subtitle of the press release. Up to three object actors are recorded from the information in the title of the press release, each with their name (if an individual is present) and organisational affiliation, as well as the evaluation by the subject actor (positive, negative or neutral). In addition to the basic subject–predicate–object structure we code four more variables: character traits for all object actors, party records for all subject and object actors, justifications for issue statements, and the incident that triggered the press release. Variables: party authoring the press release; sender (the three-letter APA channel through which the press release was sent); keywords of the press release; title; subtitle; text; name of first and second subject actor; organisational affiliation of these subject actors; reference to subject actor’s record; issue of title and subtitle; issue predicate of title and subtitle (position towards the coded issue of title and subtitle); reference of title and subtitle to policy at the EU level; justification of issue; up to three object actors: name and organisational affiliation; object actor predicates (the relation between the subject and each object actor as support, criticism/rejection, or neutral); reference to object actor’s record; reference to object actor’s attributes; trigger variables: arena in which the press release was triggered; name and organisational affiliation of the individual who triggered the press release; bipartisan press release (press release was issued in by politicians from two different parties). Additionally coded was: ID of individual press releases; coder-ID

AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Websites 2013 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The dataset “AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Websites 2013” covers all party websites of parties gaining at least two percent of the votes in the 2013 national election. The party websites were saved each day during the six weeks prior to the general election in 2013. The coding units are graphical or textual elements on the website. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to party websites. The subject is the party that operates the website. There are two types of objects: issues and object actors. Coders record issues by selecting from the AUTNES issue coding scheme the dominant policy issue and the dominant campaign issue in the coding unit. The issue predicate numerically records whether the subject’s position towards the policy issue is one of support, rejection, or conveys a neutral/ambivalent stance. Up to ten object actors are recorded from each coding unit, each with their name (if an individual is present) and organisational affiliation, as well as the evaluation by the subject actor (positive, negative or neutral) and appearance in the coding unit (text only, text and image, image only). In addition to the basic subject–predicate–object structure we code several additional variables: character traits and party records for all actors, and justifications for issue statements. Also, the dataset contains variables describing the website, the coding units and images visible on the website. List of variables: ID, coder-ID; variables referring to the homepage: URL; type of homepage (party homepage); date and time of saving; variables referring to the coding unit: unit-ID; number of days a unit was online; new unit (unit is online for the first time); visible on a screen of standard size when opening the homepage; category (start picture, head, menu, news, policies, campaign, schedule, twitterwall, facebook, blogs); continuous text; picture; video; variables referring to the author (the party that operated the homepage): author is mentioned; author’s characteristics (competence, character, leadership, appearance, not classifiable); author’s record (no record, record referring to policy issue, record not referring to policy issue); variables referring to issues: coded campaign issue; predicate (author’s position towards the coded policy issue: rejection/criticism, neutral, support); policy issue; reference to policy at the EU level; justification of policy issue (no justification, economy, welfare state: expansive / protective, environment, security, education, governance, ethnic-national, religious, universalistic, not classifiable); variables referring to up to ten object actors: object actor was coded; names of the object actors if individuals; object actor’s organisation; appearance (object actor is mentioned in written form, as a picture or both); predicate (relation between the author of the homepage and the object actor: rejection/criticism, neutral, support, picture); object actor’s outfit (if the unit contains a picture); object actor makes a reference to the coded campaign issue and to the coded policy issue; object actor’s attributes (competence, character, leadership, appearance, not classifiable); object actor’s record referring to policy issue or not; number of additional object actors that were not coded; variables referring to pictures: pictures of individuals that were not coded as object actors; groups of individuals (or category) in pictures (i.e. voter/people, political activist, woman, man, etc.); number of people (individuals of the respective category or group on the picture); the individuals on the picture support a party (reference to party x)

AUTNES Content Analysis of Party Leader Statements 2006 (SUF edition)

Full edition for scientific use. The AUTNES coding of leader statements covers all public statements and actions of leaders of relevant parties in the six weeks before the 2006 election, as documented in Austria’s two leading quality newspapers (Der Standard and Die Presse). Leaders are defined as party leaders and top candidates (i.e., those heading the party’s national election list). All natural sentences within the newspaper articles mentioning the leaders are part of the dataset, but the units of analysis are standardized statements derived from these natural sentences. The coding procedure applies the AUTNES relational approach of recording subjects, predicates, and objects to leader statements. Here, subjects are always party leaders or top candidates (with a few exceptions). We record the link between subjects and two kinds of objects, namely issues and object actors. Issues are coded using the comprehensive AUTNES list of issue categories. Object actors are recorded with their name (if an individual is present) and organisational affiliation. The predicate numerically records whether the subject’s position towards the issue or the object actor is one of (conditional) support, (conditional) rejection, or conveys a neutral/ambivalent stance. We record four supplementary variables: character traits for all object actors, leader records for subject and object actors, and justifications for issue statements. Variables: ID; year of the election campaign; newspaper (Der Standard, Die Presse); date of newspaper publication; page of the newspaper; title of the newspaper article; sentence in the newspaper article; presence of relevant party leader statement; statement extracted from the sentence; organisational affiliation of the quoting actor; name of the quoting actor (if individual); organisational affiliation of the subject actor; name of the subject actor (if individual); predicate (relation between subject actor and issue (or object actor if present); issue coded for the party leader statement; reference of subtitle to regulation or policy at the European level; justification of issue statements (economy, welfare state: expansive / protective, environment, security, education, governance, ethnic-national, religious, universalistic, not classifiable); reference to subject actor’s record or object actor’s record if object actor present (national level, Land level, international level, historical); organisational affiliation of the first object actor; name of the first object actor; characteristics of the object actor (attributes: competence, character, leadership, appearance, not classifiable)