usage of social media for political communication - pacis 2012
usage of social media for political communication - pacis 2012
usage of social media for political communication - pacis 2012
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USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR<br />
POLITICAL COMMUNICATION<br />
Stefan Stieglitz, Department <strong>of</strong> In<strong>for</strong>mation Systems, University <strong>of</strong> Münster, Germany,<br />
stefan.stieglitz@uni-muenster.de<br />
Tobias Brockmann, Department <strong>of</strong> In<strong>for</strong>mation Systems, University <strong>of</strong> Münster, Germany,<br />
tobias.brockmann@uni-muenster.de<br />
Linh Dang-Xuan, Department <strong>of</strong> In<strong>for</strong>mation Systems, University <strong>of</strong> Münster, Germany,<br />
linh.dang-xuan@ uni-muenster.de<br />
Abstract<br />
Social <strong>media</strong> enable individuals to share knowledge, experiences, opinions, and ideas among each<br />
other. With regard to <strong>political</strong> sector, <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> can be an enabler <strong>for</strong> participation and democracy<br />
among citizens. As the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaigns have shown, <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>ms<br />
such as <strong>social</strong> network sites (SNSs), microblogging services or weblogs can also be successfully used<br />
by <strong>political</strong> actors to disseminate in<strong>for</strong>mation to voters as well as to contact and discuss with them. In<br />
this study, we seek to gain insight into the <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> based on <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in Germany<br />
by conducting an analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> presence <strong>of</strong> German <strong>political</strong> parties on Facebook, Twitter,<br />
Flickr, and YouTube as well as a survey <strong>of</strong> members <strong>of</strong> the German parliament regarding their <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> use. Based on the results, we present an overview <strong>of</strong> the relevance and potentials <strong>of</strong> as well as<br />
obstacles to the <strong>usage</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> from the perspective <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong><br />
institutions. Further, we derive implications regarding the need <strong>for</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> monitoring in<br />
<strong>political</strong> context as well as research implications in in<strong>for</strong>mation systems.<br />
Keywords: Social Media, Political Communication, e-participation.
1 INTRODUCTION<br />
In democratic countries, <strong>political</strong> parties feel responsible to canalize and participate in public <strong>political</strong><br />
discussion. Traditionally, politicians and journalists bring up and moderate those <strong>political</strong> discourses.<br />
However, the traditional structure <strong>of</strong> mass <strong>communication</strong> in the <strong>political</strong> context has changed<br />
(Chadwick 2006; Gil De Zúñiga et al. <strong>2012</strong>). Based on the rapid development <strong>of</strong> Web 2.0 technologies<br />
and associated <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong>, internet users are enabled to create content on their own. By using<br />
<strong>political</strong> blogs or discussion <strong>for</strong>ums, people express their opinion, participate in discussions or find<br />
<strong>political</strong>ly like-minded individuals. As a consequence, pr<strong>of</strong>essional journalists act no longer as an<br />
institutionalized “gatekeeper” who measures and selects in<strong>for</strong>mation <strong>for</strong> publication in newspapers or<br />
television. It has been argued that the diffusion <strong>of</strong> the <strong>usage</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> as well as other factors<br />
(e.g., discussion culture, average age, etc.) have a strong impact on the relevance <strong>of</strong> public internetbased<br />
discourses within the <strong>political</strong> landscape in specific countries (e.g., Howard 2006; Papacharissi<br />
2002; Tewksbury 2006).<br />
Recently, more than 900 million people worldwide are members <strong>of</strong> the Facebook network (Facebook<br />
<strong>2012</strong>) while Twitter counts more than 500 million users in total (Forbes <strong>2012</strong>). With this tremendous<br />
growth, these plat<strong>for</strong>ms allow both citizens and politicians to participate in <strong>political</strong> discussions or to<br />
share <strong>political</strong> content publicly. Furthermore, it is argued that from the perspective <strong>of</strong> politicians and<br />
<strong>political</strong> parties it is important to actively join <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> based <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>, in<br />
particular during election campaigns. Already, U.S. politicians are said to have a leading role in this<br />
