Campaigning in the fourth age of political communication. A multi-method study on the use of Facebook by German and Austrian parties in the 2013 national election campaigns

ABSTRACT

Starting from the contribution to the discussion on a fourth age of political communication, here we argue that, as a consequence of how the Web 2.0 has changed political campaigns, the theoretical time-bound three-phase models of political campaigning must be reconsidered. We propose four ideal campaign types based on their ideal-typical target audience: partisan-, mass-, target group- and individual-centered campaigns. In reality, each campaign combines elements of all types. To examine this mixture empirically, we apply a most similar systems design and investigate five German and six Austrian parties’ use of Facebook in the 2013 national election campaigns. On the basis of face-to-face interviews with the campaign managers and a quantitative content analysis of the respective parties’ Facebook pages, we analyze how parties used Facebook as a campaigning tool to inform, interact with, and mobilize voters, as well as which target audiences they addressed. We find that, although the campaign managers declare Facebook their most important Web 2.0 campaigning tool, the German and Austrian parties did not make use of Facebook’s interactive and mobilizing potential, rather relying on mass-centered information, possibly due to the framework conditions in both countries. Based on our findings, we conclude that the role of context for election campaigning should be discussed more carefully.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative research
• content analysis
• election campaigning
• expert interviews
• Facebook
• types of election campaigns

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Melanie Magin is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Mainz. She received her PhD from the University of Mainz with a dissertation on election campaign coverage in Germany and Austria (1949–2006). Her research interests include political communication, media performance research, media structures and media policy, comparative research, and information intermediaries in times of digitization (particularly searchengines and social networking services). (email: [email protected]).

Dr. Nicole Podschuweit is the head of the German Research Foundation project The Role of Interpersonal Political Communication in the Process of Media Effects at the Department of Communication, University of Erfurt, Germany. She received her PhD from the University of Mainz, Germany with a dissertation titled Effects of Political Advertising in the Context of Media Coverage. Her research areas include political communication, media effects research, and quantitative methods inthe social sciences. Recently her research focus has been on interdependencies of mass media and interpersonal communication in the persuasion process. (email: [email protected]).

Dr. Jörg Haßler is Research Assistant at Department of Communication Research at the University of Mainz, Germany. He has a degree in communication research and political science and earned his doctorate on the subject of mediatization of political communication on climate change. His research interests include political communication, online communication and empirical methods. The author is member of the Research Unit Political Communication in the Online World. (email: [email protected]).

Prof. Dr. Uta Russmann (PhD, University of Vienna) is a professor at the Department of Communication, Marketing & Sales at the FHWien of WKW University of Applied Sciences for Management & Communication, Vienna. She conducts research on online communication, public relations, strategic communication, political communication, and media and elections. (email: [email protected]).