Abstract
Facebook has recently emerged as a central communicative arena for political representatives and constituencies. Still, there are very few studies about Facebook usage in municipal campaigns. The paper adds to this literature by presenting a comprehensive picture of the scope, character and impact of Facebook usage, and the perceptions of candidates about it, based on data collected on 2013 municipal elections in Israel. The first part of the paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with 67 candidates running for heads of municipalities about their views on Facebook use, the advantages and drawbacks of political activity on Facebook, and the perceived impact of Facebook activity on election results. Findings indicate that contenders consider Facebook as an arena that offers opportunities but is also replete with danger; above all, they feel that presence on Facebook is obligatory. They do not believe that Facebook activity significantly increases the share of votes they receive, but they are convinced that their absence from Facebook would have a negative impact on their election prospects. The second part of the paper studies which variables influence engagement on Facebook campaign pages, and whether Facebook activity, along with institutional and population-level variables, influences the vote share that candidates receive. Using the Facebook activity of 387 candidates running in the municipal elections, it was found that institutional variables (primarily size of constituency and incumbency status) had a significant impact on the scope of Facebook engagement. The impact of Facebook activity on election results is positive but slim. The third part of the paper presents findings from a visual analysis of images from the Facebook pages of contenders. The analysis demonstrates massive use of images, but often unprofessionally and lacking clear goals; Secondary use of made-for-print materials like stickers and posters, alongside the near-complete absence of made-for-Facebook materials like collages and memes; and lastly, focus on images of supporters instead of candidates.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bond, R. M., Fariss, C. J., Jones, J. J., Kramer, A. D. I., Marlow, C., Settle, J. E., & Fowler, J. H. (2012). A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization. Nature, 489(7415), 295–298.
Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current research. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), 524–538.
Bürger, T., & Ross, K. (2014). Face to face(book): Social media, political campaigning and the unbearable lightness of being there. Political Science, 66(1), 46–62.
Cameron, M. P., Barrett, P., & Stewardson, B. (2016). Can social media predict election results? Evidence from New Zealand. Journal of Political Marketing, 15(4), 416–432.
Coleman, S. (2004). Connecting parliament to the public via the internet: Two case studies of online consultations. Information, Communication, and Society, 7(1), 1–22.
Coleman, S., & Blumler, J. G. (2009). The internet and democratic citizenship: Theory, practice and policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ComScore. (2011). It’s a social world: Top 10 need-to-knows about social networking and where it’s headed. Retrieved from www.comscore.com/it_is_a_social_world.
Gibson, R. K., & McAllister, I. (2015). Normalizing or equalizing party competition? Assessing the impact of the web on election campaigning. Political Studies, 63, 529–547.
Gibson, R., & Ward, S. (2009). Parties in the digital age: A review article. Representation, 45(1), 87–100.
Hacker, K. L. (1995). Candidate images in presidential elections. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Haleva-Amir, S. (2011). Online Israeli politics: The current state of the art. Israel Affairs, 17(3), 467–485.
Herrnson, P. S., Stokes-Brown, A. K., & Hindman, M. (2007). Campaign politics and the digital divide: Constituency characteristics, strategic considerations, and candidate internet use in state legislative elections. Political Research Quarterly, 60(1), 31–42.
Jackson, N., & Lilleker, D. G. (2011). Microblogging, constituency service and impression management: UK MPs and the use of Twitter. Journal of Legislative Studies, 17(1), 86–105.
Johnson, T. J., Zhang, W., Bichard, S., & Seltzer, T. (2010). United we stand? Online social network sites and civic engagement. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), The networked self: Identity, community, and culture on social network sites (pp. 185–207). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kaminski, M., & D. Bar-Tal. (1996). Stereotypical perceptions of various labels of Israeli-Arabs as functions of age and religiosity. Iyunim Bechinuch, 1-2, 121–157. (Hebrew).
Lappas, G., Triantafillidou, A., Yannas, P., Kavada, A., Kleftodimos, A., & Vasileiadou, O. (2015). The role of Facebook in the 2014 Greek municipal elections. In L. Wang, S. Uesugi, I. H. Ting, K. Okuhara, & K. Wang (Eds.), Multidisciplinary social networks research (pp. 437–447). Heidelberg: Springer.