regard with the most prominent example <strong>of</strong> Barack Obama being able to successfully employ <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> within his last election campaign (Wattal et al. 2010).<br />
However, the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> actors in other countries than the U.S. is unclear.<br />
It seems that most politicians are reluctant to integrate the use <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> into their daily business.<br />
For example, studies have shown that a majority <strong>of</strong> German politicians do not support <strong>political</strong><br />
<strong>communication</strong> by <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> (e.g., Beckedahl et al. 2008; Christmann et al. 2010). However, there<br />
is a lack <strong>of</strong> academic research investigating the reasons <strong>for</strong> this reluctance <strong>of</strong> politicians as well as the<br />
problems politicians might face to contact (mostly young) voters via the internet. In general, the<br />
research field on <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in the <strong>political</strong> context is still young and has been focusing mostly on<br />
the <strong>political</strong> landscape <strong>of</strong> the U.S. Little is known about the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> politics in<br />
other countries as well as factors <strong>of</strong> success <strong>for</strong> the application <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> purposes.<br />
In this paper, we seek to contribute to this research field by examining the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in<br />
<strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> from the perspective <strong>of</strong> German <strong>political</strong> institutions including <strong>political</strong><br />
parties and politicians. More specifically, we explore their <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> activities during the last two<br />
years. In another step, we identify key aspect <strong>for</strong> a successful <strong>usage</strong> as well as concerns that might<br />
impede a wider adoption <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in <strong>political</strong> context. Based on our findings, we derive<br />
implications, particularly regarding in<strong>for</strong>mation systems research on <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in <strong>political</strong> context.<br />
As an additional contribution, we provide an extensive review <strong>of</strong> the relevant literature not only from<br />
the field <strong>of</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation systems but also <strong>political</strong> science, <strong>communication</strong> studies and sociology.<br />
This paper is structured as follows. The next section provides a literature review on <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> and<br />
<strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>. In section 3, an overview <strong>of</strong> current activities <strong>of</strong> German politicians in <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> is provided. Further, results <strong>of</strong> a two-year exploratory survey <strong>of</strong> members <strong>of</strong> the German<br />
parliament (Bundestag) with regard to the use and potential <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> are reported in section 4.<br />
In section 5, we discuss our findings and derive research as well as practical implications. Section 6<br />
concludes and gives an outlook <strong>for</strong> future research.
2 RELATED WORK<br />
The growing relevance <strong>of</strong> the internet or, more generally, new in<strong>for</strong>mation and <strong>communication</strong><br />
technologies (ICT) regarding <strong>political</strong> issues has been analyzed and documented by researchers since<br />
the 1990s (Davis & Owen 1998; Davis 1999; Römmele 2003; Chadwick 2006). Originating mostly<br />
from the disciplines <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> science, <strong>communication</strong> and sociology, studies <strong>for</strong> example focus on<br />
the impact <strong>of</strong> internet access on voting (Tolbert & McNeal 2003), the use <strong>of</strong> websites to reach voters<br />
(Jansen 2004; Foot & Schneider 2006), the role <strong>of</strong> the internet as a medium <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong><br />
<strong>communication</strong> during election campaigns (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan <strong>2012</strong>a; Kilinenberg & Perrin<br />
2000), visions <strong>of</strong> digital democracy and the role <strong>of</strong> new <strong>media</strong> (Hacker 2002; Howard 2006;<br />
Papacharissi 2002; Tewksbury 2006).<br />
In general, literature reveals different views on the role <strong>of</strong> the internet in politics. On the one hand,<br />
according to the democratization thesis, the internet’s interactive potential is seen as trans<strong>for</strong>mational<br />
(e.g., Barber 1998). On the other hand, proponents <strong>of</strong> the normalization thesis (Davis 1999; Margolis<br />
& Resnick 2000) <strong>of</strong> the institutional adaptation thesis (Chadwick 2006) <strong>for</strong>esee no internet induced<br />
