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Recent years have witnessed a significant inner transformation among political parties in both developed and developing democracies of the world. Different factors, such as changes in the structure of the media environment owing to the technological boom in the last two decades and changes in voting behavior, led to the transformation of the political parties in different democracies worldwide. Therefore, studying the patterns of this transformation has become an integral part of the current political science research. Early studies have demonstrated the indexes based on professionalization. However, limited studies have tried to examine the process of transformation relating to professionalization and are almost missing from the studies based on non-western democracies like India. Therefore, against this backdrop, this study tries to expand the literature by providing a theoretical framework consisting of causal mechanisms which would explain the process of professionalization of campaigns with special reference to Indian elections through the theory testing method of process tracing. The framework has been provided in a series of causal mechanisms to answer how the considered individual variables react when they come in contact. This paper concludes by justifying the conceptual framework of professionalization.

In the last decade, digital tools have become central elements of electoral campaigns. This trend might have been amplified in 2021, as the possibilities for personal interactions were limited due to the severe restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about whether the use of digital tools pays off on election day. Thus, this research note asks to what extent Bundestag candidates used digital tools in the past federal elections and whether the activities are associated with better election results in 2021. Analyses of the candidate surveys of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) indicate that constituency candidates increasingly use digital campaigning. This trend was not boosted by the 2021 election. Instead, a ‘natural’ increase is observable. Moreover, using a personal website or blog is associated with slightly better election results. In den letzten zehn Jahren sind digitale Werkzeuge zu zentralen Elementen von Wahlkampagnen geworden. Dieser Trend könnte sich im Jahr 2021 noch verstärkt haben, da die Möglichkeiten für persönliche Interaktionen aufgrund der starken Einschränkungen durch die COVID-19-Pandemie begrenzt waren. Es ist jedoch wenig darüber bekannt, ob sich der Einsatz digitaler Instrumente am Wahltag auszahlt. Der Beitrag geht daher der Frage nach, inwieweit die Bundestagskandidaten bei den vergangenen Bundestagswahlen digitale Instrumente genutzt haben und ob diese Aktivitäten mit besseren Wahlergebnissen im Jahr 2021 verbunden sind. Analysen der Kandidatenbefragungen der German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) deuten darauf hin, dass Wahlkreiskandidaten zunehmend digitale Kampagnen nutzen. Dieser Trend hat sich durch die Wahl 2021 nicht verstärkt. Vielmehr ist ein „natürlicher“ Anstieg zu beobachten. Zudem ist die Nutzung einer eigenen Website oder eines Blogs mit leicht besseren Wahlergebnissen verbunden., Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften, Nr. 3 (2022): Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften

The entry of Covid-19 in Indonesia prompted the Indonesian government to make policies to tackle the virus's spread. The approach adopted by the Indonesian government is large-scale social restrictions (PSBB). The problem is that there are still violations of health protocols that have created a new Covid-19 cluster amid society. Therefore, this study aims to find out more about the use of social media for health protocol campaigns in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. This study uses Q-DAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Software) with Nvivo 12 plus for data analysis. This study uses three different analyzes, chart analysis, cluster analysis, and word cloud analysis. This study uses trending hashtags on Twitter social media relevant to the health protocol campaign in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study are first, Twitter social media is one of the places to campaign for health protocols in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic. Second, the "physical distancing" health protocol campaign is dominant in #SocialDistancing, "using a mask" is prevalent in #jagajarak, and "handwashing" is often used in #lawancovid19 and #jagajarak. Third, several hashtags used in social media Twitter about health protocols are interconnected, but the most powerful are #pakaimasker with #jagajarak. Fourth, the word that is most popular and which is often discussed concerning health protocols on Twitter is #SocialDistancing.

Field experiment to identify the effects of a large-scale mailer campaign in a Swiss federal referendum concerning two popular initiatives.

