A Dip Into a Deep Well: Online Political Advertisements, Valence, and European Electoral Campaigning

Online political advertisements have become an important element in electoral campaigning throughout the world. At the same time, concepts such as disinformation and manipulation have emerged as a global concern. Although these concepts are distinct from online political ads and data-driven electoral campaigning, they tend to share a similar trait related to valence, the intrinsic attractiveness or averseness of a message. Given this background, the paper examines online political ads by using a dataset collected from Google's transparency reports. The examination is framed to the mid-2019 situation in Europe, including the European Parliament elections in particular. According to the results based on sentiment analysis of the textual ads displayed via Google's advertisement machinery, (i) most of the political ads have expressed positive sentiments, although these vary greatly between (ii) European countries as well as across (iii) European political parties. In addition to these results, the paper contributes to the timely discussion about data-driven electoral campaigning and its relation to politics and democracy

Én for alle og alle for én? Mønstre i og effekter af partiintern uenighed blandt folketingskandidaterne ved 2011-valget

Danske partier opfattes sig i høj grad som enhedsaktører på den parlamentariske arena, og de har traditionelt været vigtige aktører og pejlemærker på den vælgermæssige arena. For den enkelte kandidats bestræbelser på at opnå valg gør den sideordnede opstillingsform imidlertid den partiinterne kamp mellem kandidaterne mindst lige så vigtig som kampen mod andre partier. Vi udleder på den baggrund en forventning om, at de enkelte partiers folketingskandidater ikke nødvendigvis er politisk enige, og at der kan være en vælgermæssig fordel i at dyrke en unik profil. På baggrund af en spørgeskemaundersøgelse blandt samtlige folketingskandidater finder vi opbakning til begge hypoteser, om end nogle partier har mere intern enighed end andre, og nogle typer partiintern uenighed giver større stemmemæssige gevinster end andre

Én for alle og alle for én? Mønstre i og effekter af partiintern uenighed blandt folketingskandidaterne ved 2011-valget

Danske partier opfattes sig i høj grad som enhedsaktører på den parlamentariske arena, og de har traditionelt været vigtige aktører og pejlemærker på den vælgermæssige arena. For den enkelte kandidats bestræbelser på at opnå valg gør den sideordnede opstillingsform imidlertid den partiinterne kamp mellem kandidaterne mindst lige så vigtig som kampen mod andre partier. Vi udleder på den baggrund en forventning om, at de enkelte partiers folketingskandidater ikke nødvendigvis er politisk enige, og at der kan være en vælgermæssig fordel i at dyrke en unik profil. På baggrund af en spørgeskemaundersøgelse blandt samtlige folketingskandidater finder vi opbakning til begge hypoteser, om end nogle partier har mere intern enighed end andre, og nogle typer partiintern uenighed giver større stemmemæssige gevinster end andre

The public or parties in the media? A study of public, party, and media issue agendas in five Danish election campaigns

As the media plays a central role in the way modern democracies function, it is important to study whether the media engages in a top-down or a bottom-up mode of covering election news. The article studies whether the media agenda is congruent with the parties’ and the public’s agenda by analysing the three gendas in five national Danish election campaigns. Theoretically, increased professionalisation of politicians’ efforts to influence media coverage suggests convergence between the media and the party agendas, while increased commercialisation of the media suggests convergence between the media and the public agendas. However, since both the professionalisation of the parties and the commercialisation of the media are ongoing processes, convergence between all three agendas may be expected. Results show that the media agenda is slightly more similar to the agenda of the parties, but in general the media seems to be rather good at balancing their obligations to represent the issues of the elite on the one hand and to give voice to public concerns on the other. During the past two decades no convergence between the agendas is found, i.e. the interaction of the three different agendas is rather stable