change in the fundamental <strong>political</strong> inequalities <strong>of</strong> the present system. West (2005) takes an<br />
inter<strong>media</strong>te position by suggesting that slow but steady incremental changes become significant as<br />
these changes accumulate over time. Further, Bimber and Davis (2003) argue that the role <strong>of</strong> the<br />
internet is supplemental rather than to displace traditional <strong>media</strong>.<br />
In recent years, the rise <strong>of</strong> Web 2.0 technologies (O’Reilly 2005; Sester et al. 2006; McAfee 2005) has<br />
further increased the relevance <strong>of</strong> the internet <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>. The potentials <strong>of</strong> SNSs,<br />
blogs, microblogging (in particular, Twitter), wikis, as <strong>social</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware (Bächle 2006; O’Reilly 2005;<br />
Green & Pearson 2005, Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan <strong>2012</strong>b) appear to be most promising in <strong>political</strong><br />
context as <strong>social</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware can be an enabler <strong>for</strong> more participation and democracy. Creighton (2005)<br />
defines public participation as the process by which public concerns, needs and values are<br />
incorporated into governmental and corporate decision making. The so-called “e-participation”<br />
focuses not only on this process but also on using the internet as an additional or exclusive instrument<br />
to create dialogues between the elected and the electorate. Related to this, Karpf (2009) introduces the<br />
notion <strong>of</strong> “Politics 2.0,” which can be understood as the harnessing <strong>of</strong> the internet’s lowered<br />
transaction costs and its condition <strong>of</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation abundance, toward the goal <strong>of</strong> building more<br />
participatory, interactive <strong>political</strong> institutions.<br />
There is a rich body <strong>of</strong> research focusing on the role <strong>of</strong> Web 2.0 technologies in <strong>political</strong> election<br />
campaigns. The recent U.S. presidential campaign in 2008 has shown that Web 2.0 has become an<br />
important tool <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> and persuasion (Towner et al. 2011; H<strong>of</strong>fner & Rehk<strong>of</strong>f<br />
2011). It became obvious, that particularly <strong>social</strong> networks could be successfully adapted to contact<br />
and discuss with voters as well as to disseminate important in<strong>for</strong>mation to them. Especially young<br />
people were inspired to <strong>political</strong> topics after getting in touch with them by using <strong>social</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware as the<br />
<strong>communication</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>m (Chen 2009; Kushin & Kitchener 2009). Wattal et al. (2010) investigate the<br />
contingent impact <strong>of</strong> related Web 2.0 technologies on the campaign process. Their results show that in<br />
particular the blogosphere can influence the campaign process and the election outcomes. They also<br />
argue that in<strong>for</strong>mation systems as a discipline has an important role to play in understanding e-politics.<br />
One approach is to leverage the traditional strengths <strong>of</strong> IS in comparative-technology, process-oriented<br />
empirical research and to apply that perspective to larger society. In this section, we give an overview<br />
<strong>of</strong> related work on <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> in <strong>political</strong> context. In particular, we focus on previous studies dealing<br />
with the three major type <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong>: SNS, microblogging services, and weblogs.<br />
2.1 Social Network Sites<br />
Previous works have specifically focused on SNSs and their use in the <strong>political</strong> context. Williams and<br />
Gulati (2007, 2009) investigate the extent <strong>of</strong> Facebook use by Congressional candidates during<br />
election campaigns. They find that the number <strong>of</strong> Facebook supporters can be considered a valid
indicator <strong>of</strong> electoral success. In the context <strong>of</strong> the 2006 Dutch elections, Utz (2009) shows that SNSs<br />
provide an opportunity to reach individuals less interested in politics. Thereby, viewing a candidate’s<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>ile further strengthens existing attitudes. On the other hand, politicians who react on the comments<br />
<strong>of</strong> users are perceived more favorable. Kushin and Kitchener (2009) explore the use <strong>of</strong> Facebook <strong>for</strong><br />
online <strong>political</strong> discussion. Their results indicate that Facebook is a legitimate location <strong>for</strong> discussion<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> issues and, to some extent, the discussion appears to have succeeded in overcoming<br />
polarization <strong>of</strong> online discussion that has pervaded online <strong>political</strong> discussion in the past.<br />