The UK’s referendum on EU membership that resulted in a narrow minority in favour of leave was followed by a leadership vacuum and intense debate about the implementation of the result. The politicization over Brexit resulted in the development of ‘Brexit identities’ of Remainers and Leavers that superseded party identities. We argue that in order to understand how this politicization took place despite a leadership vacuum we firstly need to look beyond the arena of formal party politics to more informal arenas of political contestation on social media, especially Facebook, and secondly understand the linkages between EU and national level politicization that polarised the country around new British-specific identities. Through this, we analyse the ‘politics of division’ not simply as a form of contentious politics driven by political parties, but as a social conflict driven by non-institutionalised groups, grassroots campaigns and ordinary citizens. We find evidence of significant mobilisation that extends beyond the realm of party politics but argue that this mobilisation cannot necessarily be considered entirely ‘grassroots’. Rather, it is driven not just by citizens but also shaped by mainstream and alternative media platforms. The debates cannot, however, be considered purely a form of EU politicization, rather, analysis of Facebook comments shows that politicization over Brexit through these campaigns is primarily contestation over the nature and legitimacy of British democracy. Because of this, we argue that social media is an essential site for the study of EU politicization and political campaigns in general.

The changes in the media environment brought up by digital media are expected to have profound effects on politics, from citizen’s participation to elites’ strategies. However, the literature has paid little attention to systemic and contextual factors that might constrain or limit the possibilities for collective action in this new communication context. Using a structural approach, I analyze presidential election campaigns’ use of Twitter in a study of 16 Latin American countries between 2012 and 2015 – Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. To demonstrate the quality of the data set, I show that forecasting models with Twitter Volume can preview election results in most of the cases, and even give more accurate forecasting than polling data in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico. In order to fill the shortage of theoretical models on social media, I propose a new concept of campaign spheres for understanding the linkage between social media messages and public opinion associated with campaigns. Campaign spheres are sections of the public sphere. Instead of forming public opinion through rational deliberation, a campaign sphere mostly reproduces a candidate’s political slogans and symbols to mobilize opinion leaders. While the public sphere is inclusive, a campaign sphere has clear boundaries dividing those who support the campaign and those who oppose it. Institutions and social context do affect campaign spheres in Latin American presidential elections. Party systems can predict how intensely people participate, while incumbency increases the number of participants, mainly in left-wing campaign spheres. Two-round systems had a negative impact on the participation of right-wing campaign spheres, and also demonstrated a small negative effect on the prestige of all candidates. Yet challengers had more prestige than incumbents – an effect that was stronger in plurality system countries and after the elections. This research gives a perspective on the constrained context for communication change in Latin America, which can be extended and generalized to other new democracies.

Historically, campaigns are recognized as a vital part of electioneering since it contains the ideas that the candidate wants to share with the voters, especially regarding policy issues and the administration’s focus. It aims to get those who agree with their ideas to support them when running for a political position. The message often consists of several talking points about policy issues. However, a study of Nigeria’s situation, with specific reference to the 2015 Campaigns and Electioneering, revealed that the main content of campaigns was hate speeches. Therefore, this paper seeks to bring out the main issues of campaigns in Nigeria’s electoral system and why it has often led to electoral violence over the years. The qualitative method is used for this particular research. Data obtained from primary and secondary sources were deployed to carry out the study with an analytical and narrative historical approach. It includes historical, descriptive, and analytical approaches based on gathered evidence. This research’s primary source is based on field investigations conducted in the Nigerian area and surrounding territories. Among other things, the data collection process includes semi-structured interviews with selected individuals. The research also uses historical documents from the national archives, relying on previous research conducted on society, administrative development, and documentary data taken from newspaper accounts, diaries, letters, and verbal reports. This research’s position is that campaigns over the years in Nigeria, unlike what is obtainable in some parts of the world where policy issues form the backbone of campaign message have basically on persons, character assassination, violence, and abusive (hate) speeches. The paper argues that this campaign strategy often leads to electoral violence before, during, and after elections. The paper, therefore, concludes that only issue-based campaigns can guarantee peaceful and credible elections in Nigeria.

