Social Media and Political Communication: Usage of Facebook and Twitter by the Political Actors of Pakistan and Analysis of Audience Reaction

Home , Awais Leghari, Shehryar Khan Afridi

SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICAL COMMUNICATION: USAGE OF FACEBOOK AND TWITTER BY THE POLITICAL ACTORS OF PAKISTAN AND ANALYSIS OF AUDIENCE REACTION

Submitted By

Savera Mujib Shami Roll No: 2 (Session 2008-2013)

Supervisor: Dr. Ayesha Ashfaq Assistant Professor Institute of Communication Studies University of the Punjab, Lahore

Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Muhammad Zakria Zakar Dean, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences Acting Director, Institute of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore

INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF THE PUNJAB, LAHORE

Declaration

This dissertation is the outcome of an independent investigation. Wherever the work is indebted to the work of the others it has been acknowledged and cited.

I declare that this dissertation is submitted in the partial fulfillment of Doctor of Philosophy degree at Institute of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab. This dissertation has not been accepted in substance for any other degree, nor it concurrently being submitted in candidature or achievement of any other degree at any other university

Savera Mujib Shami

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

It is certified that Ms. Savera Mujib Shami (Session 2008-2013) has completed her dissertation titled “Political Communication through Social

Media: Usage of Facebook and Twitter by the Political Actors of Pakistan and

Analysis of Audience Feedback” in accordance with the requirements for the partial fulfillment of the PhD degree in Communication Studies under our supervision.

Dr. Ayesha Ashfaq Prof. Dr. Muhammad Zakria Zakar Assistant Professor Acting Director Institute of Communication Studies Institute of Communication Studies Dean, FBSS

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this thesis to three most precious people in my life.

My FATHER who always stood behind me, supported my dreams, championed my projects, encouraged my pursuits, gone along with my interests, and guided me in the right direction. Without his motivation, drive, and support I might not be the person I am today.

My MOTHER who is amazing, strong, selfless, and loving. Whatever, I am, all that I do, all that I ever had, it’s all because of her endless support.

My HUSBAND who watched me succeed, seen me fail, kept me strong.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I am grateful to Almighty Allah for giving me strength to successfully complete my work and validating my belief that I can achieve anything, including the impossible, with His help.

Secondly, I would like to thank my parents, whose love and guidance are with me in whatever I pursue. They are my ultimate role models and all my success is indebted to them.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for my co-supervisor, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Zakriya Zakar, without his guidance and persistent help, this dissertation would not have been possible. I am extremely grateful for his kindness and consistent support. I would also like to acknowledge the caring attitude and extensive professional guidance of my supervisor Dr. Ayesha Ashfaq. I have been very fortunate to have my dear friend as my supervisor who was always prompt in responding to my queries; thank you for always being there.

I don't have words to express how grateful I am to my constant support, colleague and friend Sana Naveed Khan. I vehemently appreciate her concern and inspiration during difficult times. She has been consistently encouraging me for the completion of my dissertationn. Sana never fails to make me smile and was always there whenever I needed her. I also appreciate the input of Zain Zafar in this dissertation.

I got a golden opportunity to spend a semester at Arizona State University (ASU) to work on my research under a university partnership program “Building Linkages Transdisciplinary Approaches to Communication and Development Studies” between Arizona State University and University of the Punjab, supported by US Department of State. I met various scholars and attended numerous conferences and seminars. My stay there changed my vision, refined my capabilities and polished my research skills and eventually I figured out my strengths and weaknesses. I am especially indebted to all the faculty members at ASU who were a part of that project.

I am incredibly fortunate to have the support of Dr. Hazel Kwon, Assistant Professor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism (ASU) as my mentor. She helped me with statistical analysis and was always willing to give time, never hesitant to have hours long meetings. I could not have done this without her endless support. I also want to acknowledge the kindness and generosity of Dr. Bill Sillcock, Assistant Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism; he spent hours with me in the school, discussing and refining my theoretical framework. He always said “I value our friendship”, and today I take this opportunity to tell him “I value our friendship”.

I learned a lot from Dr. Chad Haines, Director, ASU-PU University Partnership, through his interactive and inspiring seminars at ASU. While discussing my research, he often

asked “so what?" This question kept on haunting me till the end of my dissertation. It forced me to read more, struggle more and think more.