By examining two years <strong>of</strong> posts on the Facebook walls <strong>of</strong> the three major contenders <strong>for</strong> the U.S.<br />
Presidency in 2008: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, Robertson et al. (2010a)<br />
analyze participation patterns <strong>of</strong> <strong>usage</strong> along dimensions <strong>of</strong> breadth and frequency, and interpret them<br />
in terms <strong>of</strong> the concept <strong>of</strong> the “public sphere.” They conclude that SNS are currently the sociotechnical<br />
environments that most closely enable public sphere discourse <strong>for</strong> those who choose to enter<br />
the online “salons” <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> candidates. However, it remains an open question whether the outcome<br />
<strong>of</strong> this dialog is in<strong>for</strong>med <strong>political</strong> decision making in the <strong>for</strong>m <strong>of</strong> votes. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2010)<br />
show that reliance on SNS such as Facebook and MySpace was positively related to civic participation<br />
but not to <strong>political</strong> participation or confidence in government. Rather, interpersonal discussion would<br />
foster both civic participation and <strong>political</strong> activity.<br />
2.2 Microblogging<br />
The role <strong>of</strong> microblogging services such as Twitter <strong>for</strong> politicians has been examined by several<br />
studies. For instance, Golbeck et al. (2010) examine the use <strong>of</strong> Twitter by U.S. Congress members.<br />
They find that Congress members are primarily using Twitter to disperse in<strong>for</strong>mation, particularly<br />
links to news articles about themselves and to their blog posts, and to report on their daily activities.<br />
Twitter is rather seen as vehicles <strong>for</strong> self-promotion. However, Twitter is also facilitating direct<br />
<strong>communication</strong> between Congress members and citizens, though this is a less popular activity. In a<br />
similar study, Lassen and Brown (2010) find that U.S Congress members are more likely to use<br />
Twitter if they belong to the minority party, if their party leaders urge them to, if they are young, or if<br />
they serve in the Senate. Another study by Ammann (2010) focuses on the use <strong>of</strong> Twitter by U.S.<br />
Senate candidates and the content <strong>of</strong> their tweets during the 2010 midterm election season. Results<br />
show that candidates use Twitter as a part <strong>of</strong> their <strong>political</strong> campaigns. However, the amount <strong>of</strong> use<br />
significantly varies by the level <strong>of</strong> resources a candidate possesses, state size, and the competitiveness<br />
<strong>of</strong> the congressional race. Also, the content <strong>of</strong> the tweets is largely related to candidate type and in<br />
some cases <strong>political</strong> affiliation <strong>of</strong> the candidate.<br />
Other works focus on the use <strong>of</strong> Twitter by citizens in <strong>political</strong> context. Applying <strong>social</strong> network and<br />
sentiment analysis on the data collected during the 2009 German federal election, Tumasjan et al.<br />
(2010) show that Twitter is extensively used <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> deliberation and that the mere number <strong>of</strong><br />
party mentions accurately reflects the election result. In other words, microblogging messages on<br />
Twitter validly mirror the <strong>political</strong> landscape <strong>of</strong>fline and can be used to predict election results.<br />
Conover et al. (2011) examine two networks <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> on Twitter, comprised <strong>of</strong><br />
more than 250,000 tweets from the six weeks leading up to the 2010 U.S. congressional midterm<br />
elections. Using a combination <strong>of</strong> network clustering algorithms and manually-annotated data the<br />
authors demonstrate that the network <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> retweets exhibits a highly segregated partisan<br />
structure, with extremely limited connectivity between left- and right-leaning users. Surprisingly, this<br />
is not the case <strong>for</strong> the user-to-user mention network, which is dominated by a single <strong>political</strong>ly<br />
heterogeneous cluster <strong>of</strong> users in which ideologically-opposed individuals interact at a much higher<br />
rate compared to the network <strong>of</strong> retweets.<br />
2.3 Weblogs<br />
There are different strands <strong>of</strong> literature focusing on blogosphere in <strong>political</strong> context. The first one<br />
deals with the uses and benefits <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> blogs. In a survey <strong>of</strong> 3,747 blog readers, who were
generally young in age and highly educated, Kaye (2005) finds the trend that blogs were basically a<br />
medium <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation seeking and participation. McKenna and Pole (2007) report that the<br />