ObjectivesSafeTea is a multifaceted intervention delivered by community practitioners to prevent hot drink scalds to young children and improve parents’ knowledge of appropriate burn first aid. We adapted SafeTea for a national multimedia campaign, and present a mixed-methods process evaluation of the campaign.MethodsWe used social media, a website hosting downloadable materials and media publicity to disseminate key messages to parents/caregivers of young children and professionals working with these families across the UK. The SafeTea campaign was launched on National Burns Awareness Day (NBAD), October 2019, and ran for 3 months. Process evaluation measurements included social media metrics, Google Analytics, and quantitative and qualitative results from a survey of professionals who requested hard copies of the materials via the website.ResultsFindings were summarised under four themes: ‘reach’, ‘engagement’, ‘acceptability’ and ‘impact/behavioural change’. The launch on NBAD generated widespread publicity. The campaign reached a greater number of the target audience than anticipated, with over 400 000 views of the SafeTea educational videos. Parents and professionals engaged with SafeTea and expressed positive opinions of the campaign and materials. SafeTea encouraged parents to consider how to change their behaviours to minimise the risks associated with hot drinks. Reach and engagement steadily declined after the first month due to reduced publicity and social media promotion.ConclusionThe SafeTea campaign was successful in terms of reach and engagement. The launch on NBAD was essential for generating media interest. Future campaigns could be shorter, with more funding for additional social media content and promotion.

Social media has changed the ways of the political campaign to win their candidates. The media has been prepared for disseminating vision and mission of political candidates since social media has been a promising strategy campaign. This study aims to analyze the campaign strategy of the 2019 Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections on Social Media. The method used was descriptive qualitative. The Data sources were obtained through the winning team accounts of Jokowi and Prabowo on Twitter. Data analysis techniques used Nvivo 12 plus through the crosstab feature. The results of the study found that the two winning team accounts on Twitter @BK52bersamaJKW and @PrabowoSandi_ID were very enthusiastic during the campaign. However, in the consistency level of Twitter account @BK52bersama JKW from February to April was not stable during the campaign process. Meanwhile, the Twitter account @PrabowoSandi_ID Twitter from November to December was inactive and it increased in January. Between the two winning teams; the Prabowo team was more enthusiastic in disseminating the candidate by using the hashtag where the percentage level is higher than the winning team of Jokowi.

Hintergrund Angesichts der Masernausbrüche wird für Deutschland der Einsatz von Masernimpfkampagnen („supplementary immunization activities“ [SIAs]) diskutiert. Eine Evidenzbasis für einen Einsatz in den Zielgruppen Deutschlands fehlt bislang. Ziel der Arbeit 1. Welche Informationen zur Durchführung von SIAs sind verfügbar? 2. Lassen sich auf Basis der Informationen Trends erkennen, welche Merkmale von SIAs mit einer Inzidenzreduktion einhergehen? Material und Methoden Anhand eines Scoping Reviews wurden Informationen zu Masern-SIAs recherchiert. „Least developed countries“ wurden ausgeschlossen. Ergänzend wurden Inzidenzveränderungen zwischen den Jahren vor und nach der SIA in den betrachteten Ländern und Jahren berechnet. Ergebnisse Es wurden 82 SIAs aus 82 Ländern (20 Artikel) eingeschlossen. Informationen zur Umsetzung beschränken sich meist auf die veröffentlichten Daten der WHO. In 90 % der niedriginzidenten Länder blieben die Masernneuerkrankungsraten nach SIAs niedrig. Die Neuerkrankungsraten der 27 mittelinzidenten Länder entwickelten sich unterschiedlich. In 5 Ländern (19 %) stieg die Inzidenz, in 11 (41 %) blieb sie konstant und in 11 (41 %) sank sie. In 87 % der hochinzidenten Länder reduzierten sich die Inzidenzen. Diskussion Die Dokumentation ist nicht ausreichend, um gesicherte Empfehlungen für entsprechende Zielgruppen oder konkrete Umsetzungsstrategien in Deutschland zu geben. Trotz der unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen in den Ländern war der Einsatz von SIAs meist mit einem Rückgang oder einer Stabilisierung der Inzidenzraten verbunden. In nur jedem zweiten Land sank die Inzidenz nach Durchführung einer SIA. Es werden sechs Handlungsempfehlungen für zukünftige SIA-Planungen gegeben., Background In view of continuing measles outbreaks, the use of supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) is being discussed for Germany. There is currently no evidence to support the use of SIAs for the target groups in Germany. Objectives What information is available on the implementation of SIAs? Based on the available data, which characteristics of SIAs are associated with a reduction in incidence? Materials and methods A scoping review on measles SIAs was conducted. Least developed countries were excluded. Changes in incidence trends in the relevant countries were calculated in the years before and after the SIA. Results A total of 82 SIAs from 82 countries (20 articles) were included. Information on the implementation is mostly limited to data published by World Health Organization. There was no change in measles incidence in the countries with a low level of incidence. The incidence of the 27 middle-incident countries developed differently. In 5 countries (19%) the incidence increased, in 11 (41%) it remained constant and in 11 (41%) the incidence decreased. In 87% of the high-incidence countries the incidence decreased. Conclusions The available documentation of SIAs is insufficient to provide reliable recommendations for corresponding target groups or concrete implementation strategies in Germany. Despite differing conditions in the included countries, the use of SIAs was usually associated with a decrease or stabilization of incidence rates. In only half of the countries did the incidence drop after a SIA. Six recommendations for action are given for future SIA planning.