I really appreciate Dr Yasmin Saikia, Co-Director of the project, who always encouraged me and strengthened my trust in myself. I would also like to thank Dr. Marianne Barrett, for her valuable input in my synopsis. Here I would like to mention Dr. Kristin Gilger, Associate Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Dr. Dawn Gilpin for their help and support as well.

I am extremely thankful to Ivette Chavez and Lisa Cahill. I attended their writing skills workshops in Pakistan and US and I must say they are the best trainers. My biggest fear was writing the dissertation but they made it quite easy. My sincerest gratitude to Dr. Kanwal Ameen for taking the pain to read my synopsis and encouraging me to keep improving. I would also like to thank Dr. Rubina Zakar for her thoughtfulness and words of comfort. I cannot forget the unconditional support of my dear friends Amina Ali and Maria Gulraize. Amina edited and proofread my work on a very short notice, only a sincere friend can be so committed.

I am indebted to Ms. Marium Aurangzeb for her strenuous effort to get the questionnaires filled from MNAs. I am extremely thank to Mr. Mubashir Mir (Karachi), Mr. Shehbaz Sb. (KPK), Mr. Anwaar ul Haq Kakar Sb. (Quetta) and Mr. Javed Iqbal (Lahore) who helped me during survey. I am also thankful to Mr. Sajjad Bhatti for his cooperation. I am thankful to Nabeel Malik for all his assistance and support. I am extremely thankful to Mr. Imran Bhatti, Librarian, ICS and Nadeem Perviaz, Library Attendant, ICS, and Waqas Shehzada for their endless support. Thanks to Ali Ashraf, Muhammad Iqbal, Said Ahmed and Munir and all others who made the entire process smooth and easier for me. I am also grateful to the Akbar Chahcha, Asif and Ahmed for their continuous support. I am grateful to my students, Zain-ul-Abidin, Madiha Maqsood, Mahrukh Maqsood, Mahim Zahid, Maryam, and Naveed Zafar who have assisted me in my work and all my coders.

I am grateful to all my colleagues at ICS especially Mr. Naveed Iqbal, Mr. Akram Somroo, Mr. Fahad Mehmood, Ms. Shazia Toor and Ms. Seemab Bukhari who have been constantly asking me about my dissertation and have given me motivation to pursue my work.

I also want to acknowledge the contribution of my younger brother Usman, for deputing his office staff in helping in data collection from Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. In addition, I really appreciate much needed moral support and words of encouragement of my elder brother Umer and sister-in-law Rabia. I am thankful to all other family members too who have been my constant support.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank my husband, Noshad. We have always worked as a team and have supported each other throughout all the challenging times. I feel blessed to have him in my life. A working-mother always feels guilty, of not giving enough time to her children. I know my sons, Ahmed and Asmad were being ignored during the last few months but they remained my constant support; always praying for the completion of my degree, every night before going to bed. Finally, I have achieved my goal and I thank each and every person who has been a part of my journey and also all the political actors, who have filled the questionnaires.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction…………..………………………...………………….....1-11 1.1. Status of Social media in Pakistan………………………………………...6 1.2. Statement of Problem………………………………………………...... 6 1.3. Research Objectives………………………………………………...... 9 1.4. Significance of the study…………………………………………………..9 1.5. Roadmap of the study…………………………………………………….10 1.5.1. Part A: Survey to analyse the Purpose and Quality of Relationships……………………………………………………..11 1.5.2. Part B: Content analysis to Measure Purpose and Strategy of using Facebook and Twitter…….……….…….…….…….……………11 1.5.3. Part C: Reputation Management and Audience Engagement………………………………………………………11 1.5.4. Part D: Correlation between Survey Purpose and Content Purpose…………………………………………………………...11

Chapter 2. Review of Literature ……………………………………………...…12-35 2.1. Usage of social media by Political Actors…….…….…….….……………...12 2.2. Political Public relations and social media…….….…….…….…….……….22 2.3. Relationship Cultivation and reputation Management….…….……………..31