contents <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> blogs are composed <strong>of</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation about news articles from the mass <strong>media</strong>,<br />
introductions to other blogs’ postings, and criticism about mass <strong>media</strong> coverage on <strong>political</strong> affairs. In<br />
another paper, McKenna (2007) also reports that <strong>political</strong> bloggers construct their blogs from the<br />
motivation <strong>of</strong> voluntarism and not <strong>for</strong> commercial purposes. In the light <strong>of</strong> the 2008 U.S. presidential<br />
election, Wattal et al. (2010) investigate the contingent impact <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> blogs, among other Web 2.0<br />
technologies, on the campaign process. Their results show that in particular the blogosphere can<br />
influence the campaign process and the election outcomes.<br />
Another strand <strong>of</strong> blog research concerns structural or network analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> blogosphere,<br />
particularly in terms <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> network analysis (Rosen et al. 2011). Farrel and Drezner (2008) argue<br />
that the blogosphere is <strong>of</strong> significant importance <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>. By conducting case<br />
studies, they show that <strong>political</strong> blogs which attract much attention - so-called “focal points” - have an<br />
influence on the agenda setting as they attract a high level <strong>of</strong> attention from journalists who act as<br />
multipliers. In an empirical work, Adamic and Glance (2005) study the linking patterns and discussion<br />
topics <strong>of</strong> U.S. <strong>political</strong> bloggers and provide evidence <strong>for</strong> a divided blogosphere: liberals and<br />
conservatives primarily link within their separate communities, with far fewer cross-links exchanged<br />
between them. Regarding <strong>political</strong> discussions, liberal and conservative blogs focus on different news,<br />
topics and <strong>political</strong> figures. Also, conservative bloggers tend to link to other blogs (mostly other<br />
conservative blogs) than their liberal counterparts.<br />
2.4 Other Social Media Plat<strong>for</strong>ms<br />
A few studies have examined the role <strong>of</strong> video-sharing plat<strong>for</strong>ms such as YouTube in elections<br />
explicitly. Gueorguieva (2007) identifies benefits (as well as challenges and discusses the influence <strong>of</strong><br />
YouTube on the 2006 U.S. mid-term election. On the one hand, the benefits include, <strong>for</strong> example,<br />
increasing the potential <strong>for</strong> candidate exposure at a low cost or no cost, providing lesser-known<br />
candidates with a viable outlet to divulge their message and allowing campaigns to raise contributions<br />
and recruit volunteers online. On the other hand, the most important challenge is the reduced level <strong>of</strong><br />
control that campaigns have over the image and message <strong>of</strong> the candidate, which is <strong>of</strong> critical<br />
importance to election outcomes. In an empirical study, Carlson and Strandberg (2007) find that the<br />
use and role <strong>of</strong> YouTube in the 2007 Finnish elections was rather marginal. Moreover, candidaterelated<br />
videos did not in general attract much interest. With some notable exceptions, most <strong>of</strong> the<br />
videos failed to attract large numbers <strong>of</strong> views and comments.<br />
3 CURRENT SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES OF GERMAN<br />
POLITICAL ACTORS<br />
Regarding <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> use, German politicians and parties are still behind their counterparts in the<br />
U.S. until recently (Christmann et al. 2010). Also, in contrast to the election campaigns in the U.S.<br />
<strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> did not play an important role in the last election campaigns in Germany (Beckedahl et al.<br />
2008). However, the awareness and relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> haven been steadily rising among<br />
politicians (Kaufmann 2010; Effing et al. 2011). In this section, we seek to gain a most recent<br />
overview <strong>of</strong> the German <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> landscape in <strong>political</strong> context by conducting an exploratory<br />
website analysis <strong>of</strong> the most frequently used <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>ms: (1) Facebook (SNSs), (2) Twitter<br />
(microblogging), (3) Flickr (image sharing), and (4) YouTube (video sharing). For each <strong>of</strong> the five big<br />
<strong>political</strong> parties in Germany (CDU, SPD, FDP, Linke, Grüne), we track statistics regarding their <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> activity and popularity. While activity measures include number <strong>of</strong> posted tweets, pictures on<br />
Flickr, and YouTube videos, popularity is captured by number <strong>of</strong> Facebook fans, Twitter followers,<br />
and YouTube followers (see Table 1).
