A Winding Road from “Likes” to Votes

Václav Štětka (), Alena Macková and Marta Fialová
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Václav Štětka: Charles University in Prague
Alena Macková: Masaryk University
Marta Fialová: Masaryk University

Chapter Chapter 13 in Social Media in Politics, 2014, pp 225-244 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic in January 2013. Following a brief outline of the political context and outcomes of the elections, this study explores and compares the strategies of campaign communication of the nine presidential candidates on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Apart from mapping the dynamics of the campaign and the responsiveness of Facebook and Twitter users, we have used content analysis to examine basic formal characteristics of over 1,000 messages posted on Facebook in the course of the campaign by the candidates and their teams. Additionally, this chapter also examines more closely the place of social media in the campaign of Karel Schwarzenberg, the eventual runner-up of the presidential race, whose team distanced all other candidates in both the extent as the level of sophistication of communication carried via the social networking sites. Overall, the presidential elections have revealed both the potential as well as limits of electoral mobilization through social networks, while at the same time it has demonstrated the continuing importance of more traditional means of campaign communication in the Czech Republic.

Keywords: Social media; Election campaign; Czech Republic; Online mobilization; Political marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:paitcp:978-3-319-04666-2_13

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-04666-2_13

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