Chapter3. Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………36-51 3.1. Part a: Strategic Political Communication…….…….………….…….…..…37 3.1.1. Political Communication…….…….…….…….…………………..37 3.1.2. Political actors and strategic political communication…….….…...38 3.2. Part B: Political Public Communication…….…….…….…………………..39 3.3. Part C: Strategic Political Communication and Political Public relations through social media……..…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…………….41 3.3.1 Online Public Relation …….…….…….…….……………………44 3.4. Part D: Relationship Cultivation and reputation management…….…..…….45 3.4.1. Relationship Cultivation…….….…….…….…….…….…….……46 3.4.2. Reputation Management…….…….……….…….…………….…..49 3.5. Relevancy with this study…….…….…….………….…….………...... 51

Chapter 4. Study Methodology……………………………………………………53-85 4.1. Research questions…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……...... 54 4.2. Conceptualization and definitions…………………………………………...59 4.2.1. Political actors……………………………………………………..59 4.2.2. Political communication……….………………...... 59 4.2.3. Social media……………………………………………………….59 4.2.4. Audience…………………………………………………………...60 4.2.5. Reaction…………………………………………………………....60 4.2.6. Behaviour………………………………………………………….60 4.2.7. Active users………………………………………………………..61 4.3. Study Settings………………………………………………………………..61 4.3.1. National assembly…………………………………………………61 4.3.2. Punjab assembly…………………………………………………...61 4.3.3. Sindh assembly………………………………………...... ,...... 62

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4.3.4. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly…………………………………...62 4.3.5. Baluchistan assembly……………………………………………...62 4.4. Research Framework………………………………………………………...63 4.4.1. Nature of Data……………………………………………………..63 4.5. Section I: Survey…………………………………………………………….64 4.5.1. Respondents from Provincial assembly…………………………...64 4.5.1.1. Eligibility of respondents………………………………..65 4.5.1.2. Selection of respondents…………………………………65 4.5.1.3. Sample size………………………………………………66 4.5.2. Respondents from National assembly…………………….……….67 4.5.2.1. Eligibility of respondents………………………………..68 4.5.2.2. Selection of respondents………………………………...68 4.5.2.3. Sample size………………………………………………69 4.5.3. Induction of Focal person in Provincial Capitals and Islamabad....70 4.5.4. Instruments of Data collection for Survey………………………...70 4.5.4.1. Questionnaire…………………………………………….70 4.5.4.1.1. Section A: Demographics information………...71 4.5.4.1.2. Section B: Information related to purpose of using Facebook and Twitter……………………………...71 4.5.4.1.3. Section C: Information related to verifying the news or information while posting on Facebook and Twitter……………………………………………………71 4.5.4.1.4. Section D: Information related to whether political actors believe in News/information they get through social media………………..……………………72 4.5.5. Conceptualizing………..………………………………………….72 4.5.5.1. “Purpose” of using social media…...…………………....72 4.5.5.2. Indicators of Relationship Cultivation…...……………...73 4.5.5.3. Indicator of Reputation Management……………...... 74 4.5.6. Pre-testing…………………………………………………………74 4.5.7. Data collection process……………………………………………75 4.5.8. Data analysis………………………………………………………75 4.5.8.1. Kruskal Wallis Test……………………………………..76 4.6. Section II: Content analysis of Facebook pages and Tweets of political actors……………………………………………………………………..76 4.6.1. Selection of members for content analysis………………………..76 4.6.2. Facebook pages……………………………………………………77 4.6.3. Twitter handles…………………………………………………….77 4.6.4. Sampling technique………………………………………………..77 4.6.5. Sample size………………………………………………………...77 4.6.6. Unit of Analysis……………………………………………………78 4.6.7. Instrument for Content analysis…………………………………...78 4.6.7.1. Coding sheet……………………………………………..78 4.6.8. Training of coders…………………………………………………81 4.6.9. Pilot study………………………………………………………….81 4.9.10. Reliability Test…………………………………………………...81 4.9.11. Cross Tabulation………………………………………………………………………………...81 4.7. Section III: Content analysis of audience reaction and comments…………..81 4.7.1. Collection of Data for audience Analysis………………………….81

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4.7.2. Sampling techniques for comments……………………………….82 4.7.3. Sample size………………………………………………………...82 4.7.4. Unit of analysis…………………………………………………….82 4.7.5. Instrument for content analysis of comments………………….…..82 4.7.5.1. Coding sheet……………………………………………..82 4.7.6. Training of Coders………………………………………………....83 4.7.7. Pilot study………………………………………………………….83 4.7.8. Reliability Test…………………………………………………….83 4.7.9. Kruskal Wallis Test………………………………………………..84 4.8. Section IV: Correlation between Purpose in Survey and Purpose of Post and Tweet……………………………………………………………………………...84 4.8.1. Sample size………………………………………………………...84 4.8.2. Data Analysis……………………………………………………...84 4.9. Limitations of the study……………………………………………………...84 4.10. Ethical Issue…………………………………………………………….…85

