tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/political-campaigning-11689/articlesPolitical campaigning – The Conversation2023-02-08T12:47:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983512023-02-08T12:47:24Z2023-02-08T12:47:24ZWhat I like and hate about Nigeria’s election campaigns - political scientist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507532/original/file-20230201-3038-xvmqx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-labour-party-walk-on-a-highway-during-a-one-news-photo/1243478219?phrase=political%20campaigns%20in%20nigeria&adppopup=true">Kola Sulaimon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Election campaigns are an important aspect of the democratic process in Nigeria. They give voters a chance to learn what a candidate or party stands for. </p>
<p>In Nigeria, according to <a href="https://placng.org/i/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Electoral-Act-2022.pdf">the Electoral Act 2022</a>, election campaigns start six months before the election. The country goes to the polls in February and March this year, so campaigning began <a href="https://leadership.ng/as-2023-campaigns-begin-today-18-candidates-want-buharis-job/">on 28 September 2022</a>. </p>
<p>The last day of campaigns for the presidential and national assembly elections is 23 February 2023 and the last day of campaigns for the governorship and state assembly elections is 9 March 2023. </p>
<p>Candidates vying for the office of the president have been advertising in the media, stating their plans on various platforms. There have also been rallies and marches. Colourful posters adorn Nigeria’s streets, showing candidates decked out in their various traditional attire. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://pol.oauife.edu.ng/Lecturers/dr-damilola-taiye-agbalajobi/">political scientist</a> who has studied election campaigns in Nigeria, I’ve got some personal likes and dislikes about them. This time, I’m glad to see citizens taking more interest in the elections than before. But I wish the campaigns were more informative. </p>
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<h2>Negative aspects of election campaigns</h2>
<p>Top of my list of dislikes is <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/10/2023-election-campaign-focus-on-issues-affecting-governance-devt-cdd-tells-candidates/">disinformation</a>, misinformation and fake news. When you listen to most of the campaign managers of most of the political parties, you hear them propagating false information to discredit their opponent. This can influence public opinion negatively. This is not good. </p>
<p>I also dislike the way campaigners turn each other into adversaries. Looking at the three major political parties contesting the presidential election, emphasis has been placed on the candidates and not the issues at stake or what they will do if elected. An example of the threatening way they speak is a state party chairman who said <a href="https://thewillnigeria.com/2023-apc-will-retain-kano-by-hook-or-crook-abdullahi-abbas/">his party would win by “hook or crook”</a>. Another <a href="https://www.thenicheng.com/video-you-either-vote-apc-or-we-deal-with-you-house-majority-leader-ado-doguwa-tells-kano-residents/">said</a> voters who failed to vote for his party would be dealt with.</p>
<p>Party politics with no benefit to the general populace is another “dislike.” Political office holders only return to the people when seeking office. Once they get into power, they forget the people who have voted for them. <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/house-of-reps-member-stoned-in-taraba">A House of Representatives member was stoned</a> in Taraba State, north-east Nigeria, for abandoning his constituents, who vowed not to vote for him again. </p>
<p>Self centredness is now the order of the day. I’m talking about how political office holders use their offices to satisfy personal needs at the expense of those who voted them into office. Why should they wait till the election period before making basic social services available to the people? It is sad that we only see people getting welfare packages at election time. </p>
<p>Another unfortunate aspect of electoral campaigns in Nigeria is that people tend to look to politicians to solve all their problems. Politicians have consistently abused this dependency to cajole people for support. We see this in the <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/542594-osun-2022-politicians-donate-rams-food-items-to-induce-voters-yiaga.html">distribution of food</a> and clothing at campaign rallies. Sometimes, votes are “bought” rather than based on beliefs about ideologies, as most of our political parties have no ideology to sell. The parties have made <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/577289-presidential-election-tinubu-obi-atiku-make-vague-promises-on-security.html">vague promises</a> without concrete ideas on moving Nigeria forward. </p>
<h2>Positive aspects of election campaigns in Nigeria</h2>
<p>The media are doing a lot to educate the public and to set agendas. They have been organising debates and discussions in various forms.</p>
<p>Social media are useful and influential too – they make it cheaper to reach more people and create awareness. They also help construct communities, which is valuable for minorities.</p>
<p>The media serve to inform people about what the candidates and parties are planning. And they act as a watchdog. The media are doing their best to inform the populace and they are giving each candidate an opportunity to present themselves to the public. </p>
<p>Another positive aspect of election campaigns is that they are opportunities for politicians to reach out to remote areas they would not have reached ordinarily. This opens up opportunities for the poor to engage with politicians.</p>
<p>I also like the fact that election campaigns increase citizens’ awareness of the political system. People are more aware of the different choices available to them. In the current election season, people are queuing to obtain their voter’s cards, and engaging with campaigns. I haven’t seen this level of awareness before – it’s commendable. </p>
<p>Even in areas where some parties are not strong, they are campaigning. Politicians are not leaving anything to chance. This has increased awareness and given voters more options. </p>
<p>Another thing I like is that citizens have greater access to politicians. There have been debates, town hall meetings, rallies and roadshows allowing citizens to interact more with candidates.</p>
<h2>What needs work</h2>
<p>I think a sense of cultural heritage ought to be reintegrated into our beliefs, values and political activities. </p>
<p>The use of social media can be positive or negative. The idea of it becoming the voice of the people is good. But technology has also been used to create and circulate misinformation. I have seen many video clips being circulated that carry negative information. <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20230116-nigeria-elections-2023-edited-video-of-peter-obi-goes-viral">An example</a> was a fake video of a presidential candidate whose speech was twisted. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63719505">A BBC investigation</a> has discovered that political parties are secretly paying social media influencers to spread disinformation about their opponents ahead of the elections.</p>
<p>It’s sometimes hard to know what is correct information and what is false. This can lead to poor decision making. Campaigning on social media can also be a dirty game in which politicians deliberately make each other look bad. </p>
<p>Too much of the campaigning so far has been more like hate speech and irrelevant talk, devoid of real political issues. It should rather be constructive, sharing ideas about how to fix and improve the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damilola Agbalajobi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s campaign season in Nigeria. A political scientist shares what she hates and likes about political campaigns.Damilola Agbalajobi, Lecturer, Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1901872022-09-13T12:22:56Z2022-09-13T12:22:56ZShould you vote early in the 2022 midterm elections? 3 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483520/original/file-20220908-9292-6v006w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2372%2C203%2C3279%2C3550&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A voter fills out his ballot at an early voting location in Massachusetts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voter-fills-out-his-ballot-at-the-early-voting-location-at-news-photo/1242803355?adppopup=true">Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As political campaigning for the midterm elections is ramping up, millions of voters are considering how they should cast their ballots on Nov. 8, 2022. In addition to the traditional way of voting at their local precinct on Election Day, many have the option to vote earlier by mail.</p>
<p>With the exception of Alabama, Connecticut, Mississippi and New Hampshire, early voting is <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Early_voting#Early_voting_by_state">allowed in 46 states</a> and is offered in different forms such as drop boxes, mail or early voting in person. </p>
<p>It’s important to check with your state’s election office, because different states have different deadlines and options available. </p>
<p>In Montana, for instance, early voting is allowed for about four weeks between Oct. 11 and Nov. 7. But in Texas, the early-voting period is only the 10 weekdays between Oct. 24 and Nov. 4. </p>
<p>The Conversation U.S. has published several articles looking at not only the integrity of early voting but also the larger question of turning out the vote. </p>
<h2>1. The long, long history of early voting</h2>
<p>Early voting periods are as old as presidential elections in the U.S.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/presidential-election-of-1789/">first presidential election occurred in 1789</a> and started on Dec. 15, 1788. It ended almost a month later, on Jan. 10, 1789, with the election of George Washington. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until 1845 that Congress adopted the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the national Election Day.</p>
<p>Given the long history, <a href="https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/terri-bimes">Terri Bimes</a>, an associate teaching professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, raises an interesting point on the impact of early voting on turnout. </p>
<p>“While some scholars contend that early in-person voting periods potentially can decrease voter turnout,” Bimes writes, “studies that focus on vote-by-mail, a form of early voting, generally show an increase in voter turnout.”</p>
<p>Regardless of overall turnout, more and more voters are choosing nontraditional ways of casting their ballots. In <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-turnout-in-2020-general-election.html">the 2020 election</a>, for instance, 69% of voters nationwide voted by mail or through another means earlier than Election Day. That number was 40% in 2016.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-nothing-unusual-about-early-voting-its-been-done-since-the-founding-of-the-republic-146889">There's nothing unusual about early voting – it's been done since the founding of the republic</a>
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<h2>2. Is early voting safe?</h2>
<p>Election fraud is rare. </p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-voter-fraud-facts-explai/explainer-despite-trump-claims-voter-fraud-is-extremely-rare-here-is-how-u-s-states-keep-it-that-way-idUSKBN2601HG">mail-in ballot fraud</a> is even rarer. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.heritage.org/article/about-the-election-fraud-database">conservative Heritage Foundation</a> conducted a survey in 2020 and found 1,200 “proven instances of voter fraud” since 2000, with 1,100 criminal convictions over those two decades. </p>
<p>Only 204 allegations, and 143 convictions, involved mail-in ballots – even with more <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494189-lets-put-the-vote-by-mail-fraud-myth-to-rest/">than 250 million mail-in ballots cast since 2000</a>. </p>
<p>Edie Goldenberg is a University of Michigan political scientist who belongs to a <a href="https://napawash.org/grand-challenges-blog/election-2020-protect-electoral-integrity-and-enhance-voter-participation">National Academy of Public Administration working group</a> that offered recommendations to ensure voter participation and public confidence during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. </p>
<p>Goldenberg writes: “The evidence we reviewed finds that voting by mail is rarely subject to fraud, does not give an advantage to one political party over another and can in fact inspire public confidence in the voting process, if done properly.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-get-out-the-vote-in-a-pandemic-146523">What's the best way to get out the vote in a pandemic?</a>
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<h2>3. Voting turnout is key to democracy</h2>
<p>More people voted in the 2020 presidential election than in any election in the past 120 years, even as nearly one-third of eligible voters sat it out. That means <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494189-lets-put-the-vote-by-mail-fraud-myth-to-rest/">nearly 80 million Americans</a> did not vote. </p>
<p>Among <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why">the reasons nonvoters gave were</a> not being registered, not being interested or not believing their vote made a difference. Despite such apathy, about 155 million voters – that’s 67% of Americans over 18 – did vote in 2020. </p>
<p>Part of the problem of reducing the percentage of nonvoters at the street level can be getting people to answer their doors to strangers or answering a telephone call placed by a campaign volunteer from an unrecognized number. Before the pandemic, an effective door-to-door campaign could increase turnout by almost 10%; a well-run phone campaign could add an additional 5%. </p>
<p>When University of California, Berkeley’s Vice Provost for Graduate Studies <a href="https://bse.berkeley.edu/lisa-garc%C3%ADa-bedolla">Lisa García Bedolla</a> began studying voter mobilization in 2005, it was common for door-to-door campaigns to reach half of the people they tried to contact. By 2018, that number had dropped to about 18%.</p>
<p>To close the gap, campaigns moved toward asking people to contact people they knew and help turn out those supporters and social networks. Text messages, especially reminder texts, became the virtual door knock. </p>
<p>“These friend-to-friend approaches are seen as a way to cut through the noise,” Bedolla writes.</p>
<p>These personal approaches can also create a sense of accountability.</p>
<p>Knowing that someone is paying attention to your vote, however it is cast, might make a difference in a local, state or federal election. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-get-out-the-vote-in-a-pandemic-146523">What's the best way to get out the vote in a pandemic?</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The balance of US political power is at stake in the 2022 midterm elections. Voters have several ways to cast their ballots – and the majority of Americans are choosing one of them.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorHoward Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822862022-05-04T20:06:56Z2022-05-04T20:06:56ZWe tracked election ad spending for 4,000 Facebook pages. Here’s what they’re posting about – and why cybersecurity is the bigger concern<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460727/original/file-20220502-17-vmttm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C27%2C6006%2C3980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you noticed your Facebook and Instagram feed filling up with political ads lately?</p>
<p>The social media strategies of many parties and candidates aim to bypass mainstream media to speak directly to voters, but they are often not as sophisticated as is assumed. </p>
<p>As part of a <a href="https://election-ad-data.uq.edu.au">team studying the digital campaign</a>, we have been tracking what the parties and candidates are doing with their Facebook and Instagram ad spend during the election campaign.</p>
<p>Using ads collected from the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ads/library">Facebook Ad Library API</a> (containing sponsored posts declared by the advertiser as political), we are <a href="https://election-ad-data.uq.edu.au/faq">tracking the ad spend for close to 4,000 pages</a>. We gather fresh data every six hours.</p>
<p>At the halfway point in the election campaign, some clear themes are emerging in the ways the parties and candidates are campaigning online.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wentworth-project-allegra-spenders-profile-rises-but-polarises-182275">The Wentworth Project: Allegra Spender's profile rises, but polarises</a>
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<h2>A big spend by ‘teals’ and Labor – and political fragmentation</h2>
<p>The first is the really significant spend from the “teal” Independents. Historically, many successful federal Independents (such as Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott or Cathy McGowan) have come from regional areas.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1188&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460715/original/file-20220502-21-jvct6u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thus far, Labor is spending more than the Coalition on Facebook ads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://election-ad-data.uq.edu.au/">UQ Election Ad Data Dashboard</a></span>
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<p>But they rarely had the resources to execute a campaign of the scale we’re seeing from inner city “teals” like Monique Ryan (running in the seat of Kooyong against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg). </p>
<p>Some are spending A$4,000-$5,000 a week on Facebook and Instagram ads. That is enormous. Very few candidates from the major parties would normally spend that amount. Frydenberg is doing so to try to retain his seat.</p>
<p>The second theme emerging is that, so far, Labor is spending more than the Coalition. That’s a product of Labor’s post-2019 election review, which was damning of their digital campaign and emphasised a digital first strategy.</p>
<p>Thirdly, we’re seeing a real diversity of spending across a range of parties and candidates – Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania, Rex Patrick in South Australia, the Liberal Democrats and the United Australia Party in Queensland, for example. </p>
<p>That reflects the broader fragmentation of the political landscape in Australia. Federal elections in Australia are increasingly complex and multi-dimensional, the campaign online is indicative of this trajectory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460713/original/file-20220502-98897-7sivyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Spending in the seat of Kooyong and Wentworth has been high.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://election-ad-data.uq.edu.au/">UQ Election Ad Data Dashboard</a></span>
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<h2>What are candidates and parties posting about?</h2>
<p>In inner city seats where teal independents are running, the number one issue is overwhelmingly climate change. But “environment” or “climate” is not one of they key terms we have found for the major parties across Australia. Instead, jobs, Medicare and health are more prominent.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460724/original/file-20220502-24-3tdoxn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">‘Lies’ is one of the top terms showing up in posts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://election-ad-data.uq.edu.au/">UQ Election Ad Data Dashboard</a></span>
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<p>For those in outer metropolitan and regional areas, the data suggests the cost of living is the key issue parties have identified as determining their vote.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460705/original/file-20220502-18-uk7ybc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ad from the Liberal Party of Australia Facebook page.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=550350769782587&set=a.344989720318694">Liberal Party of Australia Facebook page</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Negative campaigning is showing up, too. One of the top terms appearing in ads from the major parties is “lies”.</p>
<h2>Take talk of ‘microtargeting’ with a grain of salt</h2>
<p>While there is always talk of fine-grained and sophisticated microtargeting strategies, there is good reason to be wary of such claims. </p>
<p>There’s a perception we live in this incredible digital age where each message is tailored to our interests or our personalities. But the reality is quite different. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460707/original/file-20220502-16-n5siej.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lying is a common theme in many digital ads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=531724981645348&set=pb.100044235528995.-2207520000..&type=3">The Australian Labor Party Facebook page.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, a great deal of digital campaigning isn’t that targeted at all. Clive Palmer’s campaign is an extreme example of this, “carpet bombing” the electorate with messages about “freedom”. (A reasonable rebuttal might be: can I be free to not receive these messages?) </p>
<p>The reality is that most political advertising online is little more than what I describe in my <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-68234-7">recent book</a> as a form of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowcasting">narrowcasting</a>”, where targeting is based on a basic segmentation of voters into demographic or geographic groups. </p>
<p>While many of the techniques we see in Australian election campaigns have been used overseas, particularly in the US and the UK, our electoral system and electoral rules are different; a mixed electoral system and compulsory voting changes the dynamic enormously. </p>
<p>In the US and the UK, the primary focus is to “get out the vote” rather than persuade voters. But <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09781-7">the evidence</a> suggests the effects of digital campaigns on mobilisation are limited. For persuasion, it is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680221076901">even less</a>.</p>
<p>Most parties also lack the resources to engage in highly differentiated and targeted campaign activity.</p>
<p>In research I recently completed with colleagues from six advanced democracies, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13540688221084039">we showed</a> most campaign activity builds on pre-existing techniques and are far less sophisticated than is often assumed. </p>
<p>Digital campaigning matters, as voters are online. It educates, it informs, it drives the conversation and it can have effects on social cohesion.</p>
<p>But the idea digital campaigning is the canary in the coalmine of electoral manipulation in Australia is hyperbole.</p>
<h2>Data privacy is the broader concern</h2>
<p>Two significant digital campaigning issues we should be concerned about are data privacy and cybersecurity. </p>
<p>Australia is one of the few advanced democracies where political parties are completely <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-did-politicians-and-political-parties-get-my-mobile-number-and-how-is-that-legal-168750">exempt from privacy legislation</a>. </p>
<p>They are able to acquire all sorts of data about you, from the Australian Electoral Commission, from data they collect when they speak to voters and from digital tracking data.</p>
<p>Should we be comfortable with parties collecting this information about us, especially when much of it provides <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hacking-the-electorate/C0D269F47449B042767A51EC512DD82E">limited campaigning or educational value</a> to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23723484">parties</a>?</p>
<p>The privacy concerns are significant but so is the broader risk of domestic or foreign actors seeking to acquire this data to sow discord.</p>
<p>Since 2016, political parties in countries such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/18/australia-political-parties-hacked-sophisticated-state-actor">Australia</a>, the <a href="https://labour.org.uk/about-your-data/">UK</a>, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-election-cyber-biden-exclusive-idUKKBN2610IG">US</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/german-parties-targeted-in-cyberattack-1474470695">Germany,</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-politics-5star-idUSKBN1CA1TM">Italy </a>and <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/04/08/canadian-political-parties-already-targeted-by-foreign-hacking-electronic-spy-agency-says.html?rf">Canada</a> have been the targets of cybersecurity attacks. Many see political parties as the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/european-election-security-political-parties-cybersecurity/">weak link in the election security</a> of democracy.</p>
<p>That represents a broader risk for all of us. </p>
<p>It is important for us to track what parties and candidates are doing online during a campaign.</p>
<p>But we also need to identify where the real vulnerabilities are, as the threats online are only likely to increase. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/below-the-line-will-different-cultural-groups-favour-one-side-of-politics-this-federal-election-podcast-182236">Below the Line: Will different cultural groups favour one side of politics this federal election? – podcast</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Kefford receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p>The social media strategies of many parties and candidates aim to bypass mainstream media to speak directly to voters, but they are often not as sophisticated as is assumed.Glenn Kefford, Senior Lecturer (Political Science), The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1638392021-07-02T14:30:24Z2021-07-02T14:30:24ZBatley and Spen: what bitter UK by-election won by sister of murdered MP tells us about state of British politics<p>The Batley and Spen by-election was a close contest that went right down to the wire with few commentators risking <a href="https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1410705508567326727">calling the result before it was announced</a>. At 5:25am it was declared. Kim Leadbeater was the new Labour MP for Batley and Spen, beating her nearest rival, the Conservative candidate Ryan Stephenson, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57696431">by 323 votes</a>. It was close but a clear victory for Labour.</p>