Political campaigns routinely appeal to citizens’ emotions, and there is evidence that such appeals influence political behaviour. Social media, an important arena through which political actors communicate with voters, provide a rich source of data for investigating not only which communication strategies they use but also which of these engage followers. Building on political psychology and political communication literature, the present study investigates the relationship between appeals to specific emotions (fear, anger, enthusiasm, and pride) and the engagement that such posts generate on Facebook. We created an engagement index sensitive to the Facebook page follower count and employed multilevel modelling techniques. We conducted a manual content analysis of posts by British political parties and their leaders (N = 1,203) during the Brexit referendum debate on Facebook. We found that engagement with a post substantially increases when appeals to anger, enthusiasm, and pride are present. Conversely, there is no relationship between appeals to fear and engagement. Thus, the results indicate with observational data what we know about the effects of emotions from experimental research in political psychology. Emotions of the same valence (e.g., fear and anger) have a different relationship with user engagement and, by extension, political behaviour and participation online. This indicates that to fully understand the role of emotions in generating user engagement on Facebook, we must go beyond the positive and negative dichotomy and look at discrete emotions. Lastly, British political actors used Facebook communication to generate online political participation during the Brexit debate.

It is an old concern in public and academic debates that people are not interested in European-level issues, and even European Parliamentary election campaigns, which are the main democratic tools of the European Union (EU) to involve ordinary people into political decision-making, are mostly about national-level political topics. Moreover, even when European issues emerge, the context of its discussion is often harmful to European integration and strengthens the perceived importance of domestic politics. In the age of social media, however, users’ content preferences may significantly affect the presence of different political levels in political campaigns, but these preferences are still largely uncovered in academic literature. To fill this gap, we investigate the direct and moderated effects of European-focused Facebook posts on user engagement drawing upon a content analysis dataset including 9,688 posts of 68 parties from 12 EU countries. In line with the well-known second-order election hypothesis (Reif & Schmitt, 1980) we hypothesize a negative direct main effect. However, we also assume that this effect is moderated by several content-, and party-level factors, and when people engage with European-level contents they do it with those ones that are posted by populist parties, focused on a few divisive hot topics, and are framed with a negative tone. Moreover, we expect cross-country differences. We find that on the whole, user engagement with national-level political content prevails over the European-level, but in some countries there are no remarkable differences in user engagement patterns of the two levels. While our findings mostly confirm the second-order election hypothesis, they also demonstrate that European politics can spread within social media platforms in a less divisive and negative way than we expected. European-focused posts do not perform better when they are posted by populist parties, focused selectively on the salient issues of immigration or environment, or framed in a negative way.