Chapter 5. Results and Interpretation……………………………………………87-151 5.1. Section I: Survey Results of MNAs and MPAs (overall) and MNAs (separately)……………………………………………………………………….88 5.1.1. Section I: Part A…………………………………………………...88 5.1.1.1. Assembly wise respondents……………………………..88 5.1.1.2. Political affiliation of respondents………………………89 5.1.1.3. Usage of Facebook and Twitter by the respondents…….90 5.1.1.4. Gender distribution of political actors…………………...90 5.1.1.5. Operator of Twitter handle………………………………91 5.1.1.6. Operator of Facebook page……………………………...91 5.1.1.7. Target audience of political actor………………………..92 5.1.1.8. Platform preferred by political actors……………………93 5.1.1.9.Where political actors share information first……………93 5.1.1.10.Believein communication through social media………..94 5.1.1.11.Purpose of using Twitter and Facebook………………...96 5.1.1.12. Purpose of using Facebook and Twitter fulfilled………97 5.1.1.13. Verification and responsiveness on Facebook and Twitter……………………………………………………………97 5.1.1.14.Statistical Test (Krushkal Test)…………………………99 5.1.1.15.Difference in Level of “Fulfillment” across “purpose of Activity” for Twitter…………………………………………...99 5.1.1.16.Difference in Level of verification across different purpose of using Facebook……………………………………...100 5.1.1.17.Difference in Level of verification across different purpose of using Twitter………………………………………...101 5.1.1.18.Difference in Level of immediate post across different purpose of using Facebook……………………………………...102 5.1.1.19.Difference in Level of immediate post across different purpose of using Twitter………………………………………...102 5.1.1.20.Difference in Level of immediate post across different purpose of Using Facebook…………………………………….103 5.1.1.21. Difference in level of response across different purpose of using Twitter…………………………………………………..104

5.1.1.22. Difference in Level of response across different purpose of using Facebook…………………………………………...... 105 5.1.2. Part B Results of Member of National Assemble (Separately)…..106 5.1.2.1. Political Affiliation of Respondents……………………106 5.1.2.2. Gender Distribution of Political Actors………………...107 5.1.2.3. Operator of Twitter Handle…………………………….107 5.1.2.4. Operator of Facebook Page…………………………….107 5.1.2.5. Platform Preferred by Member National Assembly……108 5.1.2.6. Target Audience of Political Actors……………………108 5.1.2.7. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook……………….109 5.1.2.8. Purpose of Using Twitter and FacebookFulfilled……...110 5.1.2.9. Verification and Responsiveness………………………111 5.1.2.10. Share information First………………………………..112 5.1.2.11.Believe in Communication through Social Media…….113 5.1.2.12.Difference in Level of Fulfillmentacross Purpose of Activity for Twitter……………………………………………..115 5.1.2.13.Difference in Level of Fulfillment Across Purpose of activity on Facebook…………………………………………....116 5.1.2.14.Difference in Level of Verification across different purpose of using Twitter………………………………………...116 5.1.2.15.Difference in Level of Verification across different purpose of using Facebook……………………………………...117 5.1.2.16.Difference in Level of immediate post across different purpose of using Twitter………………………………………...118 5.1.2.17. Difference in Level of immediate Post across different purpose of using Facebook……………………………………...118 5.1.2.18.Difference in Level of response across different purpose of using Twitter………………………………………...119 5.1.2.19.Difference in Level of response across different purpose of using Facebook……………………………………...120 5.2. Section II: Results of Content Analysis of Posts and Tweets……………...121 5.2.1. Post or Tweet…………………………………………………...121 5.2.2. Purpose of Post or Tweet……………………………………….122 5.2.3. Nature of Post or Tweet………………………………………...123 5.2.4. Image Building or Distortion on Facebook and Twitter……….124 5.2.5. Language used in Post and Tweet……………………………...124 5.2.6. Cross-tabulation: Purpose of Post and Tweet *Language used in Post and Tweet………………………………………………………..125 5.2.7. Cross-tabulation: Purpose of Post and Tweet *Language Facebook……………………………………………………………...126 5.2.8. Cross-tabulation: Purpose of Post and Tweet *Language used in Tweet…………………………………………...... 127 5.2.9. Purpose of Post and Tweet*Nature of Post and TweetCross tabulation……………………………………………………………...128 5.2.10. Purpose of Tweet * Nature of Tweet Cross tabulation...... 130 5.2.11. Purpose of Post *Nature of Post Cross-tabulation……………131 5.2.12. Purpose of Post or Tweet *Image building or distortion Cross- tabulation……………………………………………………………...132 5.2.13. Purpose of Post *Image building or distortion Cross tabulation…...... 134