<p>Leadbeater’s acceptance speech was always going to be poignant. This was the seat held by her older sister, Jo Cox, at the time of her murder in 2016. Cox, who won the seat for Labour in 2015, was killed by a terrorist who held extreme right-wing views and targeted Cox because of her work with refugees.</p>
<p>But what was striking – if also sobering and shocking in equal measure given the context – was that Leadbeater also had recourse to thank West Yorkshire police for their protection of her during the campaign. “Sadly”, she said, “I have needed them more than ever.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1410883193939574786"}"></div></p>
<p>In fact, even before her victory had been declared, she released a statement pointing to the “intimidation and violence of those who had convened in the constituency with the sole aim of sowing division”.</p>
<h2>Discord, division and dirty tricks</h2>
<p>A total of 16 candidates put their hats in the ring for the race in Batley and Spen – a number of whom <a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2021/06/09/batley-and-spen-by-election-sees-five-far-right-candidates-on-the-ballot-paper/">represented far-right political parties</a>. But it was the presence of George Galloway standing as an independent for the Workers Party which seriously threatened to undermine Labour’s chances of retaining the seat it had held since 1997. </p>
<p>Galloway was determined to woo traditional Labour supporters, including the significant Muslim constituent in Batley and Spen. Capitalising on escalating tensions in the Middle East, Galloway sought to paint the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer as anti-Muslim. His intention was to set up the vote as a referendum on Starmer’s leadership, to split the Labour vote and ultimately force Starmer out of office.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/batley-and-spen-two-problems-labour-needs-to-overcome-to-win-this-crucial-by-election-163291">Batley and Spen: two problems Labour needs to overcome to win this crucial by-election</a>
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<p>To this end, he also attempted to attract white working-class voters by building a narrative of the Labour leader as “woke” rather than for the working class.</p>
<p>In the run-up to July 1 there were deeply disturbing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/01/galloway-bid-for-batley-and-spen-seat-mired-in-intimidation-claims">reports</a> coming out of Batley and Spen detailing the intimidation and abuse of candidates. There were accusations of dog-whistle racism and homophobia, fake leaflets and foul play. The campaign descended into one of the most bitter and divisive by-elections of recent years. </p>
<p>Tracy Brabin, who had won the seat after the murder of Cox and whose win in the West Yorkshire mayoral election triggered the by-election, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-57636903">described</a> witnessing her group of canvassers “being egged, pushed and forced to the ground and kicked in the head”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1410914332372836354"}"></div></p>
<p>It was by no means the only time such disturbing strategies have been exploited. In fact, similar divisions were present in the 2015 general election in Bradford West, an election in which Galloway was again present, this time fighting to retain his seat. At a hustings at the university, the then conservative candidate, George Grant, captured the “wild west” nature of the campaign by likening it to a 19th-century rotten borough rather than a 21st-century parliamentary democracy. </p>
<p>That election too descended into discrediting individuals and delving into their private lives rather than concentrating on the issues faced by people on the ground.</p>
<h2>Changing nature of campaigns</h2>
<p>Electioneering is by its very nature divisive, effectively asking the electorate to vote for party or candidate A and not party or candidate B. But dirty tricks or underhand tactics used to discredit opponents are by no means inevitable. And yet, while the notion of a sense of fair play and decency may be engraved in the nation’s idea of itself, the 2019 general election demonstrated how easy it is to resort to electioneering in bad faith in the age of social media. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50726500">faking fact checks</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/15/what-we-learned-about-the-media-this-election">manipulating videos</a>, the 2019 election threw up a whole catalogue of ways in which to unduly undermine political opponents. Indeed, divisive and personal campaigns may become more prevalent in an era of online campaigning. Something not unique to the UK, of course. The <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/us-elections/biden-assembles-legal-team-ahead-of-divisive-us-presidential-election-2020-120091500152_1.html">2020 US presidential election</a> was also divisive in nature as were the state elections in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/26/india-soul-at-stake-west-bengalis-vote-in-divisive-election-modi-bjp">India’s West Bengal</a> earlier this year. </p>
<p>In Batley and Spen, in the end, as the Leadbeater pointed out in her speech, the people voted for hope not hate. Yet the constituency is deeply divided and will take much work to bring together. Leadbeater was the only major candidate on the ballot box who was <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/02/kim-leadbeater-labour-candidate-saved-keir-starmers-job/">local to the area</a>. While the others leave, she remains, in her words, “the best person” to get on with the job of reconciliation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parveen Akhtar has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy</span></em></p>Relief for Keir Starmer as Labour retains seat in what was billed as a referendum on his leadership.Parveen Akhtar, Lecturer in Political Science, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1457882020-10-07T12:27:12Z2020-10-07T12:27:12ZFrom recording videos in a closet to Zoom meditating, 2020’s political campaigns adjust to the pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361105/original/file-20201001-14-d6l5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=66%2C14%2C4767%2C3205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eugene DePasquale, left, Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, in Harrisburg, Penn., Sept. 19, shows that even the traditional handshake with voters has changed in pandemic-era campaigns.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/eugene-depasquale-left-democratic-candidate-in-news-photo/1228603276?adppopup=true">om Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump may have eschewed masks and distancing in this pandemic year of campaigning, resulting in both his diagnosis of COVID-19 and the spread of the disease in the White House.</p>
<p>But others have figured out how to campaign with reduced risk. This cycle, there’s plenty of expertise, technology and ingenuity to go around.</p>
<p>I study campaign politics, and the book I’m co-authoring for Routledge – “Inside the Caucus Bubble” – includes a close look at campaign practices from the recent presidential nomination contest.</p>
<p>This is 2020, not 1828, when candidates had <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-birth-of-modern-politics-9780199754243?cc=us&lang=en&">few paths to the voter beyond in-person contact and little support beyond</a> what the party organization offered.</p>
<p>The cast of characters in U.S. electoral politics extends well beyond voters and campaigns and includes vendors, consultants, data brokers, analytics professionals, media consultants and creative teams who all play a part in carrying out a campaign.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of marketing for PhoneBurner, whose tagline is 'Political Dialing Made Easy.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361116/original/file-20201001-20-qy55rt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marketing for PhoneBurner, whose tagline is ‘Political Dialing Made Easy.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://get.phoneburner.com/political_outreach/?utm_campaign=capterra_pc&utm_source=capterra">PhoneBurner</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>I’ve looked at the way campaigns engage voters and motivate volunteers and at vendors who offer a range of products and services, from digital fundraisers who run tests on email subject lines to old-school print shops, still producing yard signs. </p>
<p>Candidates, campaigns and the vendors they work with, I found, have been able to adjust and innovate in the COVID-19 era. </p>
<p>On the heels of active 2018 midterm contests and the recent Democratic presidential nomination race, the 2020 general election campaigns are generally well positioned to compete in this challenging new environment. For some, the spate of late spring and early summer primaries offered a trial run in campaigning during a pandemic.</p>
<h2>Diffusing power</h2>
<p>An infrastructure for remote organizing was already in place before the pandemic, facilitating communication among staff, volunteers and voters without any in-person contact.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/08/22/140643/us-election-campaign-technology-from-2008-to-2018-and-beyond/">Virtual phone banks</a> had been around for a few cycles, freeing campaigns from relying on a field office or a donated space like a law firm conference room, where volunteers would assemble to make calls. <a href="https://swingleft.org/p/phone-bank">Instead, volunteers</a> – with apps on their mobile phones connecting them to lists, scripts and the ability to enter data – <a href="https://www.cagop.org/s/2020-primary-phone-bank">can make calls</a> wherever they are.</p>
<p>By 2018, campaigns began to rely on new platforms for texting to engage volunteers and voters. Known as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/22/669591667/from-get-out-to-vote-to-text-out-to-vote-the-rise-of-peer-to-peer-texting">peer-to-peer texting</a>, these programs make campaign communications look a lot more like what voters receive from their friends on a daily basis, increasing the likelihood that they will read, respond and engage with the campaign.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/relational-organizing-apps-2020-campaign/">Texting is a mainstay of “relational organizing,”</a> which puts the tools of organizing directly in the hands of field staff and volunteers. This ostensibly diffuses power within a campaign organization and untethers workers and volunteers from the physical connection to, and the control of, the campaign structure. </p>
<p>The 2020 Sanders and Buttigieg campaigns played up these qualities, with Buttigieg going further, introducing <a href="https://mashable.com/article/pete-buttigieg-social-media-design-toolkit/">a design toolkit that allowed supporters to customize</a> their own digital and traditional campaign products such as T-shirts and yard signs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot from the Pete Buttigieg campaign's design toolkit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361099/original/file-20201001-14-1ybsn6n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot from the Pete Buttigieg design toolkit that allowed supporters to customize their own digital and campaign products such as T-shirts and yard signs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pete.hyperakt.com/logos">Hyperakt</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Separating out the meaningful impact of tools like these from the hype associated with something new is always hard. At a minimum, the same technologies that campaigns have been using to spread tasks across an organization mesh well with a world in which face-to-face is less of an option.</p>
<p>The same is true of an event platform, <a href="https://www.mobilize.us/">Mobilize</a>, that helps progressives manage events and recruit volunteers. This spring, Mobilize shifted abruptly from its prepandemic focus on in-person events to an all-virtual event world. Since then, Mobilize has added a new feature, delivering an automated request to a volunteer to host her own virtual event.</p>
<p>Putting tools directly in volunteer hands has the potential to bring <a href="https://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/democratic-organizing-platform-adds-automation-while-empowering-volunteers">unexpected voices into the campaign</a>. The Mobilize platform lists an early October <a href="https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/323449/">“Meditation for Joe and Kamala”</a> Zoom-based event, hosted in Los Angeles, making this pitch to activists: “Meditate together for Joe and Kamala. All are welcome, no experience required:)”</p>
<h2>Making videos in a closet</h2>
<p>Much campaign work can be done from home. The jury-rigged home office of Michigan congressional candidate Hillary Scholten features an overturned <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/political-candidates-run-for-office-while-running-home-schools-11600434000">laundry basket propped on her dryer</a>. The candidate finds this standing-desk setup, with campaign placards as backdrop, good for making calls to donors – and pairing socks at the same time.</p>
<p>For tasks that can’t be accomplished remotely, the obvious fix starts with pandemic safety measures. The in-person voter registration work of <a href="https://www.mifamiliavota.org/">Mi Familia Vota</a> came to a halt when the pandemic hit. Now, the Latino vote-focused organization sends out volunteers, after a temperature check, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/politics/nevada-2020-biden-trump.html">equipped with bleach wipes, gloves and dozens of pens</a>.</p>
<p>In midsummer, <a href="https://www.campaignsandelections.com/">Campaigns and Elections Magazine</a>, a leading trade publication for political campaign professionals, offered its first “at home” version of its campaign technology conference. </p>
<p>Vendors and consultants at the conference described an ever-changing 2020 political environment, heavily influenced by the status of the virus outbreak. Their work, they said, is subject to parameters set by lockdown terms and state regulations – sometimes in flux – about ballot access and early voting. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Download page for the Trump app." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361111/original/file-20201001-24-167qg3j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digital apps, like this one for the Trump campaign, are an essential part of running a campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ucampaignapp.americafirst&hl=en_US">Google.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, even elements of the digital landscape presumably immune to the pandemic were a moving target. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/16/facebook-turn-off-political-ads-voting-info-center/">Facebook had just announced an “opt out” feature</a> to turn off political ads. More recently, Facebook announced that it would <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/03/facebook-bans-political-ads-election-day-408255">ban political ads for the week preceding Nov. 3</a>, joining other prominent social media platforms – <a href="https://www.wsj.com/graphics/how-google-facebook-and-twitter-patrol-political-ads/">Twitter and Google</a> – which have otherwise regulated political advertising. </p>
<p>The combined moves of these three giants undoubtedly affect how campaigns are run, though other social media paths to voters remain open.</p>
<p>Those who tuned in for the conference heard about innovations that were responsive to the current situation. <a href="https://www.sbdigital.com/">Chris Bachman of SBDigital</a>, a digital media agency, told about a client locked down in her home who needed to produce campaign videos. She recorded voice-overs in her closet, clothes absorbing sound to produce better audio on her iPhone.</p>
<p>Not all campaign innovations work well in the pandemic era. Digital consultant Cheryl Hori had orchestrated a creative use for Waze, the navigation software, in a prepandemic setting. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pacificcampaignhouse.com/team/cheryl-hori/">Hori, founder of Pacific Campaign House</a>, placed Election Day targeted ads on Waze that popped up when a car came to a stop; they made the pitch to vote, then directed the driver to the nearest polling place. The ads wouldn’t be too useful in 2020, with fewer people voting in person and more by mail.</p>
<h2>Meet voters where they are</h2>
<p>Campaign insiders say the pandemic makes candidates’ authenticity that much more important. <a href="https://dobigthings.today/team-members/ryanne-brown/">Ryanne Brown, an advertising executive with digital firm Do Big Things</a>, put it this way: “People’s BS meters are on high alert.” The pandemic reinforces the adage that campaigns should “meet voters where they are.” </p>
<p>That may be a literal statement this year. A lot of those voters are at home; many are using internet-supported platforms that allow advertising.</p>
<p>For the political media professionals who navigate this world of what’s called “over the top” advertising, a pandemic is <a href="https://www.rbr.com/political-ad-spend-across-ctv-ott-surges/">the perfect opportunity</a>. Campaigns have less competition for advertising space (think canceled Summer Olympics and locked-down travel destinations), and viewers have more time to watch streamed content.</p>
<p>Certainly not all campaigns are positioned to – or want to – take advantage of the high-tech tools and resources of the industry. An Iowa legislative candidate’s Zoom mojito fundraiser involved low-tech aspects as well: a doorstop delivery of a small mint plant – no contact – with a home printer-produced label, “Vote Sarah Smith for HD76.”</p>
<p>Generally speaking, despite extraordinary circumstances and developments, the conduct of this campaign should look familiar to the 21st-century observer – just with some adjustments.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barbara A. Trish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do you run a political campaign in a pandemic? From data brokers to advertising firms to voter registration volunteers, the players in campaigns are making adjustments, large and mostly small.Barbara A. Trish, Professor of Political Science, Grinnell CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1387552020-09-21T12:15:12Z2020-09-21T12:15:12ZWhy you’re getting so many political text messages right now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358862/original/file-20200918-24-kmzfj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4167%2C4167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You just got another – yes, another – political text message.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/hand-holding-smartphone-with-alert-message-royalty-free-illustration/1255978050">goodvector/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Text messages and emails from political campaigns are pouring into Americans’ phones and inboxes right now. It’s happening to political junkies, to people who gave their phone numbers to campaigns, and even to people who try to keep their contact information off mass mailing lists.</p>
<p>I study political campaigns, including how they use social media and mobile phones to build support. In my book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/presidential-campaigning-in-the-internet-age-9780190694043">Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age</a>,” I document the history of how campaigns have used the web, social media and phones in efforts to attract independents and urge supporters to take action. </p>
<p>As part of my research for the 2020 election, I subscribed to get text messages from Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump. I also used my personal email account – the same one I’ve been using since 1995 – to receive email updates and alerts from both campaigns. I try to look like a supporter. I engage with the emails or text messages periodically, by clicking the links, and I even contribute a tiny amount of my own money to both campaigns so that I really look like a supporter. </p>
<p>Compared to prior election campaigns, as I document in my book, this election is not any more or less active on email. It is not unusual for campaigns to send up to a dozen emails a day from different people on the campaign and the party. What is unusual is the volume of text messages. While both Republican and Democratic campaigns sent texts in 2016, the volume of Trump’s texting this election cycle is unprecedented. </p>
<p>I’ve been inundated, particularly with requests to donate money.</p>
<h2>Floods of requests</h2>
<p>During the two conventions, the sheer volume of messages from the campaigns was astounding, but especially from the Trump campaign. For every one message I received from the Democrats, I received three to five messages from the Republicans, and that was true over both conventions.</p>
<p>On Aug. 7, the night Donald Trump received the nomination, I received five text messages, all from different numbers, some claiming to be from other Republicans, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. I received 16 emails from senders claiming to be Trump, his children, his wife and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.</p>
<p>Campaigns bombard people with dozens of messages daily because it works. They use email and text messaging because the people who sign up for those communications are, typically, supporters. They already back the campaign and campaigns need money.</p>
<p>In July, Trump raised <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/us/elections/trump-vs-biden.html">more than US$165 million</a>, a record-breaking sum – no campaign had ever raised that much money in a single month – while Biden brought in $141 million. </p>
<p>Both campaigns have recently made huge advertising purchases, including Trump’s campaign <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/politics/trump-campaign-ads-dnc.html">spending $10 million to run TV ads against Biden</a> during the Democratic National Convention. Biden’s campaign has announced a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/us/politics/biden-ads.html">$280 million television ad buy</a> across two months and 15 battleground states.</p>
<p>They’ll need to spend – and raise – even more before Election Day arrives. </p>
<h2>More messages are better – for campaigns</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic showing text notifications." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358863/original/file-20200918-24-zcvmei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Campaigns send lots of texts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/texts-doodle-royalty-free-illustration/1219463155">Jake Olimb/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When I interview campaign operatives, they tell me that email is the single most effective way to raise money. Email is intimate, it lands in your inbox, and you can easily click a link to go to a website to provide your credit card number in exchange for a thank you and a sticker or a hat – and that feeling that you’re helping your candidate win. </p>
<p>While it might be easier to get large checks from small numbers of big donors, campaigns need high numbers of low-level contributors to demonstrate that they have the support of the masses. These texts and emails help get campaigns those small donations. </p>
<p>Texting is even more intimate, as the messages pop up in your notifications the way your friends’ texts do. Their punchy, personalized messages draw you in to click on the hyperlink: “Jenny, we’re sending the final list 8X-Match donors to Pres. Trump in 3 HOURS. Make sure your name is at the top.” Or “Jennifer, it’s Joe, and I have to ask one last time before tonight’s FEC deadline: Will you help me and Kamala reach our goal before midnight? We’re still short.”</p>
<p>Campaign operatives believe that the more messages they send, the greater the odds that you will act. One a day is not enough – though they do vary the timing and style of messages throughout the day. They’re betting that one of those messages will hit you in just the right way, at just the right time, to shift you from inaction to action and open your wallet. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Opting out is difficult – the messages appear in your most personal inboxes, so your instinct is not to ignore them. And they often come from different senders – I get texts from several numbers for each campaign – so it’s hard to block all the messages at once.</p>
<p>In addition, campaigns get more than just your money. Each time you act on one of those texts or emails – even if you just follow the link but don’t give money – the campaign gets insight on what types of messages seem to work with you. They’ll <a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-pandemic-campaigning-turns-to-the-internet-137745">learn from your responses</a>, and send you more messages like the ones that are successful, in the hopes you’ll stay involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Stromer-Galley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mobile phones across the country are buzzing nonstop with text notifications from both presidential campaigns. A scholar of campaign communications explains why.Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor of Information Studies, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453682020-09-08T19:19:01Z2020-09-08T19:19:01ZGeorge Washington was silent, but Trump tweets regularly – running for president has changed over the years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356143/original/file-20200902-20-bc7vpz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5008%2C3341&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump works on a smartphone, a common tool in his political communication efforts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Trump/c0350128f27e4168864d2ccb0e6b3cd7/17/0">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Presidential campaigns haven’t always looked the way they do in 2020 – or the way they did in 2016, before the coronavirus pandemic changed everything about <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-alters-political-conventions-which-have-always-changed-with-the-times-141663">conventions</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-pandemic-campaigning-turns-to-the-internet-137745">political outreach</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-supreme-court-made-wisconsin-vote-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-136102">voting</a>.</p>
<p>The requirements have stayed the same – just about any <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/natural_born_citizen">natural-born citizen</a> <a href="https://www.constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-a-presidential-candidate-need-to-be-35-years-old-anyway/">over the age of 35</a> can run for president. But who decides who runs has changed substantially. So has campaigning.</p>
