How Political Parties Communicate With Their Electorate

This essay explores how political parties use social media to communicate with their electorate, focusing on the 2016 political events of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

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HOW POLITICAL PARTIES COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR ELECTORATE
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HOW POLITICAL PARTIES COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR ELECTORATE
Introduction
Social media use in political campaigns is increasingly gaining traction as a tool to
engage the electorates and even drive them away from the mainstream media. Social media has
indeed transformed politics. However, social media must never be blamed for Trump and Brexit.
Following Brexit and Donald Trump’s election, 2016 shall be recalled as a period of catastrophic
democratic happenings on each Atlantic side. Social media remained involved in the upsurge of
populism, which culminated in Brexit and Trump’s election developments (Karlsen and Enjolras
2016).
Consideration has emphasized on echo chambers whereby several people are holding that
users of social media only exist in the philosophical filter bubbled, focused barely on partialities,
prey to fake news as well as political bots, buttressing polarization as well as guiding voters to
turn their backs on the mainstream. The Facebook owner, Mark Zuckerberg has reacted to critics
with a strange assertion that his firm does not impact the choices of voters. This essay looks at
social media’s role in the 2016 political events, specifically, Brexit alongside the election of
Trump.
How Political Parties Communicate With Their Electorate
It is apparent that the political turbulence and the new populism witnessed in 2016
political events had everything to do with social sites. It is doubtless that social sites have
brought alterations or shift in politic in term of how political parties communicate with their
electorates. From the waves of unrest and protests in reaction to 2008 GFC to Arab spring of
2011, a sweeping feeling remains that political enlistment stays on surge and that it is the main
contributor.

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According to Margetts et al. (2015) and Gold (2016), the association between social
media and collective action has been examined. These books have focused on how social sites
enable novel, “tiny acts” of the party-political partakes including tweeting, viewing, following,
liking, besides signing petitions, to mention a few, have turned social media to theory of social
movement around. Instead of identification with matters, the formation of shared identity
subsequently acting to buttress interest of such identities, or balloting for a given party-political
supporting this identity, in the world of social sites, individuals work quickly and think about it,
or if it all, identify later with others.
The small acts of partaking have the potential to scale up to huge-scale mobilization,
including protests, demonstrations, or even campaigns for a change in policies. Their impacts act
increasingly fast on an enormous scale. For example, petitions contesting Trump and Brexit
votes instantly exploded beyond 4m signatures. It became the most significant petitions ever
witnessed. However, in the absence of standard political or social movement organizational or
institutional trappings, like political parties or leaders, the rationale behind the disappointing
Arab Spring revolutions. An example of the petitions is represented in appendix below,
demonstrating the influence of social media on Brexit vote.
The quick-tempered rise, non-normal dissemination as well as absence of organization
which features modern politics explains the reason several developments politically of the period
appear to mysteriously emerge. It helps comprehend the shockwave of supports which led to
Trump and Brexit campaigned in contradiction of the “establishment” as well as defied old-style
institutions of politics to the breaking point (Gold 2016).

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Every succeeding enlistment has resulted in individual believing that challenging
mainstream stay feasible, and that it remains partially what has culminated in improbable
outcomes on Atlantic sides. However, it does not explain everything. This is because other
populisms waves have been documented well before the social media with many even making
parallels between 2016 politics and the 1930s. Whereas claims that feed in social media are the
most significant threat to democracy, resulting in the overall will disintegration, and polarization,
which propels populism’ abound, hard proof remains increasingly challenging to get (Sagarzazu
and Klüver 2017).
It is also imperative to understand the myth of echo chamber when social media is used in
political campaigns to sway voters as was witnessed in Brexit and Trump’s election. The most
offered mechanism for the use of social media in these two events is the existence of filter
bubbles and echo chambers. It is argued that social sites platforms quickly feed users news which
stays near philosophical perspective (approximated from past consumption trends) (Margetts et
al. 2015).
It is also held that users of social media create own custom-made information
surrounding via own virtual behavior and conduct, choosing friends as well as news sources
which support their view of the world. Once in such ideological bubbles, social media users prey
to fake-news as well as political bots, which additionally strengthen perspectives. Thus, some
individual argues that social media strengthens present individual views as well as serves as the
polarizing potency on politics, implying that haphazard acquaintance to consent is disappeared
from the regimes of information alongside news.
Labor Party won social media election through the use of Twitter and Facebook to
motivate voters instead of attacking conservative, which was a significant success in Brexit vote.

