Direct Democracy in the Digital Age: Navigating Party and Voter Dynamics in Digital Referendum Campaigns

Abstract

With the rise of social media use in the 2010s and, more recently, generative artificial intelligence (AI), the landscape of political engagement has undergone a rapid transformative shift; digital platforms have become pivotal in influencing public opinion, mobilizing voters and disseminating (dis-)information. As such, the way in which political actors on the one hand and voters on the other interact within this newly-digitalized public sphere has been permanently altered. In both cases, the advent of digital campaigning offers a double-edged sword; political parties, for one, are able to target their electoral campaigns with greater accuracy than ever before, thus offering them enormous potential to reach and potentially sway voters. At the same time, social media platforms are filled with other actors fighting for voter attention; as such, parties run the risk that their campaigns are drowned out, and thus potentially forced to drift towards more extreme and less nuanced positions in order to remain afloat. Voters, on the other hand, are tasked with navigating this online cacophony of voices eager for their attention and filled with dis- and misinformation, an undertaking made even more difficult due to the aforementioned introduction of AI. Yet, voters can also reap positive benefits, as they have unprecedented access to information and are able to become active participants in digital campaigns themselves. With this in mind, this panel seeks to examine how the advent of the digital age has impacted party and voter dynamics when it comes to referendum campaigns (see Udris and Eisenegger, 2023). Referendums, by nature, take place in a volatile information context; traditional party lines fade due to varying cleavage dynamics, parties provide more ambiguous information cues to voters and a multiplicity of political actors may be actively involved in the campaign (de Vreese 2006). Voters are asked to make a single, binary choice on what are often multi-faceted and complex issues and these issues may be long discussed or new to the political agenda. As such, one can only expect that these factors are exacerbated when campaigns take place in the modern, highly digitalized context. This panel thus explores the intricate interplay between parties and voters within this context. Collectively the papers will investigate the evolution and adoption of digital campaign methods within parties as well as their effects on the voting behavior of increasingly volatile and distrustful electorates.

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