<p>Nowadays, people have to register as official candidates for president after they have <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/registering-candidate/house-senate-president-candidate-registration/">raised US$5,000 toward the effort</a>. At that point, the Federal Election Commission asks them to declare their political party affiliation, which they can choose even if the party leadership <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html">doesn’t want that person to run</a>.</p>
<p>Party elites are still powerful, but in past eras, they were much more so.</p>
<h2>The era of statesmen</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="George Washington in his military uniform" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356147/original/file-20200902-20-1n7zn1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington knew others wanted him to be president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Washington_After_the_Battle_of_Princeton_-_Charles_Willson_Peale_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art_(29746887513).jpg">Charles Willson Peale painting via Cleveland Museum of Art</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When creating the presidency during the Constitutional Convention, many of the country’s founders saw George Washington as the ideal person to hold the office. Despite this consensus, they had a peculiar problem. </p>
<p>They thought anyone who sought the votes of the people wanted power for the wrong reasons and would use that power to undermine the government. For that reason, even Washington himself maintained a “guarded silence” on the topic to avoid appearing “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-05-02-0038">vain-glorious</a>,” admitting only privately that he would serve as the nation’s first president if he was called upon. </p>
<p>When combined with the very real fear that “those men who have overturned the liberties of republics” started “their career by <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed01.asp">paying an obsequious court to the people</a>,” early candidates knew they had to avoid looking too eager for power. </p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson took this position to an extreme when he <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/46096/american-sphinx-by-joseph-j-ellis/">vowed never to serve in public office again</a> after being the new nation’s first secretary of state. He discovered he would be on the ballot in 1796 only when his close friend James Madison wrote a letter claiming he “<a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-15-02-0405">ought to be preparing</a>” himself for the presidential nomination. Jefferson came in second that year, becoming the vice president; he won the top job in 1800.</p>
<p>Until 1824, candidates remained reserved about campaigning for themselves. That year, candidate Andrew Jackson stepped forward, promising to <a href="https://theconversation.com/stolen-elections-open-wounds-that-may-never-heal-128613">govern for the common man rather than the party elites</a> who had controlled Washington for too long. The turbulence in the lead-up to, during and after the Civil War left elections more disorganized until the late 19th century, when the era of the machine began. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men at a table stacked with papers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356150/original/file-20200902-14-oein2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Warren Harding, center, was reputedly picked to be the 1920 Republican presidential candidate by a group of party elites meeting in a ‘smoke-filled room.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chairman-of-the-republican-national-committee-will-h-hays-news-photo/501167655">FPG/Keystone View Company/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of the political machine</h2>
<p>After Reconstruction ended in 1877, American politics was a dirty business. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F000271623316900104">Party elites sat in smoke-filled rooms</a> deciding whom they would support as a candidate and how they would stop others from winning the election. </p>
<p>Once in office, members of both parties used their position to provide others with patronage jobs and expected kickbacks as thanks. <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/gotham-9780195140491?cc=us&lang=en&">Party bosses usually maintained control</a> over those in power, even demanding a say in who served in the positions that were appointed by elected officials.</p>
<p>As New York City’s police commissioner and later governor of New York state, Theodore Roosevelt resisted the system so much that an <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/boss-platt-and-his-new-york-machine-a-study-of-the-political-leadership-of-thomas-c-platt-theodore-roosevelt-and-others/oclc/75290">aggravated party boss strong-armed members</a> of the Republican Party into offering the ambitious politician the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/03/a-brief-history-of-vice-presidents-bemoaning-the-vice-presidency/">notoriously powerless post of vice president</a>. The scheming backfired, however, when President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Roosevelt became president and instituted a variety of progressive reforms, like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5907.00011">hiring for merit rather than favoritism</a>, some of which helped diminish the power of party bosses.</p>
<p>By the 1920s, candidates had an even easier way to sidestep the party elites: the invention of the radio. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Franklin Roosevelt at a desk with a paper and a microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356151/original/file-20200902-20-17xafiv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Franklin Roosevelt used the radio to reach the American people directly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-DC-USA-APHS468672-FDR-Radio-Appeal/bc99970464444be18346225734999ecf/4/0">AP Photo/Gil Friedberg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The first communication revolution</h2>
<p>The invention of the radio soon led to a watershed moment for democratization. Through this medium, presidents could speak directly to the citizens, creating a more visceral connection between the country’s leader and its people. </p>
<p>Eager for popular content, broadcasters gained access to nominating conventions and sold radios by <a href="https://psmag.com/news/airwaves-1924-the-first-presidential-campaign-over-radio-47615">claiming the people could get an inside look</a> at the process. With the addition of television in the early 1950s, <a href="https://time.com/4471657/political-tv-ads-history/">candidates started hiring advertisers</a> to determine how to “sell” themselves directly to the people, rather than going through the party. </p>
<p>By 1968, when the Democratic Party ignored the results of the primaries and nominated Hubert Humphrey for president, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1968-democratic-convention">the rioting in Chicago reached a boiling point</a>, leading to reforms. The primary elections became more influential, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/democratic-republican-parties-both-play-favorites-when-allotting-convention-delegates-to-states-143963">elites lost more of their power</a>. In 1976, however, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/jimmy-carter-iowa-caucuses/426729/">Jimmy Carter’s surprising win in Iowa</a> caused Democrats to claw back some control by <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/features/superdelegate-interview-elaine-kamarck.html">creating superdelegates</a>, individuals selected by the party who could give their vote to a candidate and potentially overcome the results of the primaries. These efforts worked relatively well – until the creation of social media. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stand next to each other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356152/original/file-20200902-22-1bzfa8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the 2008 Democratic primary, Barack Obama used online media to mobilize supporters and win the nomination over Hillary Clinton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Campaign-2016-Debate-Clinton-s-Experience/532a7608dfae402c8c9716764c7bfd17/1/0">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The second communication revolution</h2>
<p>During the 2008 Democratic primary, almost everyone assumed Hillary Clinton’s time had come. Political players and pundits alike expected people would vote accordingly; very few took Barack Obama’s candidacy seriously. They thought the self-proclaimed “<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5537216/ns/politics/t/skinny-kid-funny-name-rallies-democrats/">skinny kid with a funny name</a>” would learn the ropes and maybe get a Cabinet post. </p>
<p>Instead, Obama revolutionized campaigning by using the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html">tremendous communication capacity</a>” of social media to spread his message and recruit volunteers. Obama harnessed the energy created by platforms designed to bring “friends” together and allow them to share their interests among anyone in their network. When coupled with his ability to bring a crowd to its feet – <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449">and a very friendly media</a> – Clinton and the party backing her did not stand a chance: The people wanted <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/memorable-presidential-campaign-slogans-and-why-they-worked">hope and change</a>.</p>
<p>The people surprised the elites once again in 2016. Donald Trump offered a <a href="https://www.iowastatedaily.com/election2012/donald-trump-a-political-outsiders-dream-to-make-america-great-again/article_aedfc2aa-98dd-11e6-b217-37e46a46ef9b.html">unique vision of a country in disrepair</a> that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trumps-message-of-doom-and-despair-in-america/2016/07/21/8afe4cae-3f22-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html">needed an outsider to come in</a> and make America great again. </p>
<p>Republican operators like <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/the-final-humiliation-of-reince-priebus/535368/">Reince Priebus</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/07/why-paul-ryan-wont-accept-or-dismiss-donald-trump-000159/">Paul Ryan</a> did not take him seriously, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-media-didnt-want-to-believe-trump-could-win-so-they-looked-the-other-way/2016/11/09/d2ea1436-a623-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html">nor did the media</a>. Many <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/27/hillary-clinton-will-win-what-kind-of-president-white-house-obama">believed Clinton would beat him</a> handily.</p>
<p>Once again, elites did not realize the power of social media – this time to divide the country. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/world/asia/facebook-extremism.html">powerful algorithms</a> used by various media platforms <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/radical-ideas-social-media-algorithms/">dramatically increased the amount of radical content</a> people saw. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"822502450007515137"}"></div></p>
<p>Simultaneously, Donald Trump fed the feeling of injustice among some in the country, claiming he would work for the “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/822502450007515137">forgotten men and women</a>.” The sustained feeling of injustice among many groups and the violent actions deployed to address them remains an element of the current election, where once again a brash outsider (who is also the incumbent) battles a respected party elder in good standing. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Each president leaves a permanent mark on the office. The last two presidents have fully capitalized on the power of the internet to connect them to the people. How future presidents will use these tools, and whatever new tools are yet to come, is difficult to predict. It is easy to see how mediums like Twitter and YouTube can maintain a connection and can convey small pieces of information. </p>
<p>It is also possible to see the value in creating a community through social media to help broadcast a political message through networks of supporters and their friends. It is difficult, however, to think back upon the <a href="https://medium.com/@rickbrownell/great-presidential-speeches-that-moved-a-nation-e0de4c17426e">great speeches of America’s past presidents</a> and see how they could repackage those stirring moments into 280 characters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Burns is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies. </span></em></p>The technical qualifications for presidential candidates are the same, but how people seek the nation’s highest office has shifted over the centuries.Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1377452020-05-13T12:39:36Z2020-05-13T12:39:36ZAmid pandemic, campaigning turns to the internet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334131/original/file-20200511-49579-rrao36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C14%2C1598%2C741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joe Biden's basement bookshelf has become a familiar background for his campaign videos.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-screengrab-from-joebiden-com-democratic-news-photo/1209520025">Photo by JoeBiden.com via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This feels like it could be the most revolutionary moment in U.S. campaign history: Candidates are robbed of the typical ways for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/politics/coronavirus-2020-campaign-events.html">connecting with supporters</a> and changing the hearts and minds of the voting public.</p>
<p>The coronavirus has ground the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Donald Trump to a near halt. <a href="https://www.theweek.com/speedreads/913484/trump-might-hold-2020-rallies-drivein-theaters">Public rallies aren’t happening</a>, and to follow social distancing guidelines, many of the campaigns’ local offices have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/thousands-of-candidates-reinventing-politics-on-the-fly-for-the-age-of-pandemic/2020/04/25/99d22368-863b-11ea-ae26-989cfce1c7c7_story.html">stopped bringing in volunteers</a> for phone banking or knocking on doors in local neighborhoods.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MlESf7IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I</a> have studied presidential campaigning since the 1996 election. In my book, <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731930.001.0001/acprof-9780199731930">“Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age</a>,” I document the ways that campaigns have evolved their campaign tactics to incorporate digital media. </p>
<p>For many years, political operatives have been perfecting their use of the internet’s vast array of social media platforms, websites and digital tools. They’ve identified effective strategies of digital communication with supporters and the press. </p>
<p>Now that traditional in-person campaigning has been severely limited, I believe campaigns will lean heavily on that digital experience, focusing in three areas: social media, campaign-specific mobile apps and paid advertising on social media. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CABksQ8AT6s","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent post from President Donald Trump’s Instagram account.</span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>An initial slowdown</h2>
<p>In general, political campaigns group voters into three categories: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hacking-the-electorate/C0D269F47449B042767A51EC512DD82E">supporters, opponents and a group in the middle</a>, sometimes called “persuadables,” who don’t have a strong connection to a political party or who aren’t that into politics. The members of this third group could be persuaded to vote for the candidate on Election Day.</p>
<p>The key function of a campaign is to identify supporters and mobilize them to be the workhorses for the cause: give money, volunteer, promote the candidate and – of course – vote. Campaigns also need to find and communicate to the persuadables, in hopes of getting their backing. And campaigns need to identify those who oppose their candidates, so they don’t waste time and money getting them to vote, which would only help the other side.</p>
<h2>Regrouping before the conventions</h2>
<p>There are natural slowdowns and lulls in the campaign season, including when the presumptive nominees are settled on, but before the party conventions make the nominations official – like now. </p>
<p>During these periods, the candidates reduce their activities aimed at the persuadables, like running TV ads. Instead, they reorganize their campaigns to complete the primary phase, and set up staffing and strategy for the general election.</p>
<p>During this time, the campaigns continue to engage with their supporters in hopes of amassing a large war chest and an army of volunteers to take on the opponent.</p>
<p>Campaigns also use this lull to expand their databases. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23723484?seq=1">Data about the public is as vital as money</a>. It’s not enough to know a supporter’s name and address: Understanding their likes, habits, political behavior and even psychological predispositions can give a deeper picture, letting campaigns identify people with similar characteristics as potential supporters. </p>
<p>That’s what the now-reviled campaign data analysis firm <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078">Cambridge Analytica</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595338116/what-did-cambridge-analytica-do-during-the-2016-election">promised to do</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, characterizing persuadables and opponents can help campaigns target their efforts efficiently. The Trump campaign identified opponents to his campaign to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go">target them with ads meant to discourage them from voting</a>.</p>
<p>For the next few months, here are three things to watch.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1257795708339421186"}"></div></p>
<h2>Social media</h2>
<p>As I explain in my book, since 1996 the Democratic and Republican party machines have been honing their strategies of communicating through digital media. They use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat alongside YouTube, email and websites in an integrated communications system. </p>
<p>Even though the digital platforms allow easy two-way communication on blogs, forums and social media, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02865.x">that’s not what the campaigns are looking for</a>. They don’t want long, drawn-out policy debates on their pages. Instead, they want to use interactive elements of the internet to convert supporters and get them to give up data about themselves.</p>
<p>The social media accounts are the workhorses to cultivate supporters and draw them to the campaign’s website, which is home base. That’s where campaigns can <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/05/11/coronavirus-keeps-joe-biden-home-2020-campaign-rolls/5177329002/">deliver their most direct messages</a> and collect that valuable data about their supporters.</p>
<p>The campaigns use a tactic I call “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02865.x">controlled interactivity</a>” on social media to entice followers to share information about themselves. On the campaigns’ official feeds, they post polls, hawk merchandise and push an endless stream of requests to sign up for email or to give money. Anytime someone interacts with one of those posts, the campaign gets a little bit more data. For example, Trump’s Facebook page features posts about his virtual events with “Team Trump.” A click on the “join” link goes to the campaign website, where visitors are asked to give up their personal information: name, address, phone number and email address. When they do, the campaign just got a new supporter to target.</p>
<h2>Mobile apps</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334133/original/file-20200511-31175-ibibx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Trump campaign has an app encouraging supporters to join the effort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/app/">Official Trump 2020 App</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-team-launches-new-app-allowing-supporters-to-engage-with-the-campaign-from-their-couch">Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-campaign-ramps-up-digital-game-as-election-goes-virtual">Biden</a> have launched mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. It’s worth their campaigns’ money and effort because it can keep supporters energized, and collect more data. </p>
<p>Only supporters – and perhaps curious reporters and opponents’ campaign staff – will download and seriously use the app. Once downloaded, its function is to make supporters feel like an insider by giving them news and “inside looks” at the campaign, tools to donate money and opportunities to become local organizers. Trump’s app encourages users to “Become a Trump Team Leader” by registering voters and knocking on doors in their community.</p>
<p>Most of these political apps are also designed to help grow campaigns’ voter contact lists. Not only do they collect the user’s own contact information but they often seek to access the phone’s entire contact list. These apps may also <a href="https://ourdataourselves.tacticaltech.org/posts/campaign-apps">want access</a> to photos, the user’s social media accounts and location information.</p>
<p>All of this data gives campaigns more extensive pictures of who their most ardent supporters are. That helps them target others with similar characteristics, to bring them into the campaign fold.</p>
<h2>Paid ads</h2>
<p>On television, most ads target persuadables in an effort to influence how they think about the candidates. That’s because television ads do not allow for the degree of fine-grained or micro-targeted advertising that digital media ads provide. </p>
<p>TV ads blanket whole regions, while social media ads pinpoint-target specific people based on the desirable traits that the campaign is after – typically people who look like supporters. This is where all that data comes in. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Google allow advertisers to create “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/465262276878947?id=401668390442328">look-alike</a>” campaigns, where the advertiser feeds the social media company the names and email addresses of known supporters. Then the company’s proprietary algorithms find the email addresses that match, analyze the known Facebook profiles for their interests and behaviors and then <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-lookalike-audiences/">find other users with similar likes, interests and behaviors</a>. </p>
<p>Those people get targeted with ads; if they click on the poll or buy a hat that’s advertised, the campaign grows its support base while also improving its data about who is likely to respond positively to future ads. Political watchers have even speculated that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/04/how-facebooks-ad-technology-helps-trump-win/606403/">this technique helped Trump win in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>With the conventions now postponed to the end of the summer, Trump and Biden have more time to grow their databases, their financial war chests and their supporter bases. </p>
<p>Although it may seem an unprecedented campaign season that the candidates were ill-equipped for, the truth is that digital campaigning has been well-honed over six election seasons. They just need to do more online than they had planned for.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Stromer-Galley receives funding from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. </span></em></p>For many years, political operatives have been perfecting their use of the internet’s vast array of social media platforms, websites and digital tools.Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor of Information Studies, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1307382020-05-06T16:08:06Z2020-05-06T16:08:06ZTypefaces have personality – and can be political<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332522/original/file-20200504-83779-1gd0fzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barack Obama's 2008 campaign logo inspired scholars to study the role of typeface in political communication.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/balloons-with-the-logo-of-us-democratic-presidential-news-photo/82041792?adppopup=true">Getty/Sebastian Willnow/DDP/AFP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any graphic designer worth their salt can tell you the best typeface for a new law practice in town is going to be drastically different than the typeface used for the local tattoo parlor. </p>
<p>You probably know this to some degree already – an email to your boss in <a href="https://www.fonts.com/font/microsoft-corporation/comic-sans">Comic Sans</a> is likely to be read differently than if it is sent in <a href="https://www.fonts.com/font/monotype/arial">Arial</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332861/original/file-20200505-83769-1fw9nl5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Different typefaces, different feeling: on the left, the note is written in Comic Sans, on the right, it’s Arial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation US</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The same can be said for political candidates and their campaign signs. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/politics-meets-brand-desi_b_151317">Much ado</a> was made in the graphic design community about candidate Barack <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_2008_presidential_campaign">Obama’s 2008 logo</a>. The logo and its font, called <a href="https://www.typography.com/fonts/gotham/how-to-use">Gotham</a>, now has its own <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_logo">Wikipedia page</a>, and served as a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3262979">wake-up call for scholars</a> to begin studying the role typography plays in political communication. </p>
<h2>Does the typeface you choose matter?</h2>
<p>During the 2017 campaign season, one of us, <a href="https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-communication/faculty/katherine-haenschen.html">Katherine Haenschen</a>, a researcher and assistant professor at Virginia Tech who studies political communication, saw a campaign sign on Highway 460, which runs through a rural part of southwest Virginia.</p>
<p>The sign – for <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Hurst">candidate Chris Hurst</a>, running for election to the House of Delegates in Virginia’s 12th district – was noticeably different from the candidate’s sign in downtown Blacksburg, a considerably more urban and liberal part of the same district.</p>