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The Conservatives were outflanked in the voting battle on social media in the primary election as
confirmed by digital strategists close to each camp. Political parties used social sites when
communicating with electorates by urging supporters to utilize social media to encourage other
voters to use cast their votes. The political parties put enormous stress on YouTube, Twitter, and
Facebook to influence the undecided votes during the Brexit (Dolezal et al. 2018).
These parties further encouraged members to continue communicating from 7 AM to 10
PM and to provide a lift to the neighbors as well as elder electorates. The used Facebook to urge
supporters to make twenty or thirty calls for friends as well as family urging voters to vote for
the candidates and text their contacts searching for votes. Social media was also used to
encourage voters to give friends a lift to polling stations as well as to stand with a party at the
commuter and junction locations during the voting day (López-Meri, Marcos-García and Casero-
Ripollés 2017).
In regards to Trump 2016 election, Trump used the unique feature of first-ever Twitter-
oriented presidency in the US. Trump employed the unprecedented and intense use of the
Internet as a political tool. Trump’s social media presence was the single most significant
element of his candidacy. For instance, Trump intensively used Facebook, where Facebook only
saw Pro-Trump advocates buying at least 100,000 dollars’ worth of advertisements before the
2016 November election. This was sufficient to reach at least one-hundred and twenty-six
million Americans (Nulty et al. 2016).
Facebook itself enthusiastically offers political campaigns its individual sales staff trained
to help campaigns in spreading the messages, surging engagement as well as getting instant
feedback on how they perform. Trump used such a highly effective service to maximize Trump’s
Facebook presence, whereas the Clinton campaign never sought the help of Facebook officials,

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instead opting to depend on her individual social media experts. Trump not only more engaged
online and remained tactical, utilizing each opportunity to gain the advantage that other, more
conservative candidates eschew. The social media campaign was used to influence the Brexit
through Vote Leave campaign. The Facebook platform played a central role in the distribution of
referendum messaging (David et al. 2016).
Conclusion
The social sites have altered political campaign nature and shall endure playing a
central role in the forthcoming elections globally. As more individual increasingly spend a
substantial share of daily lives virtually, it is getting to be an influential vigor to help and
facilitate the distribution of political philosophies as well as messages. Brexit has demonstrated
that social media is an accelerating technology which stays open to all and can be utilized in
shaping public agenda as well as drive social change (Alonso-Muñoz, Marcos-García and
Casero-Ripollés 2017).
The Leave side in the referendum campaign euphorically celebrated the novel British
#Independence Day from European Union while the Remain side responded with memes as well
as pictures to voice their intense frustration alongside sorrow-channeled via the trending hashtag
#NotMyVote. Moreover, the Internet is utilized in mobilizing individuals to protest against the
same referendum outcome across the nation. Twitter was also used to influence the Brexit
campaign, and tweeting for Brexit significantly fashioned the Brexit campaign. The Eurosceptic
Twitter users significantly outstripped as well as out-tweeted the pro-Europeans in the Brexit
campaign. However, they stood restricted into own-echo chambers as opposed to “Remainers.”

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References
Alonso-Muñoz, L., Marcos-García, S. and Casero-Ripollés, A., 2017. Political leaders in (inter)
action. Twitter as a strategic communication tool in electoral campaigns. Trípodos, (39), pp.71-
90.
David, E., Zhitomirsky-Geffet, M., Koppel, M. and Uzan, H., 2016. Utilizing Facebook pages of
the political parties to automatically predict the political orientation of Facebook users. Online
Information Review, 40(5), pp.610-623.
Dolezal, M., Ennser-Jedenastik, L., Müller, W.C., Praprotnik, K. and Winkler, A.K., 2018.
Beyond salience and position taking: How political parties communicate through their
manifestos. Party Politics, 24(3), pp.240-252.
Gold, T., 2016. Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective
Action. Postdata, 21(1), pp.0-0.
Karlsen, R. and Enjolras, B., 2016. Styles of social media campaigning and influence in a hybrid
political communication system: Linking candidate survey data with Twitter data. The
International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(3), pp.338-357.
López-Meri, A., Marcos-García, S. and Casero-Ripollés, A., 2017. What do politicians do on
Twitter? Functions and communication strategies in the Spanish electoral campaign of 2016. El
profesional de la información, 26(5), pp.795-804.
Margetts, H., John, P., Hale, S. and Yasseri, T., 2015. Political turbulence: How social media
shape collective action. Princeton University Press.
Nulty, P., Theocharis, Y., Popa, S.A., Parnet, O. and Benoit, K., 2016. Social media and political
communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. Electoral studies, 44, pp.429-
444.

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Sagarzazu, I. and Klüver, H., 2017. Coalition governments and party competition: Political
communication strategies of coalition parties. Political Science Research and Methods, 5(2),
pp.333-349.

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Appendix 1: How Social Media was used during Brexit