Political Deliberation on Facebook during Electoral Campaigns: Exploring the Relevance of Moderator’s Technical Role and Political Ideology

ABSTRACT

This study examines the potential of Facebook to provide a channel of political deliberation during electoral campaigns. Through a comparative content analysis of user-generated political commentary on candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, it explores the technical role of moderators and moderators’ political ideology for online deliberation. Results show that social networking sites (SNSs) can represent spaces that accommodate a new public sphere and that quality deliberation can occur even in nonpolitical platforms. However, the quality of online deliberation depends on the sociopolitical context in which it occurs rather than on the technological use of online spaces for deliberation. Although political discourse in moderated sites showed more sophisticated argumentation, political ideology did not seem to matter for the quality of deliberation. Rather, the quality of the discourse depended on the particular candidate’s use of the Facebook platform as a tool to obtain different goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Deliberative democracy
• electoral campaigns
• Facebook
• moderated discussions
• online discourse
• political communication

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindita Camaj

Lindita Camaj is an assistant professor in the Jack J. Vanlenti School of Communication at the University of Houston. Her research interests include political communication, media role during electoral campaigns, agenda-setting effects, and freedom of information legislation.

Arthur D. Santana

Arthur D. Santana is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University. His research delves into journalism, participatory media, user-generated content, the intersection of journalism and ethics, politics and social media.