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Copyright by Vincent Harris 2019 Copyright by Vincent Harris 2019 The Report Committee for Vincent Harris certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Digital Barometers for Effective Political Campaigns: Social Media Engagement, Visibility, Digital Barometers for Effective Political Campaigns and Entertainment Media SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Sharon Jarvis, Supervisor Barry Brummett Digital Barometers for Effective Political Campaigns by Vincent Harris Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin August 2019 Dedication This paper is dedicated to my two grandfathers: Rev. Robert Harris, who taught me to think critically about politics, and Dr. George Thoms, the ardent advocate for my continued education. Thank you for your sacrificial love for your family. Digital Barometers for Effective Political Campaigns by Vincent Harris, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019 SUPERVISOR: Sharon Jarvis Abstract This paper explores phenomena that affect how modern political campaigns communicate, educate, and persuade voters online. The three main phenomena discussed are: social media engagement, visibility of online content, and entertainment media. These phenomena serve as barometers for political practitioners who aim to generate attention online. Relevant literature and research from each phenomena is discussed in detail and supported with examples from recent political campaigns. The author is a political practitioner who specializes in digital media and content production. Specific instances from his work are shared as further analysis. A conclusion is drawn that, without significant changes in government regulation and voter behavior, political campaigns will continue to produce entertaining and hyper-partisan content online. Keywords: social media engagement; political campaigns; visibility online; entertainment media; political communications; social media politics; social media campaigning; republican campaign v Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Engagement and Social Media…………………………………………………………………….3 Visibility within the Attention Economy………………………………………………………...11 Entertainment Media……………………………………………………………………….…….19 Future Study…………………………………………………………………………………...…28 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………32 References……………………………………………………………………………………..…35 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………….42 vi Introduction Contemporary America is the land of the free and the home of the easily distracted. Endless push notifications and our favorite mobile applications are morphing us into a culture of finger-scrolling zombies. Modern political dialogue has drifted from the policy-centered oratory of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and Federalist Papers, into one of name-calling, infotainment, and Twitter fights. A politician who shouted, “You Lie!” at the President in the middle of nationally televised State of the Union Address raised over a million dollars online immediately following the outburst (Bailey, 2009). Controversy, incivility, and brashness generate attention and in today’s economy, attention is our rarest commodity. The entertaining 2016 election debates set records for viewership, outpacing the previous record set in 1992. We live in an age of digital memes and political tribalism. In such an environment, is it possible to have a serious policy discussion? There are a lot of pessimistic opinions who believe that in the age of social media, voters have become hardened into their self-created echo-chambers of anger (Hughes & Van Kessel, 2018). Americans have become attached to their mobile devices with The Pew Research Center estimating 81% of Americans owning a smartphone (2019). Our digital-first world has become filled with personalized news, mobile applications, and social networks, which all compete for our attention. Since attention is in short supply, content producers have become desperate in their competition for eyeballs, and often seek to out-shock or surprise one another. Partisan selective exposure has further deconstructed the commonality of information that once existed within the electorate. Driven by political ideology, voters are only consuming information from sources that are congruent with their pre-existing belief system. 1 As a political practitioner, my company is involved in the online marketing of political candidates and political issues. Our work has put us in daily communication with representatives from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other digital platforms and provided insight into not only on the theoretical aspect of digital campaigning but very much the practical application of the industry. Over the course of the past decade the technique in which digital campaigns are run has changed dramatically as the electorate has become more polarized and partisan in the way they engage with political content online. As a campaigner, my mandate is to use digital platforms to achieve our clients’ goals. As an academic, my interest in these platforms is to discover more about their impact on political efficacy and to better understand the impact that the changing nature of campaigning has on our Democracy. Three themes that intersect the applied world of political campaigning in 2020 and contemporary political communications research are: social media engagement, visibility within the attention economy, and entertainment media. I will review existing literature relating to each theme and discuss their relevance to modern campaigning techniques. My conclusion will offer some questions for future research discussion. 2 Engagement and Social Media “If you need a break from stress, negativity, partisanship, and need to declutter your head, then get off of social media.” My Pastor said these words to our congregation a recently when talking about ways to lessen anxiety in order to better focus on God’s plan for our lives. As a society, our time spent on social platforms has continued to increase with some teenagers spending more than nine hours a day online (Wallace, 2015). On average, Americans spend more than two hours a day on social media platforms with one study showing that people spend more time on Facebook than with their pets (Brustein, 2014). The psychological effects of this growing expanse of time has so far shown that social media can make people feel anxious, depressed, and lonely (MacMillan, 2017). While the impact of social media on mental health appears to be correlated with negative effects, social media does elicit many positive effects in the political and advocacy space. Social media has made people feel more informed about political news (Avirgan, 2016) and able to participate directly in ways limited before its inception (Fromm, 2016). Political campaigning techniques have changed drastically in the past decade, away from traditional “push” media towards the more interactive “pull” media of the Internet (Webster, 2014). Voters now have the option to avoid spending time engaging with political content, which has made political marketing increasingly difficult, as political content is in constant competition with other forms of entertainment. This competition has led desperate campaigns to forgo producing heavy-laden policy content in favor of digital content that elicits engagement. In order to deliver relevant content to its user base, Facebook built an algorithm which rewards engagement with higher visibility. The more likes, shares, and comments on a piece of content, the larger the potential reach of that content. The common name for this algorithm 3 EdgeRank. EdgeRank is an important element in political communications because it is responsible for the way political Facebook pages can reach potential voters. Most campaigns use Facebook as a primary form of digital communications and must tailor messages for shareability to the EdgeRank algorithm. Campaigns that seek to achieve higher visibility will produce content tailored to the algorithm, which in turn affects the style, medium, and even the text of the content being shared. For example, a photograph of a political candidate might be altered to add a Facebook “thumbs up!” icon before it is posted on Facebook to generate more engagement and hopefully more reach. Each social media platform and digital property operates uniquely in how it determines reach of their content. Facebook defines reach as, “the number of people who had any content from your Page or about your Page enter their screen” (Facebook Help). Facebook offers two forms of reach for a content provider: organic reach and paid reach. Organic reach is defined by Facebook as, “The number of people who had an unpaid post from your Page enter their screen” (Facebook Help). Paid reach is defined by Facebook as, “The number of people who had a paid post from your Page enter their screen” (Facebook Help). Facebook will not concretely define how a marketer, or in the case of this paper, how a political campaign, can expand their organic reach. It is apparent though that the number of people who view content from both paid and organic reach is impacted by the level of engagement with each piece of content. If more people share a video then more people will have the opportunity to see a video. The visibility of content is directly linked to the amount of engagement a piece of content receives. While Facebook defines paid and organic reach it does not tell advertisers exactly how their proprietary
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