Statistics are retrieved as <strong>of</strong> March <strong>2012</strong> and compared to those in January 2011 and June 2010. The<br />
numbers in general indicate the increasing relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> from the perspective <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong><br />
institutions as well as citizens. For example, the average number <strong>of</strong> Facebook fans <strong>for</strong> all parties rise<br />
from 4.065 (2010) to 20.627 (<strong>2012</strong>) fans showing an amazing boost <strong>of</strong> 407% (see Figure 1). This also<br />
holds <strong>for</strong> Twitter (301% more followers) and YouTube (103% more followers). On the other hand, in<br />
<strong>2012</strong> German <strong>political</strong> parties have become more active in <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> by posting 198% more tweets,<br />
73% more pictures on Flickr, and 190% more Youtube videos compared to 2010. This is consistent<br />
with findings by Kaufmann (2010) showing that German politicians have started to follow the ongoing<br />
<strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> trend.<br />
Year CDU SPD FDP Grüne Linke Average<br />
Activity<br />
# tweets posted <strong>2012</strong> 1.562 3.933 1.318 3.159 5.502 3.095<br />
2011 857 1.948 1.186 2.454 2.851 1.859<br />
2010 461 889 611 1.813 1.421 1.039<br />
# pictures posted on <strong>2012</strong> 0 3.804 3.067 632 1.952 1.891<br />
Flickr<br />
2011 0 3.585 2.263 972 2.022 1.768<br />
<strong>2012</strong> 0 2.121 1.379 712 1.260 1.094<br />
# YouTube videos <strong>2012</strong> 449 482 909 1.058 1.524 884<br />
posted<br />
2011 321 341 614 827 920 605<br />
Popularity<br />
2010 235 186 364 627 113 305<br />
# followers on Twitter <strong>2012</strong> 18.673 23.419 19.292 41.963 3.781 21.426<br />
2011 10.202 11.952 10.351 20.156 1.908 10.914<br />
2010 5.315 5.448 5.494 9.225 1.211 5.339<br />
# Facebook fans <strong>2012</strong> 17.706 25.357 15.927 29.768 14.375 20.627<br />
2011 9.100 15.916 9.285 15.913 6.596 11.362<br />
2010 1.787 5.418 5.428 5.039 2.652 4.065<br />
# followers on <strong>2012</strong> 2.645 3.132 2.554 3.653 6.474 3.692<br />
YouTube<br />
2011 2.220 2.558 2.519 2.991 4.871 3.032<br />
2010 1.727 1.950 2.208 1.932 1.260 1.815<br />
Table 1. Statistics on <strong>political</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> landscape in Germany from 2010 to <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
By having a closer look at the activities <strong>of</strong> different parties, it can be observed that left-leaning parties<br />
have shown more presence and gained more attention from citizens in <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> compared to<br />
conservative ones. For example, while the left-wing parties Grüne, Linke, and SPD posted 4,198<br />
tweets on average in <strong>2012</strong>, the average number <strong>of</strong> tweets posted by the conservative parties CDU and<br />
FDP is only 1,440. In addition, Grüne, Linke, and SPD have also more followers on Twitter (23,054<br />
on average) than CDU and FDP in <strong>2012</strong> (18,982 on average). These results are in line with findings<br />
from Mono and Catalfamo’s (2010) “Digital Democracy Study” <strong>of</strong> politicians in Europe. They pointed<br />
out that the web is generally more left-leaning (Mono & Catalfamo 2010, Efron et al. 2006).
