The Use of Social Media for Electoral Purposes. The Case of the Italian Election in 2018

Benedetta Gesuele (), Concetta Metallo (), María-Dolores Guillamón () and Ana-María Ríos ()
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Benedetta Gesuele: ACRI
Concetta Metallo: University “Parthenope” of Naples
María-Dolores Guillamón: University of Murcia
Ana-María Ríos: University of Murcia

A chapter in Exploring Innovation in a Digital World, 2021, pp 249-263 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The aim of this paper is to study the role of social media in political communication and their possible influence on electoral results. For this purpose, we analyze the parties’ Facebook Fan pages in the last general election in Italy (March 2018) over two periods: from 1st February to 4th March 2018 (Election Day); and, from 5th March to 31st March 2018. Our results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the effort of the parties to inform citizens thorough the use of Facebook before the elections and their electoral outcomes in the congress. Specifically, we find that the higher the parties’ engagement, the better their electoral results. Nevertheless, we do not find any evidence that a higher engagement of citizens on a party’s Facebook Fan page before the election leads to this party having better electoral results. Finally, we explore if the parties change their political discourse before and after the election on their Facebook Fan pages, and find that there are, indeed, differences.

Keywords: Facebook; Political communication; Public engagement; Electoral outcomes; General election (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:lnichp:978-3-030-87842-9_17

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-87842-9_17

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