The existing literature related to political election campaign and new technologies has a tendency to approach the theme from a rather narrow point of view, methodologically as well as substantially: a political or a technological focus. Moreover, most studies have focused on the national or supranational level as unit of analysis. Against this backdrop our study will contribute to the emerging literature on use of social media in election campaigns by its multiplied focus on social media as an arena in local election campaigns and new empirical data which will be discussed in light of established democratic theory.
The focus is social media as a web 2.0 application that facilitates new arenas for conversation and interaction between candidates and voters in political election campaigns. Used as an instrument of coordination, speech, communication and interaction, the social media can be considered as an important arena for the voice of the public as well as of the individual voter and candidate. A question is whether this characteristic of social media is reflected in local election campaign on the social media. Or is the online campaign (still) dominated by the political elites and top-down communication?
This paper sheds light on these questions by analysing the used of social media (blogs) which were intended to be central arenas for local election campaigns in selected Norwegian municipalities. The case study includes multiple source of empirical evidence, which can be divided into three main categories: (1) analysis of “local” blogs, (2) log file data of the local blogs (Google Analytics), and (3) a quantitative survey among local candidates (N=748). The local blogs included in our study are all managed by the same regional newspaper and each of the blogs are oriented toward the election campaign in a specific locality (municipality). In advance of the election campaign all candidates and citizens in each municipality were invited by the newspaper to a course of “how to use the social media in an election campaign”. The analysis of the blogs will demonstrate who the participants are and what the themes of the local campaigns are. The log file data shed lights on the extent and developments of the election campaign on the blogs, and the survey data will be used to show the attitudes of the political candidates towards social media as an instrument in political election campaigns at the local level.
The analytic framework is based on two models of democratic conversation: a horizontal conversation model and a vertical conversation model. The first one is related to deliberative and participative ideas of democracy which emphasize democracy as an open network between equal participators. The democratic discourse will be characterised by a critical and pluralized approach to a range of different topics. According to this model social media will be expected to function as a public arena where exchange of opinions between candidates and voters is a central democratic activity. The vertical conversation model highlights the vertical structures between the participators and emphasizes the need of political elites to communicate their politics to the electorate. In this model social media will therefore be expected to be strategic tools for the political candidates, and the language of the conversation will be simple and kept in a manner that is in accordance with the logic of advertising. The aim is to reach as many of the voters as possible.
The study is considered as a critical case-study. If social media is an appropriate arena for interaction between candidates and voters in local election campaign, it should be it in this case. This reasoning is based on the fact that the voters can vote for individual candidates in local election in Norway and that social media in general are considered as an instrument that favour individualized communication. Moreover, the reason is based on the characteristics of the selected social media and the conditions under which they have been presented for the target group – local candidates and the citizens. In addition, we know that Norway local/regional newspapers represent the most important sources of information for the voters in local election. It is reasonable to expect a spill over effect from the traditional newspaper to the digital platform of the newspaper.
Our preliminary analysis demonstrates that local candidates consider ”listening to the voters” as the most important activity in a local election campaign while ”speaking and discoursing with candidates from other political parties” is the less important activity. However, our data show that 87 per cent of the blog articles were written by a politician, 72 per cent of the articles had no blog-comment, and among the blog articles with at least one comment 48 per cent did not have a comment signed by a non-politician. This evidence indicates that the idea of social media as an integrative arena where politicians via debate and deliberative discussions meet the voters in local election campaign is fare from the reality. In fact, it looks like that the social media function as an arena for the candidates themselves and not as an arena of voice of the voters. In our case the use social media seems to reinforce exiting practices rather than stimulate new conversation forms.