35000<br />
30000<br />
25000<br />
20000<br />
15000<br />
10000<br />
5000<br />
0<br />
Figure 1. Growth <strong>of</strong> Facebook fan base <strong>of</strong> German <strong>political</strong> parties.<br />
4 EXPLORATORY SURVEY OF MEMBERS OF GERMAN<br />
PARLIAMENT<br />
4.1 Data Collection<br />
During the last two years, we conducted two surveys <strong>of</strong> the members <strong>of</strong> the German parliament<br />
(Bundestag) to examine the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> politicians. More specifically, we<br />
investigated their motivation and <strong>usage</strong> as well as success factors <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong>.<br />
The first survey was conducted in June 2010 and the second in October 2011. For each survey, we<br />
contacted 622 parliament members asking them to participate in a short online survey which aims at<br />
capturing the familiarity <strong>of</strong> politicians with <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong>, their assessment <strong>of</strong> the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> in general, and <strong>for</strong> their own job in particular, as well as how they<br />
use <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> what specific purposes. Moreover, participants were asked to report potential<br />
concerns, which might impede the use <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> on a broader scale. In total, the questionnaire <strong>of</strong><br />
each survey comprises 18 questions <strong>of</strong> different types including 5-point Likert-scale and multiplechoice<br />
questions.<br />
We closed the survey after having obtained responses from 109 participants in 2010 and 88<br />
participants in 2011 in total. This yielded response rates <strong>of</strong> about 18% (2010) and 14% (2011),<br />
respectively. A large fraction <strong>of</strong> the 2011 survey participants have also taken part in the 2010 survey.<br />
The distribution <strong>of</strong> party affiliation (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, Grüne, Linke) among respondents is<br />
highly correlated with that among all parliament members. The average range <strong>of</strong> age in both samples<br />
is from 41 to 50 years. The allocation <strong>of</strong> the gender is also identical <strong>for</strong> both samples with 35%<br />
females and 65% males. This suggests that in essence our samples might well resemble the German<br />
politicians.<br />
4.2 Results<br />
Facebook (fans)<br />
CDU SPD FDP Grüne Linke<br />
Results <strong>of</strong> the surveys show that a majority <strong>of</strong> participants are at least moderately familiar with <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong>. They acknowledge the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> and expect them to become even much more<br />
important <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> in the future (2010: 75%; 2011: 85%). Accordingly, a large<br />
number <strong>of</strong> politicians report that they are planning to use <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong><br />
more intensively (2010: 49%; 2011: 55%). Many participants use their favorite <strong>social</strong> medium or<br />
<strong>media</strong> (mostly Facebook and/or Twitter) several times a day (2010: 28%; 2011: 40%) to report<br />
<strong>political</strong> activities from their job (2010: 70%; 2011: 72% ), <strong>for</strong> self-presentation purposes (2010: 50%;<br />
2011: 56%), to keep in touch with their group members/fans/followers (2010: 49%; 2011: 65%) and to<br />
in<strong>for</strong>m those about current <strong>political</strong> events (2010: 38%; 2011: 44%). In particular, many participants<br />
2010<br />
2011<br />
<strong>2012</strong>
use <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> to directly communicate with people in their local electoral district (2010: 39%; 2011<br />
35%).<br />
Interestingly, many politicians by using <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> also attempt to look <strong>for</strong> feedback, suggestions<br />
and new ideas from their <strong>political</strong> peers as well as others <strong>for</strong> their <strong>political</strong> work (2010: 30%; 2011:<br />
36%). Moreover, they report the need to detect trends in the shaping <strong>of</strong> (public) opinion, which is <strong>of</strong><br />
particular importance <strong>for</strong> politicians. However, this is a task that requires much ef<strong>for</strong>t, appropriate<br />
tools and, in particular, a systematic approach, which most politicians cannot af<strong>for</strong>d due to limited<br />
resources and capacities. Many participants report that they do not have much time <strong>for</strong> initiating<br />
<strong>social</strong>-<strong>media</strong> activities such as posting a “status update” or a “tweet,” and have to get these things done<br />
by their assistants. Also, a fraction <strong>of</strong> participants stated that <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> are less eligible to make<br />
complex <strong>political</strong> questions understandable (2010: 33%; 2011: 30%) and to encourage <strong>political</strong><br />
debates with citizens (2010: 18%; 2011: 20%).<br />
In sum, there are only little differences in the 2010 and 2011 results. However, in general there are<br />
increasingly more politicians assigning higher relevance to the use <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> the current and<br />
future <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>.<br />
5 DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS<br />
5.1 Discussion<br />
The relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> based online communities <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> is steadily<br />
increasing in recent years. Especially, young voters spend more time online in <strong>social</strong> networks such as<br />
Facebook or MySpace than watching television or reading newspapers (OECD, 2009). As Web 2.0<br />