EnglishIn this article, the context of the May 2019 European elections in Italy is described, its main protagonists are presented, and its results are discussed under the second order elections model. These elections presented some of the theorized features, such as a focus on national themes during the campaign and lower participation than in the previous legislative election, but the punishment of the incumbent fell only on one of the coalition partners: the Movimento Cinque Stelle lost almost half of its electoral support, while the Lega doubled its results compared to the 2018 legislative elections. The radical shift in the balance between the two coalition parties had a dramatic impact on their already unstable relationship and led to the end of Lega’s participation in the governmental solution. portuguesNeste artigo, descreve-se o contexto, apresentam-se os protagonistas e discutem-se os resultados das eleicoes europeias de maio de 2019 na Italia a luz do modelo de eleicoes de segunda ordem. Estas eleicoes apresentaram algumas das caracteristicas teorizadas, como um enfoque em temas nacionais durante a campanha e uma menor participacao face as legislativas anteriores, mas a punicao do incumbente caiu apenas sobre um dos parceiros da coligacao que entao governava o pais: o Movimento 5 Estrelas perdeu metade das preferencias, enquanto a Liga duplicou os seus resultados em relacao as legislativas de 2018. A mudanca radical no equilibrio de forcas entre os dois partidos da coligacao teve um impacto dramatico nas suas relacoes, ja instaveis, e levou ao fim da participacao da Liga no governo.

This study examines the international activist movement known as Sleeping Giants, a social-media “campaign to make bigotry and sexism less profitable” (Sleeping Giants, n.d.). The campaign originated in the US with an anonymous Twitter account that enlisted followers in encouraging brands to pull their online advertising from Breitbart News. The campaign achieved dramatic success and rapidly spread to regions outside the US, with other anonymously run and loosely allied chapters emerging in 15 different nations (as well as a regional chapter for the EU). Many of these were initially created to take on Breitbart advertisers in their home countries, but in a number of cases they subsequently turned their attention to disrupting financial support for other far-right news media in—or impacting—their home countries. Based on interviews with leaders of eight Sleeping Giants chapters, as well as the related UK-based Stop Funding Hate campaign, this study examines the Sleeping Giants campaign with respect to its continuity with media activism of previous eras, while also seeking to understand its potential as one of the first high-profile activist campaigns to grapple with the impacts of programmatic advertising on the news ecosystem. In particular, we consider how the campaign’s interventions speak to the larger debate around the normative relationship between advertising and the performance of the news ecosystem.

The election of the Governor of Central Java in 2018 result was Ganjar Pranowo and Taj Yasin as the winners. Messages in political campaigns are important elements that can determine the candidate's victory or failure in political contestation. The messages in the campaign are specifically designed based on the character of the specific target voters and should not be generalized to all groups of voters. As one of the national food barns, it was interesting to figure out how specific messages related to food security are perceived by voters. The research method used was a mixed method with in-depth interviews with voters with agricultural background and survey to young voters who are considered by researchers to have the greatest opportunity to be exposed by a variety of specific issues in the campaign because of their high media consumption. The results of the study show that specific issue like food security was only a concern for voters who have strong relevance to the issue. However, it was not the only basis for consideration in choosing candidates for related voters.

A well-established body of literature links voter turnout to political campaigns. In this view, intensive campaigns increase the perceived salience of a decision, fostering information-seeking and, ultimately, turnout. The existing literature has also advanced our understanding of how direct democratic institutions influence turnout in elections. Yet we still know little about whether and to what extent campaign efforts influence voter turnout in direct democratic votes, and we know even less about who is mobilized. We claim that campaign intensity has differentiated effects across voters, depending on voters’ participation profile. To test this claim we use a rich dataset of official turnout data covering more than 40 direct democratic votes in Switzerland. The results support our claim. While intensive political campaigns overall foster citizens to turn out to vote, they do so especially for “selective” (or “intermittent”) voters, who need to decide anew at each ballot whether to turn out or not. Interestingly, we also find that frequent abstainers are not immune from campaign effects, and get almost as strongly mobilized as selective voters in highly intensive campaigns.

