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Political Campaigns and Social Media: A Study of #mhe13 in Ireland

Article  in  Irish Political Studies · March 2015

DOI: 10.1080/07907184.2015.1018899

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 Political campaigns and social media: a study of
#mhe13 in Ireland





Jane Suiter
School of Communications, DCU




Abstract

This report documents the 2013 Meath East by-election through the lens of
social media. We can use social media as a means in which to view the traditional
campaign. Candidates use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to market,
to mobilise and to engage with their supporters and the general public. Utilising
all the major party candidates’ Twitter and Facebook activity during the 2013
Meath East by-election campaign, this report finds that candidates vary distinctly
in their use of social media but almost all place a greater emphasis on marketing
and mobilising than engaging. In addition it examines to what extent social
media yield a preference vote bonus, finding a significant (yet small) one.1


Introduction

Irish election campaigns are perhaps best epitomised by the wearing out of shoe
leather. Candidates and teams of canvassers go door to door, visit shopping
centres, football matches and stand at busy junctions seeking out votes. For their
part, voters expect personal contact and, in fact, the received wisdom is that a
voter may not vote for a candidate simply because their vote has never been
directly asked for (Sinnott 1995).

The emergence of web 2.0 technologies such as social media and micro blogging
provides an additional, and cheap, level of armoury for candidates wishing to
engage with their electorates. Irish parties and candidates are now including an
online component as part of their campaigning strategies, and research into the
online campaigning of Irish parties points to a growing use of the medium
(Sudulich and Wall 2010) although accompanied by a marked reluctance to
change ‘tried and tested’ content. In other words, we might expect that Irish
candidates may not take full advantage of the interactivity inherent in social
media and may instead continue to use social media as a form of personal press

1
The author would like to thank DCU MAP students Colm Jordan and Cait Hayes for their help in
research and their own excellent reports into this by-election.

1
release, primarily to market unmediated campaign messages and reflect the
ground campaign.

In general, social media such as Facebook and Twitter place the focus on the
individual politicians rather than the political party, thereby expanding the
political arena for increased personalised campaigning, (Enli and Skogerbo
2013). As we shall see Irish by-elections are also candidate-focussed contests
which are ideal test grounds for the deployment of social media in political
campaigns. This report examines the by-election in Meath East in 2013 in order
to explore how Irish candidates are adapting to the use of social media and
argues that this will allow us to examine 1) the extent to which campaigns utilise
social media in order to amplify or market the traditional campaign and 2) the
extent to which they utilise the features of web 2.0 in order to mobilise potential
voters 3) the extent to which they engage in the features of web 2.0 and
engaging in dialogue or interacting with others and 4) whether engaging in
activity on social media has an impact on first preference vote share. It finds a
mixed picture, with most candidates still utilising the medium as a direct
extension of local campaigning. Interesting inter-candidate differences are found
in terms of the balance between marketing and mobilisation, the amount of
interaction engaged in, as well as a (small) but significant impact on vote share.


Literature

There are, of course, a number of ways that we can examine campaigning, the
traditional route through party leader and other surveys (Denver and Hands
1997, Denver 2002, Whiteley and Seyd 2003, Johnston and Pattie 2011). We can
also go the indirect route and examine proxies such as campaign spending
(Pattie et al. 2011, Pattie, Johnston and Fieldhouse 1995, Benoit and Marsh 2010,
Sudulich 2011) and of course through election study panels and individual level
data examine the extent to which voters interact with the campaign (Whiteley
and Seyd 2003, Johnston and Pattie 2003, Pattie and Johnston 2003, Marsh
2004a, Gorecki and Marsh 2012). Separately, there has been analysis of the social
media campaign in a range of countries and electoral systems including Norway
(Karlsen and Skogerbø 2013) Holland (Spierings and Jacobs 2014)
and Finland (Enli and Skogerbo 2013).

