BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Constituency level Web campaigns in the 2010 UK General Election

Benjamin LeeInstitute for social changebenjamin.lee@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

My thesis: Is a study of the adoption, implementation and organisational implications of Web usage at the local level in the 2010 UK general election

This presentation: Focuses on the first two chapters of my thesis dealing with the adoption of web campaign tools and how they are used

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND – PROBLEMS Political parties

Declining membership (Katz & Mair, Mass & Bizen) Catch All/Electoral Professional parties (Kircheimer,

Panebianco) The end of linkage?

Campaigns The arrival of political marketing Professionalization and modernisation (Green &

Smith, Gibson & Rommele, Norris) Why get involved?

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND - SOLUTIONS Can technology offer a solution? Internet and Democracy: Rheingold,

Negroponte, Toffler, Castells Party organisational change

The Cyber-party (Margetts) The Network Party (Heidar & Saglie) Organisational hybridity (Chadwick)

What about campaigns?

CAMPAIGNS IN THE WEB 2.0 ERA

We are living in a post-Obama environment, 2008 a perceived watershed

Emergence of Web 2.0 Highly interactive, based on the ‘architecture of

participation’ In the UK 2010 campaign most often

represented by Facebook and Twitter Easy/free to use

So are we moving towards more connected campaigns in the UK?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Three things we need to know about the use of Web 2.01. Are campaigns using it? TOOLS2. If so how are they using it? BEHAVIOUR3. What kind of campaign organisation is it

supporting? ORGANISATION Today I am focussing on questions one

and two

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Campaigns unlikely to be uniform, need a framework to distinguish between them

Need a socially determined reason to adopt online campaign techniques, reject a purely technologically determinist stand point

Adopted Fisher and Denver (2009) indices, sees campaigns as being traditional and modernised to various degrees

TRADITIONAL AND MODERN CAMPAIGNS A heuristic device Traditional campaigns

Emphasise techniques such as doorstep canvas and distribution of leaflets

Rely on building local networks of supporters, face-to-face or retail politics

Do not have access to political marketing tools, likely to be low priority receive little scrutiny

Modernised campaigns Emphasise techniques such as direct mail and telephone canvassing Rely on marketing techniques to deliver votes With access to money and advanced techniques comes greater

scrutiny NOT mutually exclusive

HYPOTHESES

H1 traditional campaigns are likely to make more use of social media and be more interactive

H2 modernised campaigns are likely to make less use of social media and be less interactive

H3 combined campaigns are likely to make less use of social media and be less interactive

H4 low activity campaigns are less likely to make use of web campaign techniques overall

ALTERNATE EXPLANATIONS

Party affiliation Different parties have different propensity to

campaign online Campaign status

Incumbent candidates, marginal candidates The digital divide in constituencies

Some constituencies less likely to be online The digital divide in candidates

Some candidates less likely to be online

WEB CAMPAIGN TOOLS

Want to know the extent to which campaigns adopted online tools

Data comes from 2010 Electoral Agent Survey 1079 cases across England, Scotland and Wales Established survey, basis for original measures

of traditional and modern, although these could not be replicated

Good for measures of campaigning, but less so for candidate specific measures

WEB CAMPAIGN TOOLS

WEB CAMPAIGN TOOLS

Reference category: No WebPseudo R2 0.0521 Log likelihood -1026.3932* p<.1 **p<.05 ***p<.01

WEB CAMPAIGN TOOLS

Conventional Traditional and modern indices remain significant All parties less likely to engage in conventional campaigns than

Conservatives % pop no qualifications negative effect

Social (small n) Traditional campaign index positive effect

Hybrid Both traditional and modern indices positive effects Nationalists less likely to engage in hybrid only campaigns than

Con, others no effect % pop no qualifications negative effect Younger and female candidates also more likely to adopt hybrid

(CCS model)

WEB CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOURS

So it seems like that the kind of campaign activity engaged in has little impact on the kind of online campaign tools adopted

But what about the adoption of online campaign behaviours?

Data comes from content analysis of campaign websites in the NW of England during 2010 campaign

Addresses three kinds of interactive behaviours public dialogue, potential dialogue and site-based interactivity

CONTENT ANALYSIS SCHEMA

PUBLIC DIALOGUE BEHAVIOURS

POTENTIAL DIALOGUE BEHAVIOURS

SITE-BASED INTERACTIVITY BEHAVIOURS

WEB CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOURS

But Not easy to analyse these measures

individually Lack of variation in the sample

To get around this I created an aggregate measure of interactivity Based on regression scores from Principal

Components Analysis

WEB CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOURS

* p<.1 **p<.05 ***p<.01

WEB CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOURS

BUT When other contextual variables are added

in the significance of this disappears Only significant result in the wider model

concerns incumbent candidates (much less interactive) except where they are in marginal seats (more interactive)

Different approach to analysis and incorporate candidate level data

INTERVIEW DATA

Good reason to think that interactivity isn’t driven by the external factors represented here

Anecdotal evidence shows candidates often struggle to justify why they went online

Online campaigns often seem driven by circumstantial factors e.g. an affinity for tech ‘I don’t like technology for technologies sake, but I do

like what it can do and I enjoy working with technology, just because it’s a fun way of communicating with people.’ 

Candidate for campaign E, traditional/hybrid/interactive

Surveys do not cover this level of detail

CONCLUSIONS – WEB CAMPAIGN TOOLS Are campaigns using Web 2.0?

Yes, very much so 50% of campaigns report using both social

media and conventional websites Use is driven equally by traditional and

modern campaign techniques – intensity Use also driven by age, gender, party

affiliation and incumbency However – large amounts of variation

remain unexplained

CONCLUSIONS – WEB CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOURS

How are Web 2.0 tools being used? Public dialogue very rare Admittedly a high threshold for interactivity Potential dialogue far more common but harder to

measure Site-based interactivity also common, campaigns

able to bring a level of sophistication to sites beyond brochure-ware

Haven’t been able to analyse the drivers yet but interview data suggests that these may be attitudinal/difficult to measure

HYPOTHESES

H1 traditional campaigns are likely to make more use of social media and be more interactive NOT SUPPORTED

H2 modernised campaigns are likely to make less use

of social media and be less interactive NOT SUPPORTED

H3 combined campaigns are likely to make less use of social media and be less interactive NOT SUPPORTED

H4 low activity campaigns are less likely to make use of web campaign techniques over all SUPPORTED

NEXT STEPS - ORGANISATION

Final question remains, what kind of campaign organisation is Web 2.0 supporting?

Networked party models v Managed citizens Framing analysis based on CCS data e.g.

attitudes towards democracy or party organisation and adoption of Web 2.0 tools

Largely going to be based on interview data Already uncovered some interesting case studies

THE END

Any questions? Feedback welcome