tools are modern instruments <strong>of</strong> participation and collaboration, democratic systems may benefit from<br />
this development. There<strong>for</strong>e, <strong>political</strong> actors are advised to take part in the <strong>communication</strong> at these<br />
virtual places.<br />
Findings from our survey show that politicians indeed have the need to stay updated about current<br />
<strong>political</strong> discussions and about their own reputation in <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> as well as to detect new trends and<br />
identify influential users within different <strong>social</strong> networks. A major goal <strong>for</strong> future <strong>political</strong><br />
<strong>communication</strong> from the perspective <strong>of</strong> politicians is to increase the degree <strong>of</strong> “e-participation” by<br />
actively engaging in <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> while being able to monitor the <strong>social</strong> web.<br />
This is, however, not a simple task due to time and financial constraints, and, in particular, a large<br />
numbers <strong>of</strong> different <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>ms and vast amount as well as complexity <strong>of</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation and<br />
unstructured data.<br />
5.2 Implications <strong>for</strong> In<strong>for</strong>mation System Research<br />
We identify two possible contributions <strong>of</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation systems to <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong> in <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong>. First, in<strong>for</strong>mation systems research should provide theoretical frameworks as well as technical<br />
solutions <strong>for</strong> monitoring and analyzing <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> data in <strong>political</strong> context. This is also referred to as<br />
“<strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> analytics.” According to Zeng et al. (2010), “<strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> analytics is concerned with<br />
developing and evaluating in<strong>for</strong>matics tools and frameworks to collect, monitor, analyze, summarize,<br />
and visualize <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> data, usually driven by specific requirements from a target application.”<br />
However, as Zeng et al. (2010) also point out, <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> analytics faces several challenges such as<br />
an enriched set <strong>of</strong> data or metadata (e.g., tags, user-expressed subjective opinions, ratings, user pr<strong>of</strong>ile<br />
etc.), human-centered computing with their own unique emphasis on <strong>social</strong> interactions among users,<br />
semantic inconsistency/inaccuracies, misin<strong>for</strong>mation and lack <strong>of</strong> structure as well as dynamic nature<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> data and their sheer size.<br />
Second, in<strong>for</strong>mation systems research should devote attention to establishing new or improving<br />
existing <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> related services to enhance “e-participation.” Moreover, human-computer
interaction related features such as design and functionality <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>ms should also be<br />
addressed by in<strong>for</strong>mation systems research to facilitate “e-participation.”<br />
6 CONCLUSION<br />
The contributions <strong>of</strong> this paper are as follows. First, this paper provides an extensive literature review<br />
on the relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>political</strong> <strong>communication</strong>. In particular, we identify a number <strong>of</strong><br />
recent empirical studies related to public <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> plat<strong>for</strong>ms such as SNSs, microblogging and<br />
weblogs. Second, based on our empirical results, we show an increasing interest <strong>of</strong> German citizens in<br />
<strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> based <strong>communication</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>political</strong> parties. We also observe a strong growth <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> <strong>usage</strong> by German politicians in the last few years, especially left-leaning parties. Furthermore,<br />
this study reveals that the majority <strong>of</strong> politicians are willing to engage more in <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong> and have<br />
the need to stay updated about current <strong>political</strong> discussions and about their own reputation in <strong>social</strong><br />
<strong>media</strong> as well as to detect new trends and identify influential users within different <strong>social</strong> networks.<br />
Finally, we derive implications <strong>for</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation systems research regarding the need <strong>for</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong><br />
monitoring and analysis in <strong>political</strong> context as well as design and functionality <strong>of</strong> <strong>social</strong> <strong>media</strong><br />
plat<strong>for</strong>ms and services to enhance “e-participation.”<br />
As a limitation, our study focuses on German politicians only. Moreover, the surveys were based on<br />
online questionnaires, which typically encourage more IT-savvy individuals to participate. This might<br />
render bias in the results. Furthermore, the comparison <strong>of</strong> the results from 2010 and 2011 is based on<br />
similar samples containing many participants who have taken part in both surveys resulting in the fact<br />
that surveyed politicians did not radically change their opinions during the last years at all. As future<br />
research, the survey should be repeated in different legislative periods and with politicians from other<br />
countries.<br />
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