<p>The rural sign used a serif typeface, the same class of typeface as <a href="https://typographyforlawyers.com/a-brief-history-of-times-new-roman.html">Times New Roman</a> or <a href="https://www.fonts.com/font/adobe/adobe-garamond/story">Garamond</a>. Those fonts have letters that start and end with small flourishes, or serifs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332503/original/file-20200504-83736-1sipr2g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Co-author Katherine Haenschen took this photo of the Hurst sign from the road.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katherine Haenschen</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332512/original/file-20200504-83721-1osayii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Candidate Chris Hurst’s more common campaign signs – that use a sans serif font – are held by supporters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/ChrisHurstForVirginia/posts/?ref=page_internal">Facebook, Chris Hurst for Virginia page</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sign in Blacksburg used a sans serif font that graphic designers generally consider more modern – in part because they were developed relatively recently. Sans serifs (sans means without) do not have those little flourishes. <a href="https://www.monotype.com/fonts/helvetica-now">Helvetica</a> is probably the world’s best-known sans serif and even has its own <a href="https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica">documentary film</a>.</p>
<p>The existence of two typefaces on two different signs for the same candidate raised the question: Does changing the typeface of a candidate’s name actually change something about how that candidate is perceived? </p>
<h2>Typefaces can communicate politics</h2>
<p>The two of us – Haenschen and <a href="https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-communication/faculty/dan-tamul.html">Dan Tamul</a>, also a researcher at Virginia Tech, who studies persuasion – designed a study to find out the answer.</p>
<p>We recruited participants from across the United States through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program and didn’t limit participation to any age or political orientation. The participants are likely very similar to your average user and consumer of typefaces. While MTurk samples are not always representative, they have been shown to produce results that are <a href="https://alexandercoppock.com/papers/Coppock_generalizability.pdf">highly similar</a> to nationally representative samples. </p>
<p>We showed study participants a name written in one of several typefaces. Some of those typefaces were serif fonts, others were sans serifs, and others still were more stylized display fonts like Blackletter, which looks like a newspaper masthead, and <a href="https://www.dafont.com/sunrise-2.font">Sunrise</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1207&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332498/original/file-20200504-83769-aiee4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Typefaces, top to bottom: Birds; Century Gothic; Cloister; Gil Sans; Jubilat; Sunrise; TNR Regular.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Contributed by authors</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants were then asked to rate how liberal or conservative they thought the typeface or the person whose name was printed.</p>
<p>Blackletter was rated by participants as the most conservative typeface and Sunrise as the most liberal. The serif typefaces, Times New Roman and <a href="https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/jubilat">Jubilat</a>, were rated as more conservative than the sans serif typefaces, <a href="https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/mti/gill-sans/">Gill Sans</a> and <a href="https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/century-gothic">Century Gothic</a>. </p>
<p>The perceptions of the typefaces were not uniform for all participants, however. Democrats generally rated typefaces as more liberal than Republicans did, with the exception of the three display fonts (Blackletter, Birds of Paradise and Sunrise). </p>
<h2>Typefaces are influential</h2>
<p>You might be tempted to throw your hands up in the air and think that this is just one more example of how <a href="https://theconversation.com/partisan-divide-creates-different-americas-separate-lives-122925">benign expressions are becoming politicized</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, graphic designers have often treated typefaces as <a href="https://ilovetypography.com/2008/01/10/type-faces-ellen-lupton-interview/">artistic expressions</a>, and past research has shown that <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1375315">typefaces have personalities</a> that can influence not only how we think about them but also how we perceive what is written. </p>
<p>For instance, another study found people will rate <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25704872">scientific abstracts</a> as more interesting, appealing and of higher quality when written in a serif typeface compared to a sans serif typeface. Like real people, then, it shouldn’t be surprising that typefaces are perceived as having ideological leanings.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rn-KcZPxSIQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Is Century Gothic a conservative, or a liberal, font? What about Times New Roman?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What this means for graphic designers is that the typeface you use to express your thoughts is something that can potentially shape how people will perceive you or your message. Our study shows such assessments can include political ideology.</p>
<p>What still is not known, however, is whether the personality, sentiment or perceived ideology that people attach to a typeface can override information that they already have about the message or the person whose name appears in a typeface. </p>
<p>For instance, how many people are likely to change their perception of Trump if his name appears in liberal-leaning Century Gothic? Whether you love him or hate him, your mind is probably already made up.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the same might not be true for lesser-known figures. A typeface choice could influence the perception you have of people running for school board seats, the lawyer opening a new law office or the coffee shop you never noticed before.</p>
<p>Our study also found that people rated the fonts they liked as more aligned with their own political ideology. </p>
<p>The key takeaway then may be to consult a graphic designer for any important project to gauge how your preferred typefaces will be seen.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Everything is political. And that includes typefaces, write two scholars who found that people see one group of typeface styles as liberal, another group of styles as conservative.Daniel Tamul, Assistant Professor in Communications, Virginia TechKatherine Haenschen, Assistant Professor of Communication, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264532019-11-06T16:16:16Z2019-11-06T16:16:16ZGypsies and Travellers ‘clampdown’ is less dog whistle, more political fog-horn<p>It’s election time again. That means hustings, television debates, national spending promises and the all too familiar image of a “tough” government minister announcing a “crackdown” on Gypsies and Travellers. Step up Home Secretary Priti Patel who has promised to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-consults-on-new-police-powers-to-criminalise-unauthorised-encampments">change the rules on trespass</a>, a step that would criminalise any encampment of more than two vehicles, potentially resulting in Travellers being arrested and their property seized. The government has opened <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/strengthening-police-powers-to-tackle-unauthorised-encampments">a consultation</a> on the plans which would strengthen police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments.</p>
<p>Gypsies and Travellers have lived in the UK for centuries, with early records dating back to the early 1500s. They are citizens with a traditional nomadic habit, travelling up and down the country for work, following historic routes from previous generations. Many traditional stopping places are no longer available, as green spaces on outskirts of towns and villages have been built on, or fenced off. </p>
<p>This, combined with a lack of sufficient new sites built, has resulted in more Gypsy and Traveller unauthorised encampments in recent years – reaching a peak number of 1,524 caravans in England, in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/traveller-caravan-count-july-2018">official government count</a> of July 2017. While the most recent July 2019 figures have not yet been released, reports from councils applying for injunctions say that numbers are on the rise. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-communities-endure-worsening-racism-and-inequality-this-must-be-a-turning-point-114890">Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities endure worsening racism and inequality: this must be a turning point</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers is clearly an issue. But in the run up to a general election this issue becomes politically weaponised. Some topics just push the buttons of news editors and their readers. Researchers have found a series of “<a href="https://www.galtung-institut.de/en/2015/galtung-and-ruge-news-values-an-update-by-prof-galtung-october-2014/">news values</a>” which explain why some stories are read more than others and “Gypsies and Travellers” tick a great number of these values. I found this in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gypsy-Debate-Can-Discourse-Control/dp/1845400577">my research back in 2004</a>, which examined the negative impact of political and news debate on the lives of Gypsies and Travellers and for community cohesion in general.</p>
<h2>Electioneering</h2>
<p>There are two key long-held traditions in election campaigns. First, is a round of visits to hospitals, sometimes with the promise of more funding for the National Health Service. Stunts like this have been criticised by senior figures in the NHS who say over-promising for health services, as part of election pledges, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/nhs-trusts-call-on-parties-to-avoid-cheap-political-slogans">is irresponsible</a>. The second tradition is the now predictable election campaign announcements of plans to “tackle” unauthorised Traveller encampments.</p>
<p>One of the most hostile political campaigns against Gypsies and Travellers was run by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/howard-stirs-race-row-with-attack-on-gypsies-529230.html">Michael Howard in 2005</a>, when he vowed to clamp down on unauthorised encampments. This was then taken up by The Sun newspaper in their campaign to “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4337281.stm">stamp on the camps</a>”. This sort of signalling is sometimes referred to as “dog whistle” politics – using messaging which might not land with everyone, but which speaks to a significant number of people who want to see their politicians “clamping down” and “taking action” against people “not like us”. </p>
<p>In another research project I explored the role that Gypsies and Travellers played <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/jpsj/2018/00000026/00000001/art00007">in the Brexit referendum campaign</a>. The study involved the analysis of political and media discourse in the run up to the referendum. Again, Gypsies and Travellers were used as a signal to readers and voters that this “other” way of life would not be tolerated. This is now a key part of many political campaigns, favoured particularly by the Conservatives. The messaging is so overt, it is less “dog whistle” (silent to some ears, but loud and clear to others) and more like a political fog-horn.</p>
<h2>Negotiation not criminalisation</h2>
<p>The problem is that Gypsies and Travellers can’t win. If they settle down in one place, they are no longer seen as “real” Gypsies because they don’t travel all the time. If they do travel, there are very few places to stop because there are nowhere near enough permanent or transit sites. So, when they pull up on the side of a road or a piece of common land, they are “unauthorised” campers – or if Patel has her way, they will be criminals. </p>
<p>There are already stringent measures in place that have limited the provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites. For example, <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/jpsj/2018/00000026/00000001/art00007">a planning policy change in 2015</a> meant that “nomadism” was a singular defining feature – that there was no such thing as a “retired” Gypsy (someone who no longer travelled for work because they were too old or too ill). There are also increasing numbers of councils using injunction powers to prevent unauthorised encampments on top of existing powers already in the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/contents">Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994)</a> – the law which Patel seeks to toughen up.</p>
<p>There is no need for further powers. But there is a need for more <a href="http://www.londongypsiesandtravellers.org.uk/news/2018/12/06/gla-funds-negotiated-stopping-research/">negotiated approaches to unauthorised encampments</a>, particularly in towns and cities where there are no sites and where traditional stopping places, used by past generations, have been built on or fenced off. Patel’s “crackdown” is less a serious policy aim and more a starting whistle, blown as a signal to a substantial segment of her party’s core voters. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300094/original/file-20191104-88372-xpdf2e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerA">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Richardson is currently undertaking a piece of research on negotiated stopping with London Gypsy Travellers, funded by the Greater London Authority. </span></em></p>When an election looms, some politicians reach for the easy ‘crackdown’ on Travellers and Gypsies to win over core voters.Jo Richardson, Professor of Housing and Social Inclusion, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165382019-05-06T12:44:03Z2019-05-06T12:44:03ZWhy South African voters are resisting mobile political campaigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272484/original/file-20190503-103045-145nwff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C567%2C3817%2C3593&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mobile campaigning can frustrate and annoy potential voters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">asiandelight/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mobile technology will arguably go down in history as the most successful innovation of our lifetime. Mobile devices, especially phones, are ubiquitous in large parts of the world. On the African continent, the rates of mobile phone ownership and access <a href="https://www.gsma.com/r/mobileeconomy/sub-saharan-africa/">are rising exponentially</a>.</p>
<p>Many organisations have recognised the opportunities this presents. Political parties are no exception. The 2008 election in the United States is <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/1746/988">widely regarded</a> as a tipping point for the use of mobile devices in political campaigning. Since then it’s <a href="http://washingtonmobilemarketing.com/political-campaigns">become common</a> for politicians all over the world to canvas for support and engage with the electorate using mobile messaging services. </p>
<p>South Africa is no exception. In the lead up to the country’s 2014 national election and its 2016 local government elections, almost all the major political parties deployed a raft of mobile marketing strategies. These included SMS, MMS, political party apps, mobile voice calls and social networking sites. The same has been true in the months and weeks leading up to the 2019 national and provincial elections.</p>
<p>This sort of online interaction with the electorate is important. Research <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/article/24/2/163/762320">has shown</a> that it promotes critical political skills. Among these skills are the ability to acquire political information and engage in political discourse. Online interaction also reinforces voters’ perception of parties’ competence. </p>
<p>But it can also alienate and frustrate voters. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331380355_Privacy_concerns_internal_political_efficacy_intrusiveness_and_voter_resistance_to_the_acceptance_of_political_mobile_marketing_campaigns">A study</a> I conducted found South African voters felt that mobile political campaigns were intrusive, violated their privacy and made them feel disillusioned with the political process. </p>
<p>This suggests political parties that plan to keep using mobile campaigning should proceed with caution. These findings provide important guidelines for reducing voters’ resistance to political mobile marketing campaigns. For instance, parties should prioritise permissive marketing strategies – explicitly asking people to “opt in”. Obtaining consent is one way to foster a positive reception from voters.</p>
<h2>Privacy fears</h2>
<p>For <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331380355_Privacy_concerns_internal_political_efficacy_intrusiveness_and_voter_resistance_to_the_acceptance_of_political_mobile_marketing_campaigns">my study</a>, I surveyed 971 people. They resided in South Africa’s Gauteng province, which – although it is largely urban – is very cosmopolitan and can be considered as <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sabr/article/view/110928">a microcosm</a> of the national population. The average age of the sample was 27. </p>
<p>I asked respondents to evaluate their perceptions of online and mobile political marketing campaigns. I wanted to know, on a sliding scale and if at all, how much they felt these campaigns threatened their digital privacy and how much that perception influenced their acceptance of this form of political communication. Questions were also asked about the extent to which voters believed in their ability to influence the political process, and how much they participated in these processes.</p>
<p>The participants were concerned that political campaigns directed at them via their mobile devices threatened their digital privacy. They worried that political parties were able to track their mobile web browsing preferences and behaviour through the use of cookies. They also feared that malicious programmes could be used to infiltrate their mobile accounts and obtain their personal information for future political campaigns.</p>
<p>There’s no evidence that political parties are engaging in malicious or illegal activities, but it’s telling that this is people’s perception and fear.</p>
<p>Another finding was that voters highly value and desire their privacy. This means they view the collection of their personal information – such as their cell phone numbers – by political parties as highly invasive. They became irritated when they received unsolicited political messages. So the messages had the opposite of the desired effect: they created apathy towards the political party in question.</p>
<p>Finally, the people I surveyed were not impressed by the actual content of mobile political campaigns. They found the messages exaggerated and confusing.</p>
<h2>Declining engagement</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111186?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Research</a> has emphasised that voters are more likely to engage and participate in the political process if two factors are in place. First, they must they possess a reasonable understanding of how the political system works. Second, they must perceive that their participation would make a difference in the political process. </p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/19716/Mattes_South_Africa_Democracy_2002.pdf?sequence=1">evidence suggests</a> these conditions are on the decline. Invasive, confusing and unwelcome mobile campaigns will not help to rectify this situation. In fact, they may serve to drive voters further away.</p>
<p>The use of the mobile and other digital technologies in the political process has incredible benefits for citizens and political parties. It will almost certainly continue to command centre stage in political communication for the foreseeable future. Political parties should take heed of people’s concerns and complaints about this method, and adapt their approach accordingly. If voters feel their privacy concerns are being respected and they have a choice to “opt in”, they are more likely to engage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Kofi Maduku receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the University of Johannesburg. </span></em></p>South African voters felt that mobile political campaigns were intrusive, violated their privacy and made them feel disillusioned with the political process.Daniel K. Maduku, Lecturer in Marketing Management, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151762019-04-25T09:56:00Z2019-04-25T09:56:00ZThree lessons for leadership from the Brexit mess<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270787/original/file-20190424-121254-jmay7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">David Cameron did not expect to lose the Brexit referendum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Diana Vucane / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Remember David Cameron? He’s the prime minister who gambled his career – and the stability of his country – on the UK’s Brexit referendum. He unsuccessfully bet his job that he could persuade the UK to remain in the EU. Cameron has surely reflected long and hard on his role in the wave of uncertainty that has since engulfed the UK. His successor, Theresa May, is now struggling to lead the country through the Brexit process. </p>
<p>Their mistakes offer a number of lessons for would-be leaders. Not just political ones, but business leaders too. They can be summed up, thus: ignore your people at your peril. Consumed with hubris, Cameron assumed that the British electorate would vote in favour of remaining. He downplayed the role of emotions in a crucial vote and he took one chance after another while in power. May’s handling of Brexit has also been <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-mays-handling-of-brexit-is-a-classic-case-of-bad-leadership-108646">riddled with miscalculation</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270781/original/file-20190424-121258-11t5bm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">David Cameron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Drop of Light / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>In May 2016, we started providing advisory to businesses on Brexit, and worked closely with more than 150 executives. Among them, some have thrived since the fateful June 23 vote. Despite the turmoil and the struggles of the political elites, we found that economic decision makers now realise three powerful and poignant lessons of Brexit leadership.</p>
<h2>1. Spend more time with customers</h2>
<p>London’s political elite invested in multiple pollsters, experts and statisticians to predict the outcome of the Brexit referendum. The day before Brits took to the ballot box, many polls prophesied a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-remain-vote-leave-live-latest-who-will-win-results-populus-a7097261.html">ten-point victory for the Remain campaign</a>. Mastermind of the Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, on the other hand, simply went to the pub and spoke to everyday voters. Dozens of conversations later, he had the understanding and messaging that would see Vote Leave triumphant.</p>
<p>Majorities can be silent and invisible – Donald Trump’s presidential win in 2016 <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/03/pious-progressives-have-created-a-spiral-of-silence-which-could/">was also unexpected by many polls</a>. Voter preferences, like customer preferences, are often difficult to define. They struggle to articulate their real interests and, without clear information, emotional responses prevail. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0777TZ2JZ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">Two separate studies</a> of 1,000 retail, tech, financial services and healthcare leaders around the globe confirm the value of customer research in understanding the business. This means that after absorbing the analytics, leaders still have to make the key judgement calls and not take the numbers completely at face value. They need to leave the office and gather the real, on-the-ground customer research to get a finer grained understanding of things.</p>
<h2>2. End complacency before it kills you</h2>
<p>David Cameron’s decision to call the Brexit referendum seemed more like an embarrassed answer to a child’s dare than a planned, strategic, historical step forward. The British government was arrogant and complacent, and as one consultant for the government put it to us: “Ministers really believed people would do everything their prime minister told them to.” From a mix of hubris and naivety, Cameron made strong assumptions about his people.</p>
<p>Instead, Brexiters used the referendum as a chance to “take control”. This was their campaign slogan and the referendum gave them space and an audience to express a voice of divergence. </p>
<p>Today, the best leaders are those that keep a finger on the pulse of the workforce. Cameron should have predicted that the consequence of giving the Brexiters legitimacy would be that he could lose control of his party. This would have ultimately helped him plan accordingly.</p>
<h2>3. Promote transparency</h2>
<p>Britain is in complete disarray over the course of Brexit. The country’s leaders seem to be grabbing for words and ideas ad hoc, with no concrete plan in place, and the original deadline for departing the EU has long gone. “It’s fair to say that Brexit has been characterised by panic,” business journalist and neuroscientist, Kirsten Levermore told us.</p>
<p>Without question, negotiating the Brexit deal is one of the greatest challenges a leader could imagine. Differences of opinion run deep and the political balance can shift at any moment, jeopardising months of effort. But, like all boards and business leaders facing great change, politicians must contain the panic of their peers and people, or risk figurative – or even literal – riots on the streets. </p>
<p>But Levermore added: “Silence is deafening – it is saying that leaders don’t know what is going on, or what they are going to do about it. It can be difficult for leaders to know what and how much to share in times of crisis … but the really important thing is that they say something to fill the void.” </p>
<p>In the context of Brexit, the public on both sides of the debate has been looking at their leaders with increasing defiance – while the government seems to lack a clear direction, and keeps its cards close to its chest, better communication on the path forward would help unite opinion around a common solution rather than division.</p>