Larsson, A. O. (2014). Online, all the time? A quantitative assessment of the permanent campaign on Facebook. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814538798.
Lev-On, A. (2011). Campaigning online: Use of the internet by parties, candidates and voters in national and local election campaigns in Israel. Policy and Internet, 3(1), 1–28.
Lev-On, A. (in press). Online campaigning moves to Facebook: Contenders’ perspectives.
Lilleker, D. G., & Vedel, T. (2013). The internet in campaigns and elections. In W. H. Dutton (Ed.), Oxford handbook of internet studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mako (2010). Soon: A Facebook page for all MKs. Retrieved from http://www.mako.co.il/news-money/tech/Article-f89c1d2216b4721004.htm.
Moriarty, S. E., & Garramone, G. M. (1986). A study of newsmagazine photographs of the 1984 presidential campaign. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 63(4), 728–734.
Morris, M., & Ogan, C. (1996). The internet as mass medium. Journal of Communication, 46(1), 39–50.
Mustafa, M. (2005). Municipal elections among the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel: The rise of clan power and decline of the parties. In E. Rekhess & S. Ozacky-Lazar (Eds.), The municipal elections in the Arab and Druze sector (2003): Clans, sectarianism and political parties (pp. 18–24). Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University and Adenauer Foundation.
Purian-Lukach, R. (2011). Municipal e-government: Comparative index, success factors and models for management and evaluation. In A. Lev-On & E. Cohen (Eds.), Connected: Politics, technology and society in Israel. Tel-Aviv: The Israeli Political Science Association Press. (Hebrew).
Sobaci, M. Z., Eryiğit, K. Y., & Hatipoğlu, İ. (2015). The net effect of social media on election results: The case of Twitter in 2014 Turkish local elections. In M. Z. Sobaci (Ed.), Social media and local governments (pp. 265–279). New York: Springer.
Stalsburg, B. L., & Kleinberg, M. S. (2016). “A mom first and a candidate second”: Gender differences in candidates’ self-presentation of family. Journal of Political Marketing, 15(4), 285–310.
Sundar, S. S., Kalyanaraman, S., & Brown, J. (2003). Explicating web site interactivity: Impression formation effects in political campaign sites. Communication Research, 30(1), 30–59.
Utz, S. (2009). The (potential) benefits of campaigning via social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(2), 221–243.
Wagner, A. (2015). Candidate orientation to ICTs in Canadian municipal elections. In A. Frame & G. Brachotte (Eds.), Citizen participation and political communication in a digital world (pp. 81–94). New York: Routledge.
Wagner, K. M., & Gainous, J. (2009). Electronic grassroots: Does online campaigning work? The Journal of Legislative Studies, 15(4), 502–520.
Williams, C. B., & Gulati, G. J. (2007). Social networks in political campaigns: Facebook and the 2006 midterm elections. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 30-September 30, Chicago.
Williams, C. B. & Gulati, G. J. (2008). What is a social network worth? Facebook and vote share in the 2008 presidential primaries. Paper presented at the 2008 Annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28–31, Boston.
Williams, C. B., & Gulati, G. J. (2012). Social networks in political campaigns: Facebook and the congressional elections of 2006 and 2008. New Media & Society, 15(1), 52–71.
Williamson, A. (2009). The effect of digital media on MPs’ communication with constituents. Parliamentary Affairs, 62(3), 514–527.
Zinger, S. (2015). Campaigns on Facebook: What influences the scope of engagement and does it win votes? Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University.
Acknowledgements
The authors thanks Naomi Bitman for her assistance with preparing the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lev-On, A. (2018). Perceptions, Uses, Visual Aspects, and Consequences of Social Media Campaigning: Lessons from Municipal Facebook Campaigning, Israel 2013. In: Sobacı, M., Hatipoğlu, İ. (eds) Sub-National Democracy and Politics Through Social Media. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73385-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73386-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)