Local Politics Online: The Influence of Presumed Influence on Local Politicians’ Online Communication Activities in Germany

Uli Bernhard and Marco Dohle

Local Government Studies, 2015, vol. 41, issue 5, 755-773

Abstract: How extensively local politicians use online media to communicate with others and the factors that influence their online activities have rarely been examined. In particular, it is unknown whether local politicians use online media more extensively when they believe that online media has a strong political influence on others. To examine this, a standardised survey among German local politicians was conducted (n = 608). The results showed the following: The stronger the politicians perceive the influence of facebook and Twitter on journalists to be, the more extensively they spread information via these social media networks. However, the presumed influences on the public or on other politicians do not affect those online activities. Thus, local politicians apparently do not pursue a disintermediation strategy – they do not try to bypass journalism by directly addressing the public. Rather, journalists seem to be an important target group for local politicians’ online communication efforts.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2015.1028624

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