<h2>A long road ahead</h2>
<p>The UK government still seems a long way away from a clear solution to Brexit. But there is much to learn from the current struggles, from the fundamental mistake of David Cameron to assume he would win the referendum and hold one without a proper plan in place, to the struggles of his successor Theresa May when it comes to finding a platform of agreement with her own members of parliament.</p>
<p>The Brexit negotiations have become a political game rather than an exercise of democracy. Business leaders, like political ones, when facing such a divisive situation, should consider going back to the drawing board – listening, taking stock and feeding back to their followers to keep them on board.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>They can be summed up, thus: ignore your people at your peril.Benjamin Laker, Professor of Leadership, Henley Business School, University of ReadingThomas Roulet, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Theory and Fellow in Sociology & Management, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100172019-02-04T21:21:31Z2019-02-04T21:21:31ZThe meme-ification of politics: Politicians & their ‘lit’ memes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255923/original/file-20190128-108364-hefbt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1347%2C4428%2C2649&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">B.C. Premier John Horgan created a meme when he said: 'If you were woke, you'd know that pro rep is lit.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November, during a televised debate about electoral reform, British Columbia Premier John Horgan told the audience, “If you were woke, you’d know that pro rep is lit.” </p>
<p>By “pro rep,” he meant “proportional representation,” an alternative to the current first-past-the-post voting system. By “woke,” he meant socially conscious. By “lit,” he meant, according to the <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lit">Urban Dictionary</a>, “Something that is f—ing amazing in any sense.” The B.C. NDP soon tweeted his remark, and a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/pro-rep-is-lit-1.4898546">meme was born</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1060735557813202944"}"></div></p>
<p>This is a federal election year, so Canadians should be ready for a meme-filled 2019. Political memes are <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/world-made-meme">increasingly prominent</a> in political discourse, and politicians will be using this latest online strategy to attract, infuriate, persuade or bemuse voters. </p>
<p>It’s therefore worthwhile understanding how memes can shape the tone and perceptions of campaigns or policies. And it’s also useful to look at politicians’ recent attempts to use memes for good and ill.</p>
<h2>What is a political meme?</h2>
<p>A political meme is a purposefully designed visual framing of a position. Memes are a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/31297266/Digital_Dispatches_from_the_2016_US_Election_Popular_Culture_Intertextuality_and_Media_Power">new genre</a> of political communication, and they generally have at least one of two characteristics — they are inside jokes and they trigger an emotional reaction. </p>
<p>Memes work politically if they are widely — or virally — shared, if they help cultivate a sense of belonging to an “in-group” and if they make a compelling normative statement about a public figure or political issue. </p>
<p>Memes can spread rapidly online and into popular culture due to their shareability — they are easily created, consumed, altered and <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zm884j/where-do-memes-come-from-researchers-studied-reddit-4chan">disseminated</a>. They can quickly communicate the creator’s stance on the subject. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.04.016">stronger the emotional response</a> provoked by a post, the greater the intent to spread it.</p>
<p>Though memes may spread widely, they usually cater to a specific audience who inhabit a <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/memes-digital-culture">“shared sphere of cultural knowledge.”</a> That audience tends to have self-referential language, cultivating an in-group that can decipher the memes and get the “in joke” while those who aren’t in on the joke cannot. (For an excellent display of this, listen to one of the <a href="https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/126-alex-jones-dramageddon">“Yes Yes No”</a> segments on the <a href="https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all">Reply All</a> podcast, in which the hosts explain complex, multi-layered memes to a confused non-digital native.) </p>
<p>A person who wants to successfully create or repurpose a meme therefore needs to have sufficient understanding of that shared sphere and its digital norms.</p>
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<p>By drawing on shared meanings, meme creators can compress complex ideas into simple visual packages. For instance, feminist memes both <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1464700115604136?casa_token=pqUyL9ZFfBIAAAAA:ZKohUgQwMEgngMqTd5xsF9sxNWwe8nXOWMHaYiTBMPBE09FoBgOQxaBWQGLJK1khY8oJEbNlCSBPWg">critiqued and lampooned</a> the 2012 claim by presidential candidate Mitt Romney that he had “binders full of women” that he could bring into his administration.</p>
<h2>‘I have a drone’</h2>
<p>Memes about former president Barack Obama’s administration ranged from silly emotions to ones <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12158">that challenged</a> the dominant political discourse, such as the critique of his targeted drone program through the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1386/iscc.7.2.155_1">“I have a drone”</a> meme. </p>
<p>Similarly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been the focus of many positive memes, particularly when he is <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/13-trudeau-trump-memes-tweets-that-hilariously-describe-their-awkward-meeting-37852">compared to U.S. President Donald Trump</a>, but also negative memes, including those referencing Canada’s <a href="https://me.me/i/using-complex-calculations-trudeau-explains-how-its-possible-to-be-22302719">arms deal with Saudi Arabia</a>.</p>
<h2>The dark side of memes</h2>
<p>While memes can communicate nuanced ideas, generate a sense of cultural belonging and evoke strong emotions, they also have serious downsides as forms of political discourse. Political memes can offer deeper reflections on social issues, with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2015.1087414">persuasive effect</a> that risks creating “a self-convincing audience” that is motivated to engage with the messaging. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://datasociety.net/research/media-manipulation/">serious concern</a> that memes are replacing the nuanced debate necessary in a healthy democracy. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1028110335658475520"}"></div></p>
<p>It is <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z4k549/trolling-scholars-debunk-the-idea-that-the-alt-rights-trolls-have-magic-powers">still debated</a> whether racist, “alt-right” memes, many <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zm884j/where-do-memes-come-from-researchers-studied-reddit-4chan">originating</a> on Reddit and 4Chan <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/NealRauhauser/the-fringe-insurgency-connectivity-convergence-and-mainstreaming-of-the-extreme-right">with an increasingly transnational reach</a>, were a <a href="https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf">deciding factor</a> in Trump’s 2016 election win.</p>
<p>Authoritarian regimes are also reported to have <a href="http://demokratizatsiya.pub/archives/22_1_B158221228502786.pdf">co-opted online political humorous content, especially memes,</a> both domestically <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90283167/russia-instagram-war-facebook-memes">and abroad</a> to advance their interests.</p>
<p>Furthermore, seemingly neutral memes can be <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611332/this-is-where-internet-memes-come-from/">“weaponized”</a>. An infamous example is <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog">Pepe the Frog</a>, which evolved from a sad frog cartoon into a symbol for the politically charged, racist and anti-Semitic messages of the so-called alt-right, a U.S.-based white nationalist movement.</p>
<p>Another means of weaponization is to link politically charged issues like immigration or climate change to unrelated but highly provocative issues like the spread of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1260631">Zika virus</a>.</p>
<p>It can be difficult to counter these negative effects of memes. One problem is that they can rarely be fact-checked. Rather than making textual claims, they rely on a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2015.1087414">visual grammar</a>. After all, it would be silly to fact-check an electoral system equated to Oprah’s gift giveaways.</p>
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<p>Because memes are ambiguous and require interpretation of visual grammar, it is hard to hold their creators to account. For instance, when people are called out for creating or spreading memes that symbolise white nationalism, they <a href="https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf">can deny the given meaning, or state that it is a joke</a>.</p>
<h2>Should politicians meme?</h2>
<p>Politicians are therefore playing with fire when they try to get in on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/09/technology/political-memes-go-mainstream.html">mainstreaming</a> of memes. They risk being perceived as making lame attempts to cater to a community to which they do not belong. Hillary Clinton’s attempt to engage young voters <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/12/news/hillary-clinton-tweet-emoji-reaction/index.html">backfired</a> when she tweeted out “How does your student loan debt make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less.” It was criticized as condescending and a distraction from her actual policy proposal to make college more affordable. </p>
<p>Politicians can face ridicule and accusations of “inauthenticity” when they engage in this new form of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/politicians-are-live-streaming-videos-instagram/579490/">political performance</a>. </p>
<p>When politicians use memes, they must also surrender control over how they will be repurposed and interpreted over time.</p>
<p>Premier Horgan did not say “pro rep is lit” because it was a convincing argument, but because he knew it would get the internet’s attention. </p>
<p>Politicians need to connect with young voters, and use memes to signal to this particular demographic. Pro Rep advocates in B.C. created a <a href="https://www.fairvote.ca/photo-contest/">meme contest</a> because they recognized <a href="https://dogwoodbc.ca/news/pro-rep-win-young-people-vote/">connecting with young voters is a top priority</a> as youth are more likely to be in favour of proportional representation.</p>
<p>More research is needed to understand the effect that political memes have on the quality of political debate. In the meantime, politicians should be cautious — or risk becoming this guy:</p>
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/1Qdp4trljSkY8" width="100%" height="271" frameborder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/30-rock-sme-how-do-you-1Qdp4trljSkY8">A 55-year-old Steve Buscemi goes to high school and tries to fit in on an episode of ‘30 Rock.’ Via Giphy</a></p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Grace Chiang, political science major at UBC</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Tenove receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Politicians have been using memes to appear cool, plugged in, even ‘lit.’ Here’s why that’s not necessarily a smart idea.Chris Tenove, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1076732018-12-03T11:34:47Z2018-12-03T11:34:47ZThe big lessons of political advertising in 2018<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248194/original/file-20181130-194932-49gcvn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C7%2C1174%2C787&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screen shot of Beto O'Rourke's Facebook ad, 2018</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/betoorourke/videos/our-live-ad/238846943457943/">Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2018 midterm elections are in the books, the winners have been declared and the 30-second attack ads are – finally – over. </p>
<p><a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/about/">As co-directors</a> of the <a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/">Wesleyan Media Project</a>, which has <a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/category/releases/year-end-summaries/">tracked and analyzed campaign advertising</a> since 2010, we spend a lot of time assessing trends in the volume and content of political advertising.</p>
<p>Because we have television <a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/dataaccess/">data</a> that span a number of elections, we can provide detailed information on how prominent TV ads are overall or in any given location, how many different types of sponsors are active and how the content of advertising compares to prior election cycles. </p>
<p>Of course, television is not the only medium through which campaigns attempt to reach voters. But online advertising, which represents the biggest growth market, has been much harder to track. </p>
<p>Prior to May of 2018, for instance, social media giants like <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/03/low-transparency-low-regulation-online-political-ads-skyrocket/">Google and Facebook did not release any information at all</a> on political advertising, so tracking online advertising began in earnest only this cycle. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Democratic congressional candidate Mary Barzee Flores focused on health care in this ad.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Americans frequently complain about campaign advertising, it remains an important way through which <a href="https://theconversation.com/campaign-spending-isnt-the-problem-where-the-money-comes-from-is-104093">candidates for office can communicate their ideas directly to citizens</a>, especially those who would not necessarily seek out the information themselves. </p>
<p>What role did political advertising play in the 2018 midterm elections? Here are our top observations:</p>
<h2><strong>1.</strong> Digital advertising grew in 2018.</h2>
<p>Data on digital ads in prior cycles are not readily available, but we know from campaigns and practitioners that the dollars spent in online advertising are growing quickly. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ads/archive/report/">Facebook</a> reports that just under US$400 million was spent on its platform for political ads, ranging from U.S. Senate races to county sheriff, between May of 2018 and Election Day. </p>
<p><a href="https://transparencyreport.google.com/political-ads/overview?hl=en">Google</a> reports about $70 million in spending on ads in races for the U.S. Senate and House on its ad network during a comparable time period. </p>
<p>Some candidates prioritized digital advertising over traditional television ads. For example, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Beto_O%27Rourke">Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke</a> spent at least $8 million on Facebook and another $2 million on Google. That was about 34 percent of the $29.4 million total that his campaign spent on advertising, if we include the $19.4 million spent on broadcast television in 2018. </p>
<p>To be sure, O’Rourke was an outlier. We <a href="http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/releases/101818-digital/">found</a> in October that about 10 percent of spending by Senate candidates on advertising was on digital ads between May 31 and Oct. 15, 2018. </p>
<p>Still – in a fragmenting media environment where people receive information from a variety of different sources and spend substantial time on social media and online – you might assume that campaigns’ heavy focus on digital advertising would displace television advertising. </p>
<p>Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<h2><strong>2.</strong> TV is still important to congressional and statewide campaigns.</h2>
<p>This is demonstrated by the record number of television ads in 2018. Data from our project show that the number of ads aired in races for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House increased by 58 percent from 2014 to 2018, from 2.5 million to almost 4 million ad airings. </p>
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<p>The biggest increase was in U.S. House races, where ad airings rose from under 600,000 in 2014 to over 1.2 million in 2018. The large number of competitive races in 2018, especially in the U.S. House, may account for much of the increase. </p>
<h2><strong>3.</strong> The election was about health care.</h2>
<p>Even in a fragmented media era with a hyper-polarized electorate, advertising in 2018 shows that it is still possible to find agreement across campaigns on the importance of particular issues. </p>
<p>In this cycle, that issue was clearly health care. </p>
<p>More than a third of the record-breaking number of ads aired in federal and gubernatorial races mentioned health care, and the attention to health care as an issue only grew throughout the cycle, with 41.4 percent of all airings in the post-Labor Day period mentioning the issue. In total, 1.4 million airings mentioned health care and 979,249 of those aired between Sept. 4 and Election Day. Health care was by far the most mentioned issue. </p>
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<p>The dominance of health care was driven by the laser focus on the issue on the Democratic side. A little more than half of pro-Democratic ads in federal races during the post-Labor Day period mentioned the topic. By contrast, the second largest issue was taxes, at 14.7 percent of airings. </p>
<p>Although pro-Republican airings in federal races talked more about taxes during this window – 35.3 percent – than any other issue, health care ran a close second, appearing in nearly a third of pro-Republican airings. </p>
<p>Pro-Democratic gubernatorial airings also talked more about health care – 45.5 percent – than any other single issue. Education and taxes ranked second and third, respectively. </p>
<p>Pro-Republican gubernatorial airings were the only ones that did not include health care in the top two topics, but the issue did rank fifth in percentage of airings in the post-Labor Day period. It was behind taxes, education, jobs and public safety issues.</p>
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<h2><strong>4.</strong> Outside groups continue to be active.</h2>
<p>Outside groups paid for 22 percent of ads aired in U.S. House races in 2018, an increase over the 15 percent of group airings in 2016. And those outside groups paid for a little more than one-third of all ads aired in U.S. Senate races, a slight decrease from 2016. </p>
<p>In partnership with the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/">Center for Responsive Politics</a>, we categorize these groups into three classifications: full-disclosure groups, meaning they disclose contributor lists to the Federal Election Commission; nondisclosing dark money groups that are most often 501(c)4 nonprofits; and partial-disclosure groups that identify donors but also accept contributions from dark money sources. </p>
<p>In past cycles, we found that dark money was more prevalent among Republican groups than pro-Democratic ones. This cycle, the pattern flipped. </p>
<p>One in four, or 25 percent, of ads aired by groups on behalf of Democratic House candidates in the election year was from a dark money group. Only about 12 percent of pro-Republican ads aired by groups in House races was from a dark money sponsor. </p>
<p>In Senate races, dark money sponsors for Democrats and Republicans were about equal in share, roughly one in every three outside group ads on either side of the aisle.</p>
<h2>Nowhere to hide</h2>
<p>All told, 2018 was a “do everything” election, where many campaigns invested heavily in traditional TV ads and online advertising facilitated by social media. </p>
<p>We have long suspected that TV ads would decline as digital ascended. That may yet happen, but in 2018 voters were truly bombarded by ads on their TV screens. </p>
<p>Political ads may have stopped for the moment, but the reprieve will be brief. </p>
<p>Our data show that election off-years, as 2019 is, will still feature substantial amounts of campaign advertising, often reminding voters about accomplishments in office or setting up attacks on vulnerable incumbents. </p>
<p>Until those start, enjoy the brief break.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erika Franklin Fowler receives funding from Knight Foundation and serves as Chair of the Political Advertising Committee of Social Science One. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Franz receives funding from the Knight Foundation and is a member of the Political Advertising Committee of Social Science One.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Travis N. Ridout receives funding from Knight Foundation. </span></em></p>Health care dominated 2018’s political ads. Digital advertising grew, but hasn’t yet killed TV’s share. And dark money favored Democrats, say scholars studying the volume and content of campaign ads.Erika Franklin Fowler, Associate Professor of Government, Wesleyan UniversityMichael Franz, Professor of Government, Bowdoin CollegeTravis N. Ridout, Professor of Government and Public Policy, Washington State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986702018-09-12T10:52:08Z2018-09-12T10:52:08ZSavvy social media strategies boost anti-establishment political wins<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234862/original/file-20180904-45135-s9d86l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mexico-President-Elect/1d394dd563b843a09ee9561f74c97a13/69/0">AP Photo/Marco Ugarte</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/estas-estrategias-eficaces-en-redes-sociales-impulsan-victoria-de-los-politicos-anti-establishment-103191"><em>Leer en español</em></a>.</p>
<p>Mexico’s anti-establishment presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, faced <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/international/395682-lessons-from-mexicos-election-anti-establishment-politics-is-our-new">opposition from the mainstream media</a>. And he <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2018/05/gastos-de-campana-anaya-el-que-reporta-mayor-gasto-meade-el-que-mas-eventos-ha-encabezado/">spent 13 percent less on advertising</a> than his opponents. Yet the man commonly known by his initials as “AMLO” went on to win the Mexican presidency in a landslide with <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2018/07/02/the-victory-of-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-starts-a-new-era-in-mexico">over 53 percent of the vote</a> in a four-way race in July.</p>
<p>That remarkable victory was at least partly due to <a href="https://www.forbes.com.mx/ellos-son-los-creativos-que-dieron-un-vuelco-a-la-campana-de-amlo/">the social media strategies</a> of the political activists who backed him. Similar strategies appeared in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-europe-great-again-trumps-online-supporters-shift-attention-to-the-french-election-74130">2017 French presidential race</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.saiph.org/">Our</a> <a href="https://humancomputerinteraction.wvu.edu/">lab</a> has been <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00429v1">analyzing these social media activities</a> to understand how they’ve worked to threaten – and topple – establishment candidates. By analyzing more than 6 million posts from Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, we identified three main online strategies: using activist slang, attempting to “go viral” and providing historical context. </p>
<p><iframe id="z0EOa" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z0EOa/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Some of these strategies might simply be online adaptations of long-standing strategies used in traditional offline campaigning. But others seem to be new ways of connecting and driving people to the polls. Our lab was interested in understanding the dynamics behind these online activists in greater detail, especially as some had crossed over from being merely supporters – even anonymous ones – not formally affiliated with campaigns, to being <a href="https://www.forbes.com.mx/la-gestion-de-amlo-debe-incluir-una-nueva-forma-de-comunicar-asesor/">officially incorporated in campaign teams</a>.</p>
<h2>Integrating activist slang</h2>
<p>Some political activists pointedly used slang in their online conversations, creating a dynamic that elevated their candidate as an opponent of the status quo. Trump backers, for instance, called themselves “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables">Deplorables</a>,” supporting “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/reddit-and-the-god-emperor-of-the-internet.html">the God Emperor</a>” Trump against “<a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/8qwedk/wise_words_from_killary/">Killary</a>” Clinton.</p>
<p>AMLO backers called themselves <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chairo_(slang)">“AMLOVERS” or “Chairos,”</a> and had nicknames for his opponents, such as calling the other presidential candidate, Ricardo Anaya, “<a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/donald-trump-1/2018/05/21/mexicos-presidential-candidates-pull-together-send-trump-message">Ricky Riquin Canayin</a>” – Spanish for “The Despicable Richy Rich.”</p>
<h2>Efforts to ‘go viral’</h2>
<p>Some political activists worked hard to identify the material that was most likely to attract wide attention online and get media coverage. Trump backers, for instance, <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/trump-supporters-and-neo-nazis-are-using-secret-chat-rooms-t">organized on the Discord chat service</a> and Reddit forums to see which variations of edited images of Hillary Clinton were most likely to get shared and go viral. They became so good at getting attention for their posts that Reddit actually <a href="https://gizmodo.com/reddit-is-finally-fixing-its-trump-spam-problem-1792061056">changed its algorithm to stop Trump backers</a> from filling up the site’s front page with pro-Trump propaganda.</p>
<p>Similarly, AMLO backers were able to keep pro-AMLO hashtags trending on Twitter, such as #AMLOmania, in which <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/elecciones-2018/asi-es-la-amlomania">people across Mexico made promises</a> of what they would do for the country if AMLO won. The vows ranged from free beer and food in restaurants to free legal advice.</p>