Online political astroturfing—hidden information campaigns in which a political actor mimics genuine citizen behavior by incentivizing agents to spread information online—has become prevalent on social media. Such inauthentic information campaigns threaten to undermine the Internet’s promise to more equitable participation in public debates. We argue that the logic of social behavior within the campaign bureaucracy and principal–agent problems lead to detectable activity patterns among the campaign’s social media accounts. Our analysis uses a network-based methodology to identify such coordination patterns in all campaigns contained in the largest publicly available database on astroturfing published by Twitter. On average, 74% of the involved accounts in each campaign engaged in a simple form of coordination that we call co-tweeting and co-retweeting. Comparing the astroturfing accounts to various systematically constructed comparison samples, we show that the same behavior is negligible among the accounts of regular users that the campaigns try to mimic. As its main substantive contribution, the paper demonstrates that online political astroturfing consistently leaves similar traces of coordination, even across diverse political and country contexts and different time periods. The presented methodology is a reliable first step for detecting astroturfing campaigns.

Election campaigns in the age of social media are rapidly changing their character. Due to the declining party loyalty of voters, once stable constituencies have become increasingly volatile and the importance of campaigning has increased. Parties are now thought to be more likely than in the past to opt for negative campaigning. This paper examines the postings that parties or top candidates made on the social media sites Facebook and Twitter during the 2019 National Council election campaign. The results suggest that - at least on social media sites - the cost-benefit analysis of the parties might turn towards negative campaigning, as the average popularity of negative campaigning posts was higher than those that were not tagged with negative campaigning.

Which candidates are more likely to go negative, and under which conditions? We analyze self-reported survey data from candidates having run in the 2017 German federal election for the main parties. More specifically, we test a comprehensive set of factors supposed to drive the use of (a) negative campaigning in general, (b) policy attacks, and (c) character attacks. Our results show that for all three versions of negative campaigning the political profile of candidates is most important, followed by personality traits, perceived campaign dynamics, social profile, and available campaign resources. Within these categories, five factors are important across the board: members of the governing parties are less likely to attack, ‘extreme ideology’ of the candidate fuels the use of attack politics, candidates who believe that the media can persuade voters attack more often, disagreeable candidates tend to go negative, and male candidates are more likely to attack than females.

Im Artikel werden die Ergebnisse einer kritisch-hermeneutischen Dokumentenanalyse des zwischen Ende 2017 und Anfang 2021 veröffentlichten Propagandamaterials von Zentrum Automobil und der Kampagne Werde Betriebsrat präsentiert. Ziel der Untersuchung ist, herauszuarbeiten, wie Zentrum Automobil versucht, die Arbeiter_innenschaft für sich zu gewinnen. Über den Untersuchungszeitraum lässt sich ein Wandel feststellen: Wurde zunächst versucht, über eine klassisch extrem rechte Zielgruppenansprache Arbeiter_innen für sich zu gewinnen, versuchte ZA nach der Betriebsratswahl 2018, mittels einer diverseren Selbstdarstellung eine breitere Öffentlichkeit anzusprechen. Außerdem wird im Artikel dargestellt, dass ZA keine eigenen betrieblichen Positionen entwickelt, weil alle im Betrieb auftretenden Konflikte auf eine Verschwörung von Gewerkschaften und internationalem Management reduziert werden. The article presents the results of a critical-hermeneutical document analysis of the propaganda materials published by the Zentrum Automobil and the campaign 'Werde Betriebsrat' between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2021. The aim of the study is to work out how the Zentrum Automobil tries to win over the workers. A change can be seen over the period under study: While an attempt was initially made to win over a classically extreme right-wing target group, after the works council election in 2018 ZA tries to win over a broader public by means of a diverse selfrepresentation. In addition, the article shows that ZA does not develop its own demands, because conflicts in the work of work are reduced to a conspiracy of trade unions and international management.

International ‘naming and shaming’ campaigns rely on domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) for information on local human rights conditions. To stop this flow of information, some governments restrict CSOs, for example by limiting their access to funding. Do such restrictions reduce international naming and shaming campaigns that rely on information from domestic CSOs? This article argues that on the one hand, restrictions may reduce CSOs’ ability and motives to monitor local abuses. On the other hand, these organizations may mobilize against restrictions and find new ways of delivering information on human rights violations to international publics. Using a cross-national dataset and in-depth evidence from Egypt, the study finds that low numbers of restrictions trigger shaming by international non-governmental organizations. Yet once governments impose multiple types of restrictions, it becomes harder for CSOs to adapt, resulting in fewer international shaming campaigns.