Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. However, little attention has been paid to the content of e-campaigning. Given that political parties broadcast minute-by-minute the campaign messages on social media, this comprehensive and unmediated information can be useful to evaluate the impact of different electoral strategies. Accordingly, this article examines the electoral campaign for the 2013 Italian general election to assess the effectiveness of positive and negative campaigning messages, measured through content analysis of information published on the official Twitter accounts of Italian parties. We evaluate their impact on the share of unsolicited voting intentions expressed on Twitter, measured through an innovative technique of sentiment analysis. Our results show that negative campaign has positive effects and its impact is stronger when the attacker is meanwhile under attack. Conversely, we only find a circumstantial effect of positive campaign related to clientelistic and distributive appeals.

E-campaigning on Twitter : the effectiveness of distributive promises and negative campaign in the 2013 Italian election / A. Ceron, G. d'Adda. - In: NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY. - ISSN 1461-4448. - 18:9(2016 Oct), pp. 1935-1955.

E-campaigning on Twitter : the effectiveness of distributive promises and negative campaign in the 2013 Italian election

A. Ceron
Primo
;
G. d'Adda
2016

Abstract

Recent studies investigated the effect of e-campaigning on the electoral performance. However, little attention has been paid to the content of e-campaigning. Given that political parties broadcast minute-by-minute the campaign messages on social media, this comprehensive and unmediated information can be useful to evaluate the impact of different electoral strategies. Accordingly, this article examines the electoral campaign for the 2013 Italian general election to assess the effectiveness of positive and negative campaigning messages, measured through content analysis of information published on the official Twitter accounts of Italian parties. We evaluate their impact on the share of unsolicited voting intentions expressed on Twitter, measured through an innovative technique of sentiment analysis. Our results show that negative campaign has positive effects and its impact is stronger when the attacker is meanwhile under attack. Conversely, we only find a circumstantial effect of positive campaign related to clientelistic and distributive appeals.
clientelism; e-campaigning; electoral campaign; electoral forecast; negative campaign; online mobilization; positive campaign; sentiment analysis; social media; Twitter
Settore SPS/04 - Scienza Politica
Settore SPS/08 - Sociologia dei Processi Culturali e Comunicativi
   L'agenda-setting istituzionale: attori, tempi, informazione
   MINISTERO DELL'ISTRUZIONE E DEL MERITO
   2009TPW4NL_002
ott-2016
10-feb-2015
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/263788
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