<p>For instance, an <a href="https://twitter.com/EduardoFRosales/status/1013285403598753792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">artist promised</a> to paint an entire rural school in Veracruz, Mexico, if AMLO won. A <a href="https://twitter.com/ABOGADOENCDMX/status/1012000766427615235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">law firm</a> promised to waive its fees for 100 divorces and alimony lawsuits if AMLO won. The goal of citizen activists was <a href="https://www.animalpolitico.com/2018/07/amlomania-ciudadanos-cumplen-lo-que-ofrecieron/">to motivate others to support AMLO</a>, while doing positive things for their country.</p>
<h2>The historian-style activists</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233646/original/file-20180827-149493-fznxom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Historian-style activists created explanatory materials to share on social media: a) backing AMLO with a visual description of his economic plan; b) Helping Trump backers ‘red-pill liberals,’ waking them up to a conservative reality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Saiph Savage and Claudia Flores-Saviaga</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some anti-establishment activists were able to recruit more supporters by providing detailed explanations of the political system as they saw it. Trump backers, for instance, created <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/524fk5/how_to_red_pill_someone_version_20/">electronic manuals advising supporters</a> how to explain their viewpoint to opponents to get them to switch sides. They compiled the <a href="http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/">top WikiLeaks revelations about Hillary Clinton</a>, assembled explanations of what they meant and asked people to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/comments/59sh7p">share it</a>.</p>
<p>Pro-AMLO activists did even more, creating <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GQgu7iT-fGn-HTFNJY9WyAXgeBuAu0jo/view">a manual</a> that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-election-leftist/mexican-leftist-candidate-answers-business-critics-with-pejenomics-plan-idUSKBN1IB2YH">explained Mexico’s current economics</a> and how the proposals of their candidate would, in their view, <a href="https://www.forbes.com.mx/lo-que-amlo-quiso-decir-en-economia-un-vistazo-a-pejenomics/">transform and improve Mexico’s economy</a>. </p>
<p>Our analysis identified that one of the most effective strategies was taking time to explain the sociopolitical context. Citizens responded well to, and engaged with, specific reasoning about why they should back specific candidates.</p>
<p>As the U.S. midterm elections approach, it’s worth paying attention to whether – and in what races – these methods reappear; and even how people might use them to engage in fruitful political activism that brings the changes they want to see. You can read more about our research in our <a href="https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM18/paper/download/17877/16999">new ICWSM paper</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Effective political campaigns use three main online strategies; research identifies which of them is most effective.Saiph Savage, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, West Virginia UniversityClaudia Flores-Saviaga, Ph.D. student in Computer Science, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/936752018-03-21T12:07:23Z2018-03-21T12:07:23ZPsychographics: the behavioural analysis that helped Cambridge Analytica know voters’ minds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211239/original/file-20180320-80618-1chynat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2699%2C1526&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making connections through tracking behaviour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GarryKillian/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dealings that have been revealed between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have all the trappings of a Hollywood thriller: a Bond villain-style CEO, a reclusive billionaire, a naïve and conflicted whistle-blower, a hipster data scientist turned politico, an academic with seemingly questionable ethics, and of course a triumphant president and his influential family. </p>
<p>Much of the discussion has been on how Cambridge Analytica was able to obtain data on more than 50m Facebook users – and how it allegedly failed to delete this data when told to do so. But there is also the matter of what Cambridge Analytica actually did with the data. In fact the data crunching company’s approach represents a step change in how analytics can today be used as a tool to generate insights – and to exert influence.</p>
<p>For example, pollsters have long used segmentation to target particular groups of voters, such as through categorising audiences by gender, age, income, education and family size. Segments can also be created around political affiliation or purchase preferences. The data analytics machine that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used in her 2016 campaign – named Ada after the 19th-century mathematician and early computing pioneer – used state-of-the-art segmentation techniques to target groups of eligible voters in the same way that Barack Obama had done four years previously.</p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica was contracted to the Trump campaign and provided an entirely new weapon for the election machine. While it also used demographic segments to identify groups of voters, as Clinton’s campaign had, Cambridge Analytica also segmented using <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/03/psychographics-are-just-as-important-for-marketers-as-demographics">psychographics</a>. As definitions of class, education, employment, age and so on, demographics are informational. Psychographics are behavioural – a means to segment by personality.</p>
<p>This makes a lot of sense. It’s obvious that two people with the same demographic profile (for example, white, middle-aged, employed, married men) can have markedly different personalities and opinions. We also know that adapting a message to a person’s personality – whether they are open, introverted, argumentative, and so on – goes a long way to help getting that message across.</p>
<h2>Understanding people better</h2>
<p>There have traditionally been two routes to ascertaining someone’s personality. You can either get to know them really well – usually over an extended time. Or you can get them to take a personality test and ask them to share it with you. Neither of these methods is realistically open to pollsters. Cambridge Analytica found a third way, with the assistance of two University of Cambridge academics.</p>
<p>The first, Aleksandr Kogan, sold them access to 270,000 personality tests completed by Facebook users <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/meet-the-psychologist-at-the-center-of-facebook-s-data-scandal">through an online app he had created</a> for research purposes. Providing the data to Cambridge Analytica was, it seems, against Facebook’s internal code of conduct, but only now in March 2018 has Kogan been banned by Facebook from the platform. In addition, Kogan’s data also came with a bonus: he had reportedly collected Facebook data from the test-takers’ friends – and, at an average of 200 friends per person, that added up to some 50m people.</p>
<p>However, these 50m people had not all taken personality tests. This is where the second Cambridge academic, <a href="https://www.psychometrics.cam.ac.uk/about-us/directory/michal-kosinski">Michal Kosinski</a>, came in. Kosinski – who is said to believe that micro-targeting based on online data could strengthen democracy – had figured out a way to <a href="https://applymagicsauce.com/">reverse engineer a personality profile from Facebook activity</a> such as likes. Whether you choose to like pictures of sunsets, puppies or people apparently says a lot about your personality. So much, in fact, that on the basis of 300 likes, Kosinski’s model is able to predict someone’s personality profile <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/your-computer-knows-you-researchers-cambridge-stanford-university">with the same accuracy as a spouse</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211322/original/file-20180321-165583-uvdzz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Something different for everyone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cropped-image-young-man-working-on-648758662?src=8MwCturVDH8XHvp9TzgCRg-1-24">GaudiLab via Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Kogan developed Kosinksi’s ideas, improved them, and cut a deal with Cambridge Analytica. Armed with this bounty – and combined with additional data gleaned from elsewhere – Cambridge Analytica built personality profiles for more than 100m registered US voters. It’s claimed the company then used these profiles for targeted advertising. </p>
<p>Imagine for example that you could identify a segment of voters that is high in conscientiousness and neuroticism, and another segment that is high in extroversion but low in openness. Clearly, people in each segment would respond differently to the same political ad. But on Facebook they do not need to see the same ad at all – each will see an individually tailored ad designed to elicit the desired response, whether that is voting for a candidate, not voting for a candidate, or donating funds.</p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica worked hard to develop dozens of ad variations on different political themes such as immigration, the economy and gun rights, all tailored to different personality profiles. There is no evidence at all that Clinton’s election machine had the same ability.</p>
<p>Behavioural analytics and psychographic profiling are here to stay, no matter what becomes of Cambridge Analytica – which has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/19/facebook-data-scandal-cambridge-analytica-denies-whistleblowing-claim.html">robustly criticised</a> what it calls “false allegations in the media”. In a way it industrialises what good salespeople have always done, by adjusting their message and delivery to the personality of their customers. This approach to electioneering – and indeed to marketing – will be Cambridge Analytica’s ultimate legacy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-legitimate-researchers-using-facebook-data-could-be-collateral-damage-93600">Cambridge Analytica scandal: legitimate researchers using Facebook data could be collateral damage</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Wade is co-author of Digital Vortex: How Today's Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at Their Own Game.</span></em></p>How data-driven behavioural sciences are being road tested in the political sphere.Michael Wade, Professor of Innovation and Strategy, Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835012017-09-12T19:42:11Z2017-09-12T19:42:11ZMarriage vote: how advocacy ads exploit our emotions in divisive debates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184835/original/file-20170906-9843-1qcwy8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'Yes' campaign's first ad focused on the evidential flaws with the 'No' campaign's ads.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The same-sex marriage debate in Australia was always bound to be divisive and emotive. And as a public vote on whether it should be legalised nears, the role of advocacy advertisements will become increasingly important in swaying the opinion of undecided voters. </p>
<p>While polls show <a href="http://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/955846060138299394/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-955846060138299394;1043138249">strong support</a> for marriage equality at present, the history of widespread advocacy campaigns shows that the “No” campaign has many unfair advantages – especially when it uses ads to make its point.</p>
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<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-who-supports-marriage-equality-in-australia-and-who-doesnt-82988">Revealed: who supports marriage equality in Australia – and who doesn’t</a></strong></em></p>
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<h2>The No campaign’s natural advantage</h2>
<p>The efficacy of both the “Yes” and “No” arguments can be related to Mill’s <a href="http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Mill/MillHarm.pdf">“harm principle”</a>: one side believes the only harm being done is to those who happen to be attracted to those of the same sex; the other side believes harm is being done to religious and moral values. How they present these ideas will dramatically affect the outcome of the vote.</p>
<p>However, the No campaign has distinct advantages when it advertises. These primarily relate to status-quo bias. <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Ekahneman/docs/Publications/Anomalies_DK_JLK_RHT_1991.pdf">Research shows</a> that political actors often have an aversion to change, and will disproportionately focus on perceived losses relative to perceived gains.</p>
<p>As such, advocacy campaigns that focus on losses tend to do better than those focused on gains. On same-sex marriage, the gain is clear for some (such as those seeking to marry, and the rights this affords), but it is more reliant on more abstract notions like “fairness” for those not directly affected.</p>
<p>To that end, a campaign that suggests same-sex marriage will <a href="https://theconversation.com/without-proper-protections-same-sex-marriage-will-discriminate-against-conscientious-objectors-83348">somehow erode many people’s rights</a> (or those of their children) has an advantage over a campaign focused on establishing new rights.</p>
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<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/without-proper-protections-same-sex-marriage-will-discriminate-against-conscientious-objectors-83348">Without proper protections, same-sex marriage will discriminate against conscientious objectors</a></strong></em></p>
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<p>The No campaign’s second advantage comes with its ability to muddy the waters and associate as many negatives with same-sex marriage as it can. Again, this uses status-quo bias: when in doubt, people typically vote no. </p>
<p>And “facts” play an almost negligible role in changing voter behaviour in the face of strong emotionally based arguments.</p>
<h2>The ad campaigns so far</h2>
<p>So far, the ads for and against same-sex marriage have been intelligently made. </p>
<p>Polls have consistently shown that as the religiosity of Australians has declined, support for gay rights has grown. This bodes poorly for the No campaign, and it knows it. As a result, the <a href="https://acl.nationbuilder.com/marriage_coalition">Australian Christian Lobby</a> has focused more on the idea that same-sex marriage will lead to a sort of social, moral decline.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">An Australian Christian Lobby ‘No’ ad.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Its ad cites no evidence for the assertions in it, but facts and evidence are less relevant in political advertising than many might like to think. </p>
<p>It’s a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-30/why-the-first-no-campaign-ad-will-work/8856722">smart ad</a>: it builds an emotional connection with traditional family-oriented voters, based on fear. Importantly, it sows doubt in those it connects with, which can be hard to overcome.</p>
<p>Another ad designed to air on Father’s Day was blocked by Free TV Australia, which considered the ad political. The group behind it, <a href="http://www.dads4kids.org.au">Dads4Kids</a>, neglected to attach an identification tag, which would have resolved the issue.</p>
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<p>The group <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/03/dads4kids-ad-is-dodgy-campaign-tactic-in-marriage-debate-says-lgbti-activist">denied</a> the ad was either political or related to the marriage vote. But two lines in the 60-second spot appear designed for the debate: first, “Your mummy and I are a perfect team”, then “I can’t wait to … watch as you put on a wedding ring”. These are presented as positive messages, but reinforce existing ideals of parenting as between men and women. </p>
<p>These kinds of ads may be used again, but are less effective for the No campaign than the more overtly stress- or fear-inducing ones.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-are-children-better-off-with-a-mother-and-father-than-with-same-sex-parents-82313">Experts</a> assert there is no evidence to support the No campaign’s assertions. Its messaging is, in that strict sense, irrational. </p>
<p>But that’s the point: muddying the waters in advocacy advertising plays on the unquestioning parts of the brain. Fear of the unknown and unknowable can be baseless – even silly – but it works. </p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.equalitycampaign.org.au">Yes Equality</a> launched its first TV ad, it was defensive, and focused on the evidence problems with the No ads.</p>
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<p>The <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/marriage-equality-campaign-launches-tv-ad-starring-ian-thorpe/news-story/a9f221b5d05d86fc241b173f75dda18a">latest ad</a> from the Yes campaign doesn’t give viewers the time to build any connection: there are too many faces, too much going on.</p>
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<p>Debunking and clearing up confusion is important, as is mobilising voters, but the most successful campaigns focus more on establishing emotive-empathetic links with viewers than rational ones</p>
<p>Such campaigns usually rely on stress or anger. The US campaign against “Hillarycare” did it in 1993; when unions fought the WorkChoices legislation, they did it too; and the mining industry did it in its battle against the Rudd-Gillard mining taxes in 2010.</p>
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<p>Giving the same-sex marriage debate relatable, likeable faces, and building emotional narratives, will be critical to countering the fear-based charge of the “No” ads. This is especially the case if the campaign maintains or increases its advertising spending.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Ireland</h2>
<p>Ireland’s 2015 referendum on same-sex marriage offers compelling – if not completely analogous – examples of what might happen in Australia.</p>
<p>Ireland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/23/gay-marriage-ireland-yes-vote">voted in favour</a> of same-sex marriage, 62% to 38%. This was well down from pre-referendum opinion polls, where support was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/majority-irish-voters-support-lgbt-marriage-gay-graham-norton">as high as 76%</a>. Polling shows Australians’ support for marriage equality is similarly strong — <a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6707-australian-views-on-gay-marriage-february-march-2016-201607191635">as high as 76%</a> – and it’s likely a charged debate will bring a similar drop.</p>
<p>However, there is a key difference. In Ireland, political ads are <a href="http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/18/enacted/en/html">banned on broadcast media</a> – so, no TV spots, nor radio. Australia has no such prohibition.</p>
<p>The complexity of an issue like same-sex marriage (or almost any political issue) is not well distilled into 30-second audio-visual pitches. Instead of through ads, the Irish debate largely took place on panel discussions, in parliament, and in public and private places around the country.</p>
<p>The closest ads Ireland ran to Australia’s TV spots were internet-based, such as those made by the <a href="http://ionainstitute.eu">Iona Institute</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaRK-0W5HQI&feature=youtu.be">Mothers and Fathers Matter</a>. These pushed the idea that both a mother and a father were necessary or ideal for bringing up children.</p>
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<p>Otherwise, the ads were made for billboards, newspapers and the internet, but their impact was likely to be lower than if TV spots were used. Internet ads generally have lower saturation and reach fewer demographics (including older voters, who are <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/election-2016-vote-compass-same-sex-marriage/7520478">more likely to resist same-sex marriage</a>).</p>
<p>And static, image-based ads don’t have the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00913367.1991.10673202">same efficacy as TV ones</a> – especially in terms of emotive reactions, which lend themselves more to irrational associations.</p>
<h2>What to expect as the vote nears</h2>
<p>Ireland’s experience shows that even where ads are kept from broadcast media, there can be a dramatic drop in support for same-sex marriage after a prolonged, divisive debate. But throwing well-made TV and radio ads into the mix may well prove a critical distinction between Australia and Ireland.</p>
<p>The No campaign will continue to draw on as many negative associations as possible, especially related to children. Its campaign has been significantly dependent on fear, and shows no indication of changing.</p>
<p>Once the vote is properly underway, the intensity of the ads is likely to increase. Without an adequate counter from the Yes campaign – especially one offering more emotionally compelling messages – the advantages of the No campaign are likely to narrow the polling gap significantly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Rennie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The history of widespread advocacy campaigns shows that the ‘No’ campaign has many unfair advantages in the marriage equality debate.George Rennie, Lecturer in American Politics and Lobbying Strategies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/771212017-05-04T11:26:16Z2017-05-04T11:26:16ZStrong and stable leadership: inside the Conservatives’ election slogan<p>If you’ve heard an interview with any Conservative politician during the current election campaign, you’ve probably heard the phrase “strong and stable leadership”. Theresa May used the phrase three times in seven minutes on the day she <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/GeneralElection2017">announced the vote</a>.</p>
<p>It was clearly a key slogan – and therefore a key aspect of the campaign – right from the start. Since then, Buzzfeed has tracked May’s use of the phrase (giving up at <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/here-are-57-times-theresa-may-has-said-strong-and-stable?utm_term=.vt88BK035#.chjEp10Wq">57 times in ten days</a>). It even featured in the political cartoon for the first edition of the London Evening Standard under its <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-osborne-at-the-evening-standard-the-latest-through-a-long-revolving-door-74783">new editor</a>.</p>
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<p>It would be easy to dismiss this as just one of those irritating political hooks that are part and parcel of any election. Political history is littered with some far worse campaign slogans (remember the Conservatives’ 2005 “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” – an obscure slogan, to which the public’s answer was a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm">clear “no”</a>). But everything we know about leadership tells us that language is central, so we have to take this careful repetition seriously. What does Theresa May mean by “strong and stable leadership” – and why is it important?</p>
<h2>Constructing a reality?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/people/linda-smircich">Linda Smircich</a> and <a href="http://schulich.yorku.ca/faculty/gareth-morgan/">Gareth Morgan</a>, two of the world’s most prominent and insightful analysts of organisation, argued in the early 1980s that “successful” leadership (that is, persuading someone to do something they wouldn’t normally do) depended on a leader persuading people of a <a href="http://jab.sagepub.com/content/18/3/NP.3">specific reality</a>. This process of social construction happens mostly through language. That makes language central to politics, as a means of persuasion as much as a means of communicating ideas or policies.</p>
<p>“Strong and stable” tells us that the Conservative party strategists want us to think of all other options as weak and unstable. Social theorists have been telling us for a long time that the meaning we derive from language is relational. The idea of “strong” is therefore understood in relation to an implicit idea of “weak”. Conservative-sponsored adverts in this election and the last in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/spin-it-to-win-it-what-does-that-miliband-salmond-poster-tell-us-about-the-battle-of-the-political-brands">2015</a> are keen to tell us the parties and leaders who are weak and unstable. </p>
<p>There’s usually a hierarchy in this way of constructing meaning. The implication here is that strong is better than weak. This is especially true of the idea of leadership. We are bombarded daily with implicit and explicit messages that strong leadership is the ideal. You don’t have to be a believer in <a href="https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/">“servant leadership”</a> to doubt the idea of strong leadership. There’s <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1742715005057671">plenty of evidence</a> of the damage that strong leaders, in politics and in workplaces, can do. </p>
<h2>The strong man?</h2>
<p>There’s another factor at play here, too. The repetition of “strong and stable” is becoming important because it carries a series of assumptions with it. Who do you think of when someone talks about strong leadership? Someone tall, able-bodied, probably white, speaking in a deep pitch – and probably male. This ideal is reinforced by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2005.00532.x/abstract">corporate commissioned leader portraits</a> and by the representation of leaders in <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230516328">popular culture</a>. </p>
<p>The promotion of this leaderly ideal by a Conservative party led by a woman at the moment isn’t especially surprising. We’re in the midst of a significant fourth wave of feminist activism and theory and political representation is one of the key areas of activity. British politics, with the honourable exception of the Labour party, is notoriously resistant to structural change through positive discrimination schemes such as quotas. In representing their woman leader in this way, the Conservatives emphasise their contribution to that wider social movement, but without really questioning it. </p>