The more candidate centred systems such as the US and open list European
systems, as well as under PR-STV in Ireland, often have a greater focus on the
door-to-door campaign (Marsh 2004b) Indeed, Irish elections, incentivised by
the open nature of PR-STV, where voters can specify an ordered preference for
any candidate in any party or none, lead to the usual inter and more intense
intra party competition. They are characterised by the old fashioned hard slog of
door-to-door canvassing, involving substantial human interaction. In Ireland
high numbers report meeting the candidate. Indeed, almost 80 per cent of voters
in the 2002 general election reported that a party worker or candidate called to
their home (Marsh 2004b).

2
At the same time, the time honoured use of posters and campaign leaflets
remains central to all campaigns, thus parties will behave as parties almost
everywhere do, produce literature, promote their leaders and seek to control the
national media message. At the same time, the local organisation will run the
door-to-door canvass, ensure the candidate attends all significant sports games
and funerals and appears in the local press and on local radio. However, while
the nexus of the campaign still evolves around this traditional local battleground,
Irish campaigns are not immune to global trends and indeed US election
consultants have been employed in the last two national election campaigns
(Wall and Sudlich 2011).

As Spierings and Jacobs (2014) argue social media is a new tool in personal
campaigning, a tool with low costs and possibly high benefits and one that can be
controlled by the candidate herself and her handlers. The problem for candidates
is how to integrate this so-called post-modern campaigning or social media
campaigning, that is campaigning deploying internet and mobile-based tools for
sharing which place an emphasis on collaboration and user generated content,
with the pre-modern campaign based on the canvass..

We can also estimate the importance that parties attach to various activities
through examining the relative expenditure on that item. In Ireland, the data on
electoral spending is available with both candidates and parties required to
make returns to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) on all
expenditure from the date the writ for the bye election is moved until election
day.2 We see that only Fine Gael spent a significant sum on social media. The
other parties, while maintaining a presence on both Facebook and Twitter,
appear to have limited their endeavours in so far as they did not pay to boost
posts or engage in geo-targeting.

INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

(Enli and Skogerbo 2013) suggest the three primary components of a social
media political campaign are: marketing, which includes messaging and the
sharing of personal information; mobilisation which includes a call to action
perhaps to canvass or vote; and dialogue, which is holding reciprocal
conversations with other users. The former is most akin to the traditional
campaign, the second is an attempt to convert social media to the real world and
the third is the more unique aspect of social media campaigning.

In terms of marketing, social media can serve as a showcase or a campaign
poster. This may work especially well for Facebook, which allow users to add
details about their hobbies, interests, political views, and personal lives. As such,
they allow for more ‘personality-centered’ campaigns that give potential
voters’ insight in the life and interests of a politician (Vergeer, Hermans and
Sams 2013). As well as this simple display effect, there may also be a symbolic

2
The detail is incomplete as two candidates, Ben Gilroy (Direct Democracy) and Jim Tallon (Non Party)
failed to make a return to the Commission

3
value to having a social media account, signalling that the candidate is not out of
date and is visible to journalists who tend to be regular users of social media
such as Twitter (Spierings and Jacobs 2014).

The first social media campaigns demonstrated how new web 2.0 campaign
techniques could be used to amplify, organise and mobilise more traditional
campaign activities (Vaccari 2010) In other words candidates may simply
attempt to replicate their traditional door-to-door campaign through web
marketing. In some ways this may mirror the early years of television in political
campaigning (Towner 2012) where the dominant mode of interaction was top
down broadcasting rather than engaging in dialogue. As a candidate becomes
more engaged she may then use it to further mobilise support. This may be
followers acting as ‘ambassadors’, using information received from social media
to influence their friends and peers, in other words mobilising further support
(Gibson and McAllister 2011). Mobilisation in terms of a social media campaign
can also be envisaged as an effort to turn web-based support into real world
actions, the so-called onion effect (Cogburn and Espinoza-Vasquez 2011) where
each contact is not simply a vote request but a call to action, organise, fundraise,
canvass or organise events.. Irish candidates did not have to access to the same
technologies in this by-election but nonetheless it is worth examining the extent
to which candidates put out calls to action and mobilisation, for example
promoting canvass times or reminding people to vote.

