slides from October 29, 2012, the second session of the course Social Media and the U.S. Election. The course is taught by Janelle Ward and hosted by the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

1. Social Media and
the U.S. Election
janelle.ward@gmail.com
www.janelleward.com
@janelle_ward

2. Today’s plan
• Producing the campaign: How are political actors
using social media to inform and engage citizens?
• A little bit of theory plus examples:
• The political communication system
• A brief history of e-campaigning
• Case studies:
• The numbers, the strategies, lessons learned

3. Theory:
The political communication system

4. Journalists/
Journalists/ Politicians/political
Politicians/political
mass media
mass media elites
elites
Citizens/audiences
Citizens/audiences

5. Theory:
The political communication system
• Forces of instability:
• updated laws aimed at the media/political elites
• rapid advances in information & communication
technologies
• mutual adaptation between politicians and the media
• changing relationship between politicians, the media and
audiences (Blumler & Gurevitch)

6. Theory: E-campaigning research
• Party Competition
• Smaller parties emerge online; access to huge
quantities of information w/o media interference
• Power Diffusion
• More participation in campaigns; political efficacy
increases with more options
• Institutional Adaptation
• Politics tames democratic potential of the internet,
exacerbates “typical” media/politician practices
– (Andrew Chadwick: Internet Politics)

7. Theory: E-campaigning research
• Party Competition
• Third party debate (Oct. 24th) broadcast online;
questions via Twitter (#AskEmThisLarry)
• One million strong for Stephen Colbert
• Power Diffusion
• Amazon and the Avery durable binders
• Twitter: measuring natural conversation?
• Institutional Adaptation
• Romney’s fake Twitter followers
• VP choice announcements:
– Obama’s strategy in 2008 (via text message)
– Romney’s strategy in 2012 (via mobile app)

8. A brief history of e-campaigning
• 1996: Debut of candidate’s web pages
• 2000: The first internet election: Bush v. Gore (Bimber & Davis)
– Wayback Machine - Al Gore: Jan. 19, 1998
• 2004: Howard Dean: fundraising, online organizing
• 2008: my.BarackObama.com + social media
• 2012: the works: nanotargeting, wives of the presidential
candidates tweeting
• “Winning an election isn't just about kissing babies anymore -- it's about knowing
which babies to kiss, and how and when to kiss them.”

9. A look back at 2008
• “Today Obama is like a brand, his campaign
like a $250 million company, and the voters
like customers; the persuasion flows one way.
If he becomes president, then power,
authority, and legitimacy will flow in both
directions; voters…may push against his
initiatives in office, sometimes unpredictably.”
–Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic (2008)

10. 2012: Narwhal
• “This year’s looming innovations in campaign
mechanics will be imperceptible to the electorate…
If successful, Narwhal would fuse the multiple
identities of the engaged citizen—the online
activist, the offline voter, the donor, the volunteer
—into a single, unified political profile.”

11. 2012: Data mining
• “Some data comes from official records: voter
registration, political contributions, gun licenses…
more now comes from your commercial activity:
credit card transactions, outstanding loans, even
supermarket loyalty cards…perhaps the richest
source of data about you is ... you. Just think of all
you share about yourself on Facebook, Google+,
LinkedIn and other social networks…[and] visits to
the candidates' own websites.”

12. Example #1: Greenpeace vs. Nestle
• video; summary
• 90,000 Nestle protesters took
over the company’s Facebook
page
• Nestle PR fail?

13. Example #2: The debates
• Second Presidential Debate Tops Super Bowl in Social TV
– “The second presidential debate generated 12.24 million social media
comments – 11.7M tweets and 572K public Facebook posts. This
makes it the #3 most social TV event of all time (Super Bowl XLVI had
12.20 million comments). The first presidential debate garnered
11.2M comments.”
• And yet…” Besides the spike in activity over Obama’s “fewer horses and
bayonets” comment, Twitter came 4 million tweets short last night of
breaking the record set by the first presidential debate.”

14. Example #2: The debates
• The second debate in numbers:
– 37
Tweets Obama's campaign sent out during the second debate
– 117,374
Times they were retweeted
– 2
Tweets Romney's campaign sent out during the second debate
– 6,810
Times they were retweeted (source)

15. Example #2: The debates
• The Twitter Election:
• “the tweet volume for the election four years ago
represents only about six minutes of tweets in 2012.”
• “more election-related tweets are sent every two
days this year than were sent out entirely in the
leadup to the 2008 vote, Twitter officials say.”

16. Example #2: The debates
• The numbers: Facebook election insights (by CNN)
– (see also U.S. Politics on Facebook)
• “Following the final presidential debate, more states are
buzzing on Facebook about President Barack Obama than
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Mentions
of Obama are up 111% in the last day while mentions of
Romney are up only 81%”

17. Examining…
• The numbers: Facebook election insights (by CNN)
• “Following the final presidential debate, more states are buzzing on Facebook about
President Barack Obama than Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Mentions of
Obama are up 111% in the last day while mentions of Romney are up only 81%”

18. Example #3: Todd Akin

19. Lessons learned
• Sometimes the tried-and-true campaign tools win out.
• In the end, it might just be Hurricane Sandy…
• Keep in mind: Everyone can produce the campaign – everyone can
consume the campaign (Qualman = listen!)
• “What’s the return on putting your pants on in the morning? We
don’t know. But we just know it’s bad if you don’t do it.” (Jan Rezab, the
chief executive of Socialbakers, in Campaigns Use Social Media to Lure Younger Voters)

20. Further reading/viewing
• In Twitter We Trust: Can Social Media Sway
Voters? (NPR)
• Eric Qualman’s Social Media Revolution
• Social media use in the Netherlands
– 77 slides on Social Media Around the World 2011:
Country report Netherlands
– European Travel Commission: New Media Trend
Watch (Netherlands)

21. For next week
• Consuming the campaign: How are voters using social
media to talk about the election?
• *perceptions of the candidates/campaigns (Gabby)
• *interaction with other citizens
• Some ideas:
– Follow your own Facebook feed & look for election mentions
– Find an election-related Twitter handle/hashtag and monitor