<p>This election campaign will see a lot of discussion about whether we can trust political party leaders. Laying claim to being “strong and stable” shouldn’t mean unthinking followership. When any of us hear a politician, or someone with leadership responsibility in a workplace, tell us what kind of leadership they think we need – ask why they need to use language in this persuasive way, what they’re not saying, and what associations the linguistic images bring with them. Then maybe we can avoid following leaders without thinking. That can only end badly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why is the PM constantly repeating this phrase and what impact is it really having on her campaign?Scott Taylor, Reader in Leadership and Organisation Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/763572017-04-18T17:25:10Z2017-04-18T17:25:10ZShock reaction to election proves May and her team know what they are doing<p>Britain had barely returned from its Easter break when the press reported that Theresa May, the prime minister, was to <a href="https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/854255578981552128">make a statement</a> in Downing Street. After an hour’s frenzied speculation about what she might say, May stepped up to a podium in front of Number 10 and announced that she and her cabinet had decided there should be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-election-a-win-win-for-theresa-may-shell-crush-labour-and-make-brexit-a-little-easier-76362">general election on June 8</a>. </p>
<p>And that, it seems, is that. Under the 2011 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011">Fixed Term Parliaments Act</a>, at least two-thirds of the House of Commons must vote in favour of an election for one to be called – ahead of the due date which in this parliament was scheduled for 2020, the last election having taken place in 2015. But with Labour saying it will <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-welcomes-snap-general-10247641">back May’s decision</a>, the country will head to the polls in a matter of weeks.</p>
<p>This was a bombshell announcement delivered at remarkably short notice. Even though political commentators have been debating the advisability of calling a snap election since the Brexit referendum, the announcement caught most of them by surprise. </p>
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<p>So what does the announcement tell us about May, her team, and the challenges they now face?</p>
<p>First of all, May is taking a gamble on her personal brand. Until now, she presented herself as a steady, no nonsense, get-the-job-done leader. To reinforce that image, she <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/five-times-theresa-may-no-10-ruled-snap-general-election/#">several times reiterated</a> that she would not call an early election. Her sudden U-turn might seem like an opportunity for the opposition parties, but she’s probably not too vulnerable on this front. </p>
<p>For all that politicians and political reporters obsess over process issues and consistency, most voters don’t. May will also be protected by the vote in the Commons to come: Labour, for one, will <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-early-general-election-2017-theresa-may-response-statement-june-8-date-a7688566.html">vote in favour</a> of an early election, so Jeremy Corbyn and his party can hardly attack her for calling it.</p>
<h2>Game on</h2>
<p>The U-turn factor notwithstanding, May’s argument for holding the election is reasonably logical. As she acknowledged in her announcement, the Brexit process has caused confusion, and many people will want a simple and clear way through the minefield. By painting the opposition parties as obstructionists and troublemakers that endanger the future of a post-Brexit Britain, May puts herself on the side of the people. </p>
<p>It all added up to a fantastic example of a leader wrongfooting both the media and the opposition, who scrambled to issue their responses. </p>
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<p>The Conservatives are also surely keen to fight a Labour party run by the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-polls-latest-37-point-lead-tories-labour-party-conservative-government-a7677861.html">dramatically unpopular</a> Corbyn. </p>
<p>May has also reportedly <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/by/gary-gibbon/blogs/election-2017-no-tv-debates-this-time">ruled out any TV debates</a> along the lines of those held in 2015. That’s a blow to the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon and the Lib Dems’ Tim Farron, both of whom stood to gain from sharing a stage with May. (Anyone who watched the 2015 debates will remember that Sturgeon’s debating skills are <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-debate-cameron-coasts-farage-falls-flat-and-sturgeon-steals-the-show-39727">especially formidable</a>.)</p>
<p>The May team won’t have the element of surprise again, and a lot now depends on whether they’re actually ready for the campaign. But the timing, tone and surprise factor of the election announcement was the work of a team that really knows what it’s doing. The fallout over the next few days will tell us a lot about the Conservatives, but even more about the other parties. </p>
<p>As Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and UKIP respond in full, we’ll start to see just how strong, prepared and determined they are – or aren’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paula Keaveney is a member of the Liberal Democrats.</span></em></p>The prime minister knows how to use the element of surprise to her advantage.Paula Keaveney, Senior Lecturer in Public Relations and Politics, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719082017-02-02T10:24:36Z2017-02-02T10:24:36ZPolitical populists – the new branding trail blazers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155169/original/image-20170201-12678-ymf4ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Why on earth would business turn to politics and politicians for marketing advice? Or potentially base their strategies for market disruption on the actions of political leaders and their campaigns? Even stop for a moment to think about this: “Aha, if I copied the politicians just think of the benefits for my brand!” </p>
<p>Business always has an interest in the regulation of industries by governments. Firms keep a shrewd eye on trends in interest rates, economic growth projections and each of the main party’s economic policies. Some even make sure they’re on top of foreign policy and its potential influence on key overseas markets. But isn’t looking in the direction of politics for examples of commercial “best practice” unheard of? If so, it’s clearly time for a change.</p>
<p>I wonder if you recognise the phrases <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/19/take-back-control-slogan-left-power-right-state-intervention">“take back control”</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again">“make America great again”</a>? Chances are they won’t fail to summon up a reaction. Not just for you, but many other people. People of diverse political persuasion, age and cultural background. Two phrases that cross traditional boundaries, that are sure to trigger a response, maybe stimulate a conversation or even automatically place an individual into a particular social group: as a “Leaver” or a “Remainer”; “for Trump” or “against Trump”. Groups with labels that, for some, in a few words, sum up their world view. And all of this as a result of a three or four word phrase, from a political campaign. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155192/original/image-20170201-12678-qa759i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">He’s sold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lancaster-pa-august-9-2016-following-467574749?src=aBmf2z9n95XCSUT3d_G93g-1-21">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what does this all mean for the commercial world? Well, firms want their brand to sum them up in a few words. They want a brand with wide appeal that can cross traditional boundaries in society and which appeals to many different audiences. A brand can be used to bring together diverse groups, including customers, employees and suppliers, to generate a strong bond and sense of affiliation with the firm. An individual’s sense of membership can be so strong they use the brand to demonstrate to others who they are, what they stand for and <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/article620276.ece">what makes them distinctive</a>. How do we know this? Not through hearsay, myth or superstition – but from research.</p>
<p>Some firms have achieved this high level of brand performance. This includes <a href="https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/about/the-partnership-spirit.html">the John Lewis Partnership</a>, which includes Waitrose supermarkets. The organisation, through its partnership philosophy, considers itself part of a wider community with customers and suppliers. Not only are employees owners of the business, customers and suppliers are considered as partners in the business’s success. To the Nationwide, a building society, their customers are not just customers, <a href="http://www.nationwide.co.uk/about/why-choose-nationwide/all-about-membership">they are members</a>. Who are, on the one hand, recognised as individually authentic and different, while on the other considered as collectively important and influential.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sr6lr_VRsEo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">John Lewis’s eagerly awaited Christmas ads.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are many other firms, Apple included, whose brands confer to individuals a sense of belonging and collective identity. Having an iPhone, iPad, MacBook all signal that you’re an Apple person and make a statement about who you are and what you stand for.</p>
<p>But many firms aren’t very good at this. <a href="http://harris-interactive.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/04/hi-brands-information-sheet.pdf">Recent research</a> jointly conducted by Aston Business School and Harris Interactive shows that brands with a poor sense of collective identity and poor co-creation with their customers lack vitality. This results in consumers rating them relatively poorly against direct competitors and less relevant for the future.</p>
<h2>Some tips for business</h2>
<p>So what useful insight about branding can businesses get from political campaigners? </p>
<p><strong>Focus on collective identity, <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470660155.html">not just individualism</a></strong>. Recent successful political campaigns do not just follow the traditional line of focusing on the needs of many different individuals. They raise issues and speak to individuals as members of a particular group to which a very substantial number hold a strong sense of membership and affinity. A potential new community.</p>
<p><strong>Concentrate on a few simple core issues</strong>. Rather than focus on an array of different issues, campaigns that concentrate on a few strong core ones will better bring the community together. Concentrate on making individuals feel part of a wider movement and, in doing so, bind them to a collective identity, connecting them to a common cause. In the US, the Trump campaign framed issues around putting people first in politics and the US first in trade. In the UK, Vote Leave primarily focused on immigration and the UK making its own decisions in its own interests. For both campaigns, all other issues were interpreted and channelled through these two different and distinct lenses.</p>
<p><strong>Have one simple message around a single purpose.</strong> Focusing on collective identity makes the campaign messaging simple. A few chosen words bring the core issues to life and reinforce individual membership of a wide movement – back to those “make America great again” and “take back control” slogans. Both are not passive statements, based on the past, but are purposeful with an end goal in mind. They communicate the purpose and goal of the community.</p>
<p><strong>Show future relevance.</strong> Historically some campaigns by political parties have successfully aimed to revive a collective idea of the past based on party history, focusing in on their underlying ideology and founding principals. The winning campaigns in the US presidential election and the European referendum question the modern relevance of this approach. Instead, raising and positioning what the campaign and its supporters see as a positive, alternative and compelling picture of the future can galvanise a community to see itself as an active and vocal part of the future, not just a group of passive and inactive spectators. </p>
<p>Of course, these observations neither show support for or against either of the campaigns. Nor is it the purpose of this piece to reinforce the politics or aspirations behind them. Only time will tell if the political application of these principals not only wins elections but translates into long-term political success. For business, however, it gives pause for thought. If used in a positive and constructive manner, these simple four principals could be used to transform a brand’s success.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of Aston Business School Keith Glanfield was part of a project on brand performance for Harris Interactive </span></em></p>Businesses were top dog when it came to branding but popular politics show there’s a new player in town.Keith Glanfield, Lecturer in Brand Marketing and Identity, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/704942016-12-21T19:01:50Z2016-12-21T19:01:50ZWhen it comes to election campaigns, is the gambling lobby all bark and no bite?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151172/original/image-20161221-14203-1cppkff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Poker machines are wildly unpopular in the electorate – so why fight an election on them?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Jeffers</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/11/ka-ching-how-the-gambling-lobby-won-the-fight-over-pokie-reforms">gambling lobby’s influence</a> in overriding popular opinion and the public interest in Australia <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-lobby-group-that-got-much-more-bang-for-its-buck">is well-known</a>. But is its electoral power exaggerated? A look at this year’s ACT election suggests that perhaps the gambling industry is less influential than it appears to be.</p>
<h2>Generating fear</h2>
<p>One crucial weapon in Big Gambling’s lobbying arsenal is its threat to campaign against MPs at elections.</p>
<p>Former politicians <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/20/politicians-fear-being-targeted-by-the-gambling-lobby-rob-oakeshott-says">describe the fear</a> generated by threats of being targeted at elections: that the gambling industry will bring such financial resources to bear in an election campaign that proponents of gambling reform will be defeated at the ballot box.</p>
<p>The 2011 campaign against federal independent MP Andrew Wilkie’s poker-machine reform agenda provides evidence of this electoral fear. Aided and abetted by a <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/27/the-conflicts-of-interest-muddying-the-anti-pokies-campaign/">conflicted media</a>, the gambling lobby <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/pokies-industry-precommits-40m-to-see-mps-lose-20111013-jafgk">boasted of a A$40 million war-chest</a> that would “eviscerate the government’s ranks of ministers and parliamentary secretaries at the next election if no compromise was reached” on Wilkie’s reforms. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-lobby-group-that-got-much-more-bang-for-its-buck">marginal seats campaign was promised</a>, in which vulnerable government MPs would be targeted with vast electoral resources to blast those who did not acquiesce to Big Gambling’s wishes out of office.</p>
<p>History shows this campaign was successful in spooking the Gillard government. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/gillards-pokie-rethink-shows-weakness-while-wilkie-wavers-4979">reneged on its promised reforms</a> well before the 2013 election. This gave the gambling industry an easy victory without an election being fought on the issue.</p>
<p>We don’t know if the gambling industry’s promised electoral strategy would have been successful because it has never been tested. Its great success has been in the <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/the-lobby-group-that-got-much-more-bang-for-its-buck">fear it generates among politicians</a> well before any election is called.</p>
<p>However, there are good reasons to think the industry’s popular support is lacking. For one, poker machines are wildly unpopular in the electorate. <a href="http://www.gamblingandracing.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/846901/2014-Survey-on-Gambling,-Health-and-Wellbeing-in-the-ACT-.pdf">In 2014</a>, 86% of ACT residents stated a belief that pokies do more harm than good, and a majority would like to see the number of machines reduced. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://lyceum.anu.edu.au/wp-content/blogs/3/uploads/ANUpoll-%20Gambling1.pdf">a national study</a> conducted during the gambling reform debate in 2011 found 74% in favour of mandatory pre-commitment.</p>
<h2>What happened in the ACT?</h2>
<p>With such little popular support for Big Gambling among voters, the wisdom of fighting an election campaign over pokies is questionable.</p>
<p>The 2016 ACT election finally put this question to the test. The issue was the Labor government’s decision to allow the Canberra Casino to <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-casino-to-get-200-poker-machines-20160505-gon6ol.html">purchase 200 pokie licenses from ACT clubs</a>, allowing the machines in the casino for the first time. </p>
<p>Lobby group ClubsACT <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/clubs-launch-campaign-against-casino-pokies-bid-20160322-gnp2ke.html">promised to campaign</a> hard on the casino issue, arguing it was a threat to the clubs sector’s viability in Canberra. But ACT Labor did not back down prior to the election, and decided to face a concerted electoral campaign by the gambling industry.</p>
<p>ClubsACT, which is reliant on pokies for the <a href="http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/726407/Sub-No.-55-ACT-Gambling-and-Racing-Commission.pdf#page=24">majority of its income</a>, launched a campaign against Labor and the Greens. It <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/clubs-act-sells-deakin-offices-to-pay-for-campaign-against-pokies-in-the-casino-20161209-gt7i15.html">reportedly spent</a> $185,000 funding the creation of a new political party, Canberra Community Voters (CCV), headed by lobbyist Richard Farmer. Most of this money was reportedly <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/act-election-2016/clubs-bankrolling-100k-of-minor-partys-antilabor-ads-20161004-grugwm.html">spent on TV advertising</a>.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A ‘Your Canberra Clubs’ ad.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>CCV’s signature issue was the future of clubs in the ACT. While it always seemed unlikely that it would gain seats in the Legislative Assembly, the political strategy appears to be one of diverting primary votes away from Labor and the Greens, and directing preferences to the Liberals. </p>
<p>A second front of attack was launched directly through the clubs themselves. During the months leading up to the election, banners and beer coasters appeared in Canberra’s community clubs bearing the slogan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Imagine Canberra without community clubs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"775928458937368576"}"></div></p>
<p>And, on election day, text messages were sent to club members, imploring them to “save your community club” by voting Liberal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151192/original/image-20161221-14185-1axm6tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A text message sent to a voter on the morning of the ACT election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francis Markham</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In all, ClubsACT reportedly <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/clubs-act-sells-deakin-offices-to-pay-for-campaign-against-pokies-in-the-casino-20161209-gt7i15.html">spent $240,000</a> on its electoral efforts. </p>
<p>But this much-feared campaign amounted to very little. CCV <a href="https://www.electionresults.act.gov.au/">received just 1,703 first-preference votes</a>, or 0.7% of validly cast votes, at a cost of $109 per vote. Clubs in the ACT collectively have more employees than CCV received votes. </p>
<p>If the clubs’ <a href="http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/726440/Sub-No.-68-Clubs-ACT.pdf">claim of 200,000 members</a> across the ACT is taken at face value, then less than 1% of members voted according to their wishes. Ultimately, the sitting Labor government was <a href="https://theconversation.com/labor-wins-act-election-decisively-67120">returned for a fifth term</a>. The Liberals, the supposed beneficiary of the clubs’ campaign, received a swing against them of 2.2%.</p>
<p>While it is impossible to know exactly what role the gambling industry’s campaign played in this election, the clubs’ monopoly over pokies clearly wasn’t a decisive issue. Few voters were swayed to change their vote by the clubs’ arguments or CCV’s advertising blitz. In the final analysis, the clubs’ willingness to spend almost a quarter-of-a-million dollars on campaigning came to little.</p>
<p>This should embolden governments around Australia that have a mind to deal with the social fallout caused by poker machines. Poker machine reform remains very popular in Australia. What we now know is that the gambling industry’s much-vaunted electoral power is more bark than bite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francis Markham has been employed on projects funded by the Australian Research Council, the government of the Northern Territory and the government of the Australian Capital Territory. He is currently employed on a project funded by the Community Benefit Fund of the Northern Territory. He is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Young has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council, Gambling Research Australia, and several state government departments. His research is currently funded by the Community Benefit Fund of the Northern Territory Government. In addition to his SCU position, he a Visiting Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, ANU.</span></em></p>The gambling lobby’s failure to seriously influence the 2016 ACT election should embolden governments around Australia that have a mind to deal with gambling reform.Francis Markham, PhD Candidate, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National UniversityMartin Young, Associate Professor, School of Business and Tourism, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664902016-10-18T19:10:28Z2016-10-18T19:10:28ZWhen truth is the first casualty of politics and journalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141558/original/image-20161013-16206-ksa5ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump has become the poster boy for 'post-truth' politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Jonathan Ernst</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Donald Trump’s conduct throughout his campaign for president of the United States has brought into renewed focus a question made famous by Pontius Pilate: what is truth?</p>
<p>Trump has exploited the 24/7 symbiotic news cyclone in which social media and the professional journalism of traditional media are both caught up.</p>
<p>He first creates social media excitement with an outrageous lie, then watches as traditional media, scrambling for “hits” and “eyeballs”, amplify those lies without first troubling with time-consuming verification.</p>
<p>This is an ethical crisis for the media, but it also a crisis for democracy.</p>
<p>In September this year, <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21706525-politicians-have-always-lied-does-it-matter-if-they-leave-truth-behind-entirely-art">The Economist ran a cover story</a> headed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The art of the lie: Post-truth politics in the age of social media. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It took Trump’s campaign as the paradigm case. It said of Trump that he:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… inhabits a fantastical realm where Barack Obama’s birth certificate was faked, the president founded Islamic State, the Clintons are killers and the father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F. Kennedy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this post-truth age, The Economist argued, truth was of secondary importance. The lies of people like Trump were not designed to create a false view of the world but to reinforce prejudices.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/truth-and-the-new-politics/">spring 2016 issue of Meanjin</a>, The Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, posed this question: what role for journalism if facts no longer count?</p>
<p>Describing the current journalistic operating environment, Murphy wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have to understand that we now practise professionally in a post-truth environment, where our audiences can increasingly choose to exist comfortably inside bubbles, selecting only the information and commentary that reinforces their views, rejecting other material.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To paraphrase The Economist again, voters are cast adrift on an ocean of lies, with nothing to cling to.</p>
<p>The common factor underlying both critiques is that voters are so disconnected from, and disillusioned with, the political process, and have become so inured to the dishonesty of politicians and the media content of politics, that they take refuge in the reinforcement of their own prejudices.</p>
<p>Thus they are easy prey for the outpourings of post-truth politics.</p>
<p>For democratic capitalist polities, where voters depend on a bedrock of reliable information on which to base decisions about political, economic and social life, this state of affairs is ultimately unsustainable.</p>
<p>How did we get here?</p>
<p>In 2011, Lindsay Tanner, finance minister in the Rudd Labor government, published a book called <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/sideshow">Sideshow</a>. In it, he excoriated politicians and the media alike for dumbing down democracy by focusing on personalities, ephemera and trivia.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, his thesis was that as the traditional media laboured under the acute financial pressures induced by the digital revolution, they increasingly reduced everything – including politics – to entertainment.</p>
<p>Politicians had then responded by playing to the new rules, so that the contest of ideas had been supplanted by a contest for laughs.</p>
<p>Today his argument looks prescient. A dumbed-down democracy devalues the currency of political debate. A devalued currency engenders distrust. Distrust leads to disillusionment, cynicism and disengagement.</p>