The third area of focus is on engagement. After all, Twitter is powered by
interaction, by conversations between users and is not particularly useful for
those who seek to broadcast rather than engage in dialogue (Harfoush 2009).
Candidates seeking to take advantage of the interactive effects of Twitter are
likely to engage in more dialogues, replying to and mentioning other users rather
simply broadcasting messages. However, in the 2010 local elections in the UK
researchers found that many candidates were still engaging in a ‘wait and see’
approach and that those who were on social media were largely broadcasting
campaign news and events rather than engaging directly (Southern and Ward
2011). This leads us to the first hypothesis:

H1: Candidates are more likely to engage in traditional activities such as
marketing and mobilisation rather than engagement in their online campaign
No matter to which use a candidate puts social media in a political campaign is of
interest its potential impact on voting will be the goal. Sparlings and Jacobs
(2013) set out two ways in which social media can have an impact: a ‘direct’
effect of the number of social media ‘followers’ on the number of preference
votes a candidate receives and an interaction effect combining the number of
followers and actual social media usage. The insight is that followers are more
likely to yield an electoral dividend when a candidate actively mobilizes them.
They found an interaction effect in operation with more active social media
users gaining more votes per follower in the Netherlands. This leads to the
second hypothesis:

H2: Candidates are more likely to receive a preference vote dividend if they
engage on social media

4

Background to #mhe13

Ireland is the only country in Europe to combine a proportional representation
electoral system with by-elections as a means of filling casual vacancies. The
electoral system, PR-STV provides incentives for candidate centred campaigns,
with candidates competing on an intra as well as inter-party basis. In a by-
election with only a single member being returned (in effect a type of AV
electoral system), there is little incentive for support to be transferred between
candidates. In addition, incumbents may be wary of the potential threat of a
running mate who may then unseat them at the forthcoming general election and
thus not campaign to the fullest extent for their party mate. Finally, localism
where the local roots and constituency service record of a candidate are also
vital cues. The combination of these factors arguably mean that a by-election
campaign is even more candidate centred than a general election campaign. But
of course there are also partisanship effects in the sense that the party of a
candidate can serve as a vital voting cue. (Beamish and Coakley 1983) as quoted
in (Gallagher 1996) argue that by-elections frequently resemble miniature
general elections involving the front bench of both the government and
opposition parties. Thus it may be suggested that by-election contests are
primarily local, individual, candidate driven affairs although party will serve as a
voting cue. Hence a by-election campaign should incentivise a local candidate-
driven communication strategy which is arguably suited to social media.

In general, in by-elections in other countries turnout falls, support for the
government falls, support for minor parties rises and the number of candidates
increases, however, this pattern does conform to the Irish experience (Gallagher
1996). At that time Irish governments had gained a net total of 3 seats at by-
elections, prior to this election in 2013 the net gain had reduced to one, but
notably is still in positive territory. At the same time governing parties had taken
25 seats from opposition parties and the same number had been taken back.
Thus in 2013 there was thus a real chance that the governing parties could retain
their hold on the seat despite implementing an austerity regime as a result of the
bailout and agreement with the troika. This hope was probably bolstered in the
governing party as the daughter of the deceased incumbent was running.

In the preceding general election in 2011 Meath East had returned three
government TDs. The untimely death of one, Minister for State Shane McEntee
had led to the by-election and it was contested by many younger candidates
including his daughter Helen McEntee (26) for Fine Gael; a Senator and former
TD who had lost his seat Thomas Byrne (35) for Fianna Fail; a local councillor
Eoin Holmes (48) for Labour; and Darren O’Rourke (32) for Sinn Fein, a party
adviser. The constituency itself is a mixed one with a more traditional rural vote
and a younger more urban electorate to the south along the border with Dublin
(see Table 2). The eventual winner was McEntee with 38.5% of the first
preference vote followed by Byrne with 32.9% of the vote (see table 2). The final
column contains the percentage point change form the party vote totals at the
previous election. The Labour party suffered the most dramatic decline with a

5
16.44 point loss, while Byrne received the largest boost with 13.29 point
increase.

INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE

.


Data and Discussion

The research design here is broadly explorative, and does not allow for
generalisation of the findings, instead the findings may help develop empirical
insights as well as theory building. It draws on a content analysis of Facebook
and Twitter profiles of 5 Irish politicians who contested the Meath East by-
election in 2013. Some 11 candidates ran in this by-election but not all had active
social media accounts and those included here represent the major parties and
independents and were all those who received above 1,000 votes.. All updates on
Facebook and on Twitter were gathered from 22 February, the date that Fianna
Fáil and Sinn Fein selected their candidates, to 27 March, the date of the by-
election. The Twitter api introduces a small degree of randomness which
increases the greater amount of time passes. However, the updates were
downloaded within weeks of the campaign and can be assumed to be almost
completely accurate. The updates were analysed through quantitative content
analysis utilising Nvivo, the coding manual was developed by the author as was
the coding. A second coder coded one of the candidates and an inter-coder
reliability test produced a Chrone’s kappa of 0.786, above the permitted
minimum level of agreement.

Updates were coded into the three categories: marketing; mobilisation; and
engagement. Marketing included all updates about media appearances, the
weather, sports and cultural events. Mobilisation included all updates on the
canvass and get out the vote messages, while engagement was all updates which
were in reply to another user and a reposting or retweet of another user’s
message. Of course, there was overlap among these categories but the first
category was chosen. Thus if a candidate replied to a user and mentioned a
canvass it was counted as reply and hence engagement not as mobilisation.

In terms of marketing activity, Twitter was by far the most used,
all five main candidates in this by-election had Twitter accounts, however only
McEntee, Byrne and Holmes had public Facebook pages and Holmes only
updated his twice and nether time was the material campaign related.

INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE

In addition, McEntee was more inclined to use her Facebook page for marketing
updates with personal messages predominating. For Byrne on the other hand
only about half of his Facebook updates were marketing related. Both of these
candidates also had substantial numbers of followers on Twitter, with only
Gilroy coming close with both generating over 2,000 Facebook likes over the

6
course of the campaign. For both candidates their marketing related Facebook
posts received the most attention. McEntee’s most popular post was a personal
one ahead of a local radio interview, which she described as “nerve wracking”
(190 likes), followed a picture of her canvassing in Drumconrath (131 likes) with
a photograph. Thomas Byrne’s most popular post was on his selection as a
candidate ,which received 277 likes. After that various pictures doing the
campaign of his campaign poster with a child (158 likes) and attending the
parade in Kells (136 likes) also garnered a good deal of attention.

Mobilisation in Ireland is very different to a party-centred system such as
Norway and the vast majority of mobilisation related posts and updates related
to the canvass, reflecting the traditional Irish campaign. All of the candidates
posted about being out canvassing, about the weather out canvassing, and about
who was canvassing. They also all retweeted messages from others about
canvassing for them. We can see (Table 3) that for McEntee almost half of her
tweets related to mobilisation as well as the majority of her retweets. While
Holmes also had high levels of engagement in his Twitter posts these were
largely retweets where he simply retweeted posts from others on the Labour
campaign team on their canvass experience. Second to canvassing was a
traditional get out the vote message, reminding followers and friends of polling
times and so on.

INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE

A precondition for dialogue or engagement is to be connected (Enli and
Skogerbo, 2013) . On Twitter the relationship between the candidate and those
following can be asymmetrical, in other words she can choose whether or not to
follow back those that follow her. In Table 3 we can see that many of the
candidates follow just over 300 people, however Byrne follows almost twice that
and Gilroy only one tenth. In addition the column on ratio is the number of
followers to those following. The higher the number the less likely the candidate
is to follow back those that follow her.

