Campaigning
#72: Digital Political Campaigning in Britain, with Dr. Rachel Gibson
Dr. Rachel Gibson, Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester, discusses British political parties’ digital campaigning from websites to social media. We take a longitudinal dive into the development of digital campaigning in the UK, and compare it to campaigning practices in the US. Then, we examine how citizens’ political participation is evolving through their use of digital communication technologies.
#57: The 2018 Swedish Elections and Social Media, with Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten
Dr. Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University, guests to discuss the 2018 Swedish Elections and social media’s role in it. We break down the election results and talk about what it means for Sweden as well as the European Union.
Here are the links to the studies discussed in the episode:
Moe & Larsson’s 2014 study on Swedish politicians’ Facebook use
Jakob Svensson’s study on Swedish campaigning between elections
Kragh & Åsberg’s study on Russian disinformation via Facebook in Sweden
ComProp’s study of “junk news” during the Swedish election
#56: Facebook Ad Targeting in the 2017 British General Election, with Dr. Nick Anstead
Dr. Nick Anstead, Associate Professor in Media and Communications at the LSE, guests to discuss his new research on British parties’ Facebook ad targeting during the 2017 election. Using a data from the Chrome browser created by Who Targets Me, Dr. Anstead and his team compare the content, tone, personalization, and calls to action used in these ads. We discuss the findings of that study, as well as outline three challenges for academics studying Facebook ad targeting moving forward: the epistemological, the conceptual, and the systematic.
Read the full study here!
#43: Mobile Apps for Political Campaigns and Advocacy, with Thomas Peters
Thomas Peters, founder and CEO of uCampaign, discusses how mobile apps can be powerful tools to drive engagement for political campaigns and advocacy groups. uCampaign has developed apps for Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and the Brexit Leave campaign, and Thomas shares his insights into why smartphones are key channels for contemporary civic engagement. We discuss how the app integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and Google, what types of data are collected, and how gamification is used to encourage activism.
#41: Political Campaigning Games: Corbyn Run and the 2017 British Elections, with James Moulding
James Moulding, co-founder of Games for the Many, joins the podcast to discuss the success of Corbyn Run, a political campaigning game that went viral during the 2017 British elections. We discuss the development of the game, the role of social media in promoting it, and the potential for online games to spur political engagement in youth.
You can play Corbyn Run here.
#29: Citizen Marketers and the Bernie Sanders Campaign on Social Media, with Dr. Joel Penney
Dr. Joel Penney, Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, discusses his new book “The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age“. The book explores how everyday citizens actively assist in the promotion of political messages through their social media activity, following logics of viral marketing to enact persuasion at a peer-to-peer level. Dr. Penney shares his research on the Bernie Sanders campaign and the role that citizens played on social media, and Facebook in particular, to help the campaign get out its message through official and unofficial channels.