Exploring Dutch politicians’ (social) media visibility during election campaigns by Arnout Terpstra S2112884
[email protected] Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, program Public Administration, University of Twente 2021 Supervisors: Martin Rosema Joris van Hoof Acknowledgements: Robert Muster from the behavioural data science incubator (BDSI) Words: 13810 1 Abstract This master thesis examines the relationship between politicians' visibility in online and offline media during election campaigns. Moreover, this study explores the possible agenda-setting effects that social media has on traditional media while taking into account possible moderating variables such as gender, age or the list position of a politician. This is done by formulating several research questions which help to ultimately answer the following main research question: To what extent does a politicians visibility on social media influence their visibility in traditional media? While scientific literature on social media in politics is quite extensive, scientific literature on the specific agenda-setting effect of social media on traditional media is not. The studies that were conducted on this topic have in general found a positive effect of social media visibility on traditional media visibility, while the use of social media in general (and in politics) is rapidly increasing as well. The main hypothesis of this study, therefore, states: Visibility on social media positively affects the visibility of MP candidates in traditional media. To test the hypotheses and answer the research questions, data was collected for all 150 elected candidates from the 2017 Dutch general election, covering each 15 days prior to the election day.