<p>It is made worse by a climate of economic insecurity and a sense of inequity exemplified in Australia by the popular rejection of the 2014 federal budget. When people feel threatened or pushed aside or left behind, they look for scapegoats and are eager to believe anything that supplies them with one.</p>
<p>Post-truth politics, with its comforting reinforcement of prejudice and its fleetingly entertaining outrages, is ready-made for the task.</p>
<p>What is to be done?</p>
<p>Murphy’s piece provided a useful starting point. She says that if journalists think technological change was the biggest threat to their profession, they were deluding themselves. She wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have to look in the mirror. Our intemperate excesses have discounted our own moral value. Our own behaviour has helped fuel a lack of trust.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the profession of journalism has a responsibility not to just swim along in the flood of untruths and “truthiness” – something close to the truth but in fact a lie – because it makes for extra “hits” or a fleeting laugh.</p>
<p>It has a responsibility to verify facts before publication – not afterwards – and call out falsehoods for what they are.</p>
<p>That way, the professional media can place a filter on the flood and uphold an ideal expressed by John Stuart Mill: to exchange error for truth and to create a livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We now find ourselves in a ‘post-truth’ environment, trying to find meaning in dumbed-down democracy. How did we get here?Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667552016-10-17T19:20:30Z2016-10-17T19:20:30ZWhy has Trump succeeded where others would have failed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141355/original/image-20161012-8382-1fpzocg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump’s campaign has been built upon controversial statements that have kept his name in the news.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Segar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2016 US presidential election has been unprecedented in several ways. For starters, <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/">seasoned psephologists</a> were surprised by Donald Trump’s success in the Republican primaries. </p>
<p>And while the “fundamentals” of the election would suggest the Republicans would have a significant edge – due to tepid economic growth and an incumbent Democratic president – even one of the key proponents of this model <a href="http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/forecasting-the-2016-presidential-election-will-time-for-change-mean-time-for-trump/">doubts its applicability this year</a>. </p>
<p>The reason for this doubt is that Trump is an unconventional candidate who has eschewed normal campaign practices such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/01/donald-trump-has-1-field-office-open-in-all-of-florida-thats-a-total-disaster/">setting up field offices</a>, building up campaign staff, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/">fundraising</a>, and spending on <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-television-ad-buy-late/story?id=41826253">TV advertisements</a>. </p>
<p>Trump’s campaign has been built upon controversial statements that have kept his name in the news. This strategy served him well during the primaries, where he received nearly <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-has-gotten-nearly-3-billion-in-free-advertising-2016-05-06">US$3 billion in free coverage</a>. </p>
<p>Any one of Trump’s major gaffes would have likely been fatal for other campaigns. But he has proven uniquely resilient. Why?</p>
<h2>Trump and populism</h2>
<p>The narrative the Trump campaign has played during the continual turmoil and controversy that has surrounded him is that the elites who have abandoned him or disagree with him are all part of the establishment he seeks to destroy. This is a populist appeal that resonates with a large portion of the population who feel their voices have not been heard.</p>
<p>Trump’s recently revealed <a href="https://theconversation.com/debate-reveals-trumps-dated-dangerous-masculinity-and-how-he-just-doesnt-get-it-66765">disrespectful remarks about women</a> fit with an identity of the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lhfyCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=info:kZs669WCDMwJ:scholar.google.com&ots=DHOKR3HBll&sig=ihwGUcnqhJyxpHm-WiNKvBaRcoo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=masculinity&f=false">alpha-male populist figure</a> who is strong while his opponents are “weak”, “crooked”, and lacking in “stamina”.</p>
<p>The leader is central to the idea of populism. It is the leader who will emancipate the “people” on their behalf, unshackling them from the ills, constraints, and indignities imposed upon them by a corrupt and indifferent elite. </p>
<p>Populism has been a part of American politics from its inception. <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/us/16b.asp">The Anti-Federalists</a> were a populist response to the push for the Constitution and the strong national government it created. </p>
<p>But, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, Americans have been able to keep populism at bay and avoid the emergence of democratic despotism to the extent that they resist reliance on strong authority figures to emancipate them. They rely more on themselves and their democratic capacities to work together to affect change in some aspect of political life. </p>
<p>This is the same contrast Barack Obama drew during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aip0BAWrdLw">his speech</a> at this year’s Democratic National Convention between his view of America and the narrative developed by the Trump campaign.</p>
<h2>A slow-moving trainwreck?</h2>
<p>Many Republicans are now abandoning Trump following signs his campaign may be coming off the rails completely. The release of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html">a video</a> in which Trump describes himself as engaging in sexual assault led to <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/big-name-republicans-abandon-trump-after-vulgar-remarks/article/2604008">scores of Republicans</a>, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/us/politics/donald-trump-gop-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0">Speaker of the House</a> Paul Ryan, abandoning him. </p>
<p>However, despite early concerns, they had dutifully fallen in line <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/23/politics/ted-cruz-endorses-donald-trump/">endorsing him</a> between the primaries and the convention.</p>
<p>One of America’s most-respected journalists, CBS’ Bob Schieffer, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTvbLdBlUbI">described</a> Trump’s handling of himself in the second debate and particularly his threat to jail his opponent as “disgraceful” and beneath the dignity of the office he seeks. </p>
<p>Yet polling reveals 2016 is one of the <a href="http://prospect.org/article/hardened-divide-american-politics-0">most stable races in modern times</a>. The reason for this appears to be growing partisanship. There has been a significant uptick in this since the 1990s. </p>
<p>Although there has been a consistent story about the level of undecideds and the level of support for third parties in this election, Democrat Hillary Clinton has retained a consistent lead since June 2016.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141539/original/image-20161013-16238-11wp3ms.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton">The Conversation/Aggregated poll data from Huffington Post's Pollster</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Not going away</h2>
<p>In many ways, the populist vein that Trump has tapped into won’t go away.</p>
<p>With a two-term Democratic president in the White House now, pundits have noted that 2016 is a <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/784029574405431296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">“change election”</a> whereby there is widespread fatigue for the incumbent party and demands for change, which has made the populist message resonate with so many. This has so far sustained Trump’s campaign where others might have failed.</p>
<p>Twitter users tend to <a href="https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2847/3275">cluster in partisan networks</a>. Online networks are often <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01401.x/full">critical for sustaining political rumours</a>, which have played such a big part of the rise of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-birther/500327/">Trump’s campaign</a>. </p>
<p>But it does not end there. If retweeting is a measure of Trump’s support on Twitter, he does not have fair-weather fans. Rather, they are in for the long haul. </p>
<p>Consider the comparison between Trump and Clinton’s average tweet metrics in relation to the margin of Clinton’s polling lead. As Trump does worse in the polls, his retweets go up – whereas there is no statistically significant relationship between Clinton’s retweets and her polling margin. </p>
<p>The conditions that made the Trump campaign possible will persist as long as there is a belief that governments are run by a corrupt and indifferent elite. It is a caution for whoever wins the White House that they will have to find new ways to connect with ordinary citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The narrative Donald Trump has played during the campaign is that the elites who have abandoned him or disagree with him are all part of the establishment he seeks to destroy.Michael Jensen, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664732016-10-17T01:05:46Z2016-10-17T01:05:46ZWhy newspaper endorsements might matter more in this election<p>What do <a href="http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/For-Hillary-Clinton-8650345.php">The Houston Chronicle</a>, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2016/09/07/recommend-hillary-clinton-us-president">The Dallas Morning News</a>, <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/09/23/enquirer-endorses-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/90728344/">The Cincinnati Enquirer</a> and <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2016/10/09/1-editorial-for-president-trump-unfit-clinton-is-qualified.html">The Columbus Dispatch</a> have in common? </p>
<p>They’ve all broken from their tradition of endorsing Republican nominees and have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. </p>
<p>On the same note, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today and The Atlantic have also done something new this cycle: <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-gary-johnson-president-endorsement-edit-1002-20160930-story.html">The Tribune</a> endorsed the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson (the paper usually endorses the Republican nominee, except for Barack Obama in 2008). The latter two usually don’t make endorsements but have written editorials urging voters to either not vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump (<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/09/29/dont-vote-for-donald-trump-editorial-board-editorials-debates/91295020/">USA Today</a>) or vote for Hillary Clinton (<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-and-against-donald-trump/501161/">The Atlantic</a>). </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tv/donald-trump-makes-history-zero-major-newspaper-endorsements-000943174.html">none of the top 50 newspapers</a> has endorsed Trump so far – <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/clinton-trump-newspaper-endorsements">a stark difference from the 2012 race</a>, when GOP candidate Mitt Romney garnered a number of endorsements. </p>
<p>This avalanche of surprise endorsements has raised an important question: Do newspapers endorsements even matter? And, if so, do some matter more than others? </p>
<h2>Going to the betting markets</h2>
<p>In 2008, we were living in Chicago when The Chicago Tribune decided to endorse, for the first time in its history, a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. It was big news. </p>
<p>As economists born outside of the United States, we were curious about this phenomenon. Around the world, newspaper endorsements for political candidates aren’t the norm; they certainly don’t take place in our home countries (Argentina, France and Portugal). So we decided to investigate the impact of newspaper endorsements. </p>
<p>We’re not the first to do so; <a href="http://restud.oxfordjournals.org/content/78/3/795">in an influential paper</a>, economists Chun-Fang Chiang and Brian Knight found that newspapers endorsements are likely to influence readers’ decisions, especially those of more moderate voters. </p>
<p>Building upon this research, we wanted to address a different issue: To what extent can newspaper endorsements influence the daily odds of each candidate winning? </p>
<p>Winning candidates will often receive a good chunk of endorsements. But it’s difficult to tell whether the endorsements helped get him or her the votes, or whether they earned votes simply due to the fact that they were good candidates. It’s the common dilemma of “causation or correlation.”</p>
<p>Therefore, our main challenge was creating a situation in which the quality of the candidate could remain constant, but the vote share could move. </p>
<p>To do this, we used data from online prediction markets – specifically, INTRADE, a now-defunct online platform that included a prediction exchange that would allow people to take positions (called “contracts”) on the probability of practically any event taking place. Contracts might include “England to win the 2010 Soccer World Cup,” “Jennifer Lawrence to win the Oscar for Best Actress” or, in our case, “Obama to win US Presidential Election” in 2008 and 2012. The price of a contract depends on the probability of the event taking place. For example, after England tied with the United States 1-1 in its first World Cup soccer match against South Africa, the corresponding contract for England winning the World Cup saw its price dramatically go down. </p>
<p>As such, the contract price reflects the average probability of a candidate winning the election, as estimated by market participants. For example, say the price of an “Obama winning the election” contract was US$5.25 on a given day. This meant that Obama had a 52.5 percent probability of winning at the time of purchase. If you bought a contract on that day – and if Obama ended up winning – you’d earn $10, for a net gain of $4.75. If he lost, the owner would lose his initial bet. Some researchers prefer these measures to polls because, rather than asking for a voter’s preferences, prediction markets make people “put their money where their mouth is.” </p>
<p>Following this tradition, we collected the data of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and used the price on the Obama contract to show his daily probability of winning. We then looked at how a day with a number of endorsements supporting one or the other candidate influenced this probability (measured at the end of the day). </p>
<p>But not every newspaper endorsement is equal, and it’s important to factor this into the analysis as well. Some have more readers than others. Some tend to support Republican candidates, while others tend to support Democratic candidates.</p>
<p>For this reason, we classified newspapers according to their political leaning along two dimensions already measured in the literature: (1) the media slant (<a href="http://web.stanford.edu/%7Egentzkow/research/biasmeas.pdf">a measure created in the influential work</a> of economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro) and (2) their propensity to endorse the Democratic candidate, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00000009">data that come from the work</a> of political scientists Stephen Ansolabehere, Rebecca Lessem and James M. Snyder. </p>
<p>The media slant measure – which examines the ideology of the newspaper and the language used in covering polarizing matters such as abortion, illegal immigrants and stem-cell research – is used to determine whether or not an endorsement is a surprise.</p>
<p>We then estimated the impact of such endorsements on Obama’s probability of winning. </p>
<h2>The results, and what they mean in 2016</h2>
<p>Our first findings built nicely upon previous research. We found, perhaps not surprisingly, that endorsements from high-circulation newspapers have a larger effect on the probability of winning.</p>
<p>More interestingly, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12317/abstract">our results</a> suggested that endorsements that were a surprise (given the editorial board choices in previous elections) – but were still consistent with the traditional style and rhetoric of the newspaper – seemed to matter the most. For instance, The Chicago Tribune’s endorsement for Obama in 2008 seemed to have a significant effect. The paper had never endorsed a Democrat candidate before, but it also maintained its traditional center-right style and tone.</p>
<p>Overall, we found that on days with at least one endorsement, the endorsed candidate experiences higher odds of winning. There’s some evidence that this effect increases the more endorsements a candidate receives on a given day. However, this should be taken with a grain of salt; with each additional endorsement, the marginal effect decreases. </p>
<p>Among the many strange events of this election cycle are the huge share of surprise endorsements. Because one candidate, Donald Trump, has distanced himself from the traditional ideology of his party, he’s also distanced himself from the traditional ideology of some editorial boards. The combination of these two anomalies have brought newspaper endorsements into the spotlight more than ever before. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141861/original/image-20161014-30252-1u0vjrr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A chart compares newspaper endorsements from 2012 and 2016.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Extrapolating our results to the current election, this means that USA Today’s mandate to not elect Trump could have a significant effect, since it’s one of the top U.S. newspapers in terms of circulation. </p>
<p>And what about Hillary’s endorsements from right-leaning publications that endorsed Romney in 2012, like The Cincinnati Enquirer? Using our data from previous election cycles, if Clinton had a 50 percent chance of winning on the day of the endorsement, it would have likely increased her odds of winning the election by a couple of percentage points.</p>
<p>Putting our economists’ hats on, we know our results should be interpreted with caution, as they speak to short-run effects on the perceived probability of a candidate winning the elections. Those effects may fade as we get closer to election date or as long as other events take place during the campaign. Naturally, new information could emerge about a candidate that influences the final outcome. The most conservative interpretation of our results is that newspaper endorsements can help to create momentum that the receiving candidate can build upon. </p>
<p>In our paper, we explain in detail why the interpretation of our results should be taken as causal, and not casual. (That is, our identification strategy implies that the probability of winning increases due to the endorsements and not other events that may have taken place the same day.)</p>
<p>In sum, do endorsements matter? Definitely. They can help create momentum for the candidate and slightly shift the odds. But will they define the outcome on Election Day? Unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yarine Fawaz receives funding from ECO2013-46516-C4-1-R (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia) and SGR2014-1279 (Generalitat de Catalunya). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agustin Casas and André Trindade do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People tend to assume that most papers have an inherent bias, so a group of economists looked at what happens when there’s a surprise pick.Agustin Casas, Assistant Professor of Organization and Business Management, CUNEFAndré Trindade, Assistant Professor of Economics, Getulio Vargas FoundationYarine Fawaz, Research Fellow, Center for Monetary and Financial StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664802016-10-09T19:03:38Z2016-10-09T19:03:38ZPost-truth politics and the US election: why the narrative trumps the facts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140811/original/image-20161006-32704-j509nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In politics, as in life in general, there are many things we value more than truth.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Segar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does the truth count in politics? Or is it just a matter of doing what you have to do for the greater goal of making sure the “right” people and parties get elected? </p>
<p>Do we really want our leaders to be truthful, or indeed have any particular virtues? Or do we just want people who will do what we think should be done?</p>
<p>These are questions with complex answers. But in this complexity one simple idea stands out: in politics, as in life in general, there are many things we value more than truth.</p>
<p>The demotion of truth as a criterion for success (by both politicians and the electorate) is evident in the current US election, where politicians can make statements that are demonstrably false and escape unscathed, at least in the eyes of those who already support them. This is true of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/26/debate-fact-check-trump-clinton-live-quotes-hofstra">both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton</a> and many of their supporters.</p>
<p>What we value most in politicians is not that they tell the truth, but that they agree with us, or at least that the worldview they espouse resonates with our own. Under these conditions, the minor incoherence of conflicting statements, or even outright lies, is a secondary concern compared with the greater coherence on offer.</p>
<p>It is partly for this reason that the lies of politicians we don’t agree with seem like howling inconsistencies — which we post on social media with wicked delight — while the lies of more agreeable politicians are just trifling matters, best overlooked or forgiven. </p>
<h2>Truth is a poor second</h2>
<p>But why should this be the case?</p>
<p>One way to understand this is to appreciate that humans are storytelling animals. From creation myths to parables, and even political ideologies, we create and embrace stories because they help us make sense of the world and understand our place within it. </p>
<p>We make stories, or narratives, that explain how the world works, how people prosper, how we should treat each other, and how we ought to behave. Many of these narratives are political – those on the left have different narratives from those on the right, for example.</p>
<p>We care much more that our narratives provide us with meaning than that they are true. Even when we value truth, we associate it with coherence. Therefore, the more coherent our own narratives, the more we think they are true.</p>
<p>As psychologist Daniel Kahneman has <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/30/daniel-kahneman-intuition/">noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence but of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What’s more, we actively fight to maintain our narratives in the face of information that could corrupt them. It is often easier to ignore facts, or look for reasons to discount them, than it is to remake our narrative. </p>
<p>The decoupling of truth and politics and the consequent shrinking of evidence-based policy was eloquently demonstrated in 2013 by Joe Hockey, soon to be Australian treasurer, <a href="http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-daily-examiner/20130829/281814281525258">when he said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fact-checkers are entitled to their opinion.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The narrative trumps the facts</h2>
<p>The problem is that often the truth does not speak for itself – it has to be interpreted through a narrative. This means facts alone <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-facts-alone-dont-change-minds-in-our-big-public-debates-25094">are not enough</a>.</p>
<p>As an example, the gun lobby in the US and those seeking gun control can see the same event as evidence for their own cases. Another mass shooting? To those supporting gun control, it’s a case of “if only the perpetrator had been prevented from accessing a gun”. To those pro-gun, it’s a case of “if only those around them were better armed”. </p>
<p>Both statements are completely coherent with the narratives of their proponents.</p>
<p>Politicians help us make narratives, or try to, and then appeal to them. Stories of us and the other, of lifters and leaners, of familiar and unfamiliar, are the stuff of political persuasion. </p>
<p>In the extreme, it’s a case of demonise, polarise, marginalise and cauterise – a ruthless and self-serving strategy in which protagonists fan the flames of discontent and ride the thermals to political success. More subtly, it can be an appeal to tradition or an invocation of stories that represent “better times”.</p>
<p>And once a narrative is crafted and accepted, we have a clear criterion for accepting or rejecting the views of others – does what you say fit my narrative or not? </p>
<p>When we ask someone what they think about an issue, it is more common that they will be performing this internal matching process than actually analysing the truth of the matter. They will be judging rather than thinking; reacting rather than engaging. This is exactly <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-politicians-dont-want-us-to-think-but-opinions-are-okay-41459">what politicians want</a>, since tinkering with narratives is an effective path to manipulation.</p>
<p>What a political narrative fits, however, is not the truth but people’s collective and individual preferences. It is built primarily for utility, not for truth-seeking.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this explains the success of politicians like Trump. Trump has delivered a narrative that, for many people:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>has explanatory power;</p></li>
<li><p>is coherent with what they feel about many things; and </p></li>
<li><p>offers a way out based on the unfolding of the narrative. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Clinton, too, has done the same. </p>
<p>Which one actually has the most traction with reality is an empirical question, but only one will be tested. </p>
<p>To decide between Clinton and Trump, American voters will have to decide which narrative they prefer, leaving the truth to emerge later from the political rubble.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To decide between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, American voters will have to decide which narrative they prefer, leaving the truth to emerge later from the political rubble.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.