Becoming a Presidential Candidate: Social Media Following and Politician Identification

Abstract

Political candidates increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings and chronicle an unfolding election. We argue that the concept of identification—the process through which an audience member cognitively assumes the perspective of a media personality—can help illuminate how online campaigns can increase citizen support. This study employed a two-wave survey with a U.S. national sample conducted prior to the 2016 presidential election. Results of our analysis support our expectations that following Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on social media leads to increased identification with that candidate, which then affects candidate support.

Notes

¹ Although not reported in our analysis, we also considered whether participants’ levels of social media use had any affect on the variables of interest. Specifically, a daily social media use variable was used as a covariate in the models. The measure was created by combing participants’ answers to how much time spent per day on eight social media sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) (Cronbach’s α = .95, M = 2.81; SD = 1.71). However, the variable was not significantly related to any other variables of interest, nor did it affect the pattern of results, so it was not included in our analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bryan McLaughlin

Bryan McLaughlin (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014) is an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising at Texas Tech University. His research examines how social identity categories are constructed and maintained through communication, how these social identity categories are processed cognitively, and the effects of this processing on sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors.

Timothy Macafee

Timothy Macafee (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014) is an assistant professor of communication in the Department of Communication at Concordia University Wisconsin. His research interests include how individuals use social media for political information, how these information behaviors relate to political attitudes, and the role of these attitudes on political engagement.