In terms of engagement, if a candidate replied to someone on Twitter this is
always coded as engagement, although for many of these politicians, “thanks” is
the most likely reply. But shares also drive engagement on Facebook, which is
included here as it is a more active engagement than merely pressing a “like”
button.

INSERT TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE

We have examined what type of activity each of the candidates engage in online
but does it matter in terms of vote share? Spierings and Jacobs (2013) found that
higher number of followers only yields more votes when the candidate actively
uses social media. Following their model, the following multivariate analysis
includes dummy variables for each party as well as interaction terms. These
variables control for party-specific effects, that is the percentage vote for that
party at the last election. The normal controls such, as incumbency were not
included given that in a by-election none of the candidates are incumbents and

7
none are particularly well known nationally. This model is only run for Twitter
given that the plurality of candidates did not have a Facebook account at the by-
election.

We can see here that in the basic first model having followers on Twitter matters
and every new follower is worth 2.5 votes. The reason for this far higher than
expected number is undoubtedly that the number of followers is in some ways a
proxy for real campaign activity on the ground. Thus merely buying followers
would not of course result in this increase in votes. In addition, the model is
more complicated than that so when we add in interaction such as the number
and type of updates we see that every follower adds five votes. While at the same
time in this instance following more people tends to lose votes. This is some
ways an artefact of the limited data here and thus it may be more useful to
examine the ratio of followers to following. In general more high profile users
will tend not to follow everyone back. However, there may also be a ratio which
is appropriate as following no one is likely to limit interactions and social
opportunities. Thus in Model 3 we deploy the ratio of followers to following,
which varies, from 1:1 for Eoin Holmes to 1:34 for Ben Gilroy. Here we find that a
one-point increase in the ratio leads to 301 additional votes. The negative sign on
the Tweet/Retweet/Reply (coded from 1-3) variable implies that merely
broadcasting or tweeting and retweeting rather than replying to others users
will also lose votes.


INSERT TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE

Conclusion

Given the low cost of setting up and using social media, it is perhaps not
surprising that Irish politicians tend to use it. However, it is perhaps surprising
that they tend more towards Twitter than Facebook, unlike their colleagues in
other European countries. However, this was of course a very limited sample and
more work will need to be undertaken at the next general election in order to
ascertain if the patterns suggested here do in fact hold in the larger competition

We examine first how Irish candidates in this by-ejection utilised social media
whether for marketing, mobilisation or for engagement and find that they all
used it to various extents for all three activities. We then went on to examine
whether the use of social media had any impact on preference vote and find that
of course the vote for the party at the previous election was a strong predictor. In
this situation this may be lower than expected given that collapse of the Labour
vote for Eoin Holmes as well as the arrival of a new candidate and party in Ben
Gilroy of Direct Democracy. The Labour vote was in collapse in general
according to opinion poll evidence. A Red C poll reported on March 23 just four
days before the by-election had Fine Gael on 28%, Fianna Fail on 24%, Sinn Fein
on 14%, Labour on 13% and Independents on 21%. Nonetheless, this report
might suggest that Holmes’ relative lack of engagement and low ratio of
followers to those he was following, on social media may not have helped his
chances.

8

In addition, the analysis also shows that that social media do have a significant
(albeit rather limited) added value in terms of extra preference votes. In general
it would appear that social media—Twitter in particular—have a modest effect
on the number of preference votes a candidate receives when they are used. This
is similar to the findings of a much lager study (Spierings and Jacobs 2014) in the
Netherlands, which gives some reassurance. However, given the very limited
nature of the study, on just one constituency, in one by-election, the results
cannot be generalised. Rather they act as a useful first excursion into theory and
hypothesis building. More research will be needed at the next general election in
Ireland and in other candidate centred elections in other jurisdictions.

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