5.2.14. Purpose of Tweet *Image building or distortion Cross tabulation…...... 135 5.3. Section III: Audience Engagement…………………………………...... 137 5.3.1. Level of Audience Engagement differ across “purpose” Facebook………….137 5.3.2. Level of Audience Engagement differ across Image Building Facebook……139 5.3.3. Level of Audience Engagement differ across Language Facebook………….140 5.3.4. Kruskil Wallis level of Audience Engagement Differ across purpose Twitter..142 5.3.5. Level of “audience engagement” differ across “image building”……………144 5.3.6. Kruskil Wallis Level of Audience Engagement Differ across Language……145 5.3.7. Language of comments on posts and Tweets………………………………...147 5.3.8. Language of Comments on Facebook posts………………………………….148 5.3.9. Language of Comments on Tweets…………………………………………..148 5.4. Section IV: Linkage between Survey Purpose and Content Analysis Facebook and Twitter……………………………………………………….150 5.5. Concluding remarks……………………………………………………………151

Chapter 6: Discussion & Analysis…………………………………………...153-200 6.1. Section I- Survey Results……………………………………………153 6.1.1. Political actors and Usage of Facebook and Twitter………..153 6.1.2. Research Question 1……………………………….……...... 155 6.1.3. Research Question 2 ………………………… …………..156 6.2. Section II (Content Analysis) ……………………………………………163 6.2.1. Research Question 3………………………………………..163 6.2.2.Research Question 4………………………………………...163 6.2.3. Research Question 4a………………………………………164 6.2.4. Research Question 4b………………………………………164 6.2.5. Research Question 4c………………………………………165 6.2.6. Research Question 4d………………………………………165 6.2.6.1. Purpose and Language……………………………………165 6.2.6.2. Purpose and Nature of Content…………………………...166 6.2.6.3. Purpose and Image Building……………………… 167 6.3. Section III: Audience Engagement……………………………………168 6.3.1. Research question 5…………………………………..168 6.3.2. Research Question 5b……………………………………....168 6.3.3. Research question 5c…………………………………170 6.3.4. Research Question 5d……………………………...171 6.3.5. Research Question 6………………………………172 6.4. Section IV: Correlation between Survey and Content Analysis……....173 6.4.1. Research Question 7……………………………….173 6.5. Qualitative Discussion on Posts and Tweets………………………….175 6.5.1. Personal Posts………………………………………………175 6.5.2. Political Posts………………………………………………179 6.5.3. Response on some issue……………………………………187 6.5.4. Educate others……………………………………………...190 6.5.5. Call for action………………………………………………194 6.5.6. Audience Feedback………………………………………..198 6.5.6.1. Discouraging comments by Audience…………………....198 6.5.6.2. Supporting comments by Audience…………………...... 200 6.5.6.3. Abusive comments by Audience…………………………………….....200

Chapter 7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………...204 References……………………………………………………………..……….....209 Appendix A: Questionnaire for Survey Appendix B: List of the Respondents Appendix C: Coding Sheets Appendix D: List of Members of National Assembly

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1. Research Objectives, Questions, Methods and Analytical Strategy………….56 Table 4.2. Selected Sample from four Provincial Assemblies………………………...... 66 Table 4.3. Selected Sample of National Assembly…………………………………...... 69 Table 4.4. Categories, Sub Categories and Indicators……………………...... 78 Table 4.5. Categories and Operationalization for the analysis of comments………….…82 Table 5.1. Political affiliation of Political Actors (N=247)………………………………90 Table 5.2. Believe in Communication through Social Media……………………………95 Table 5.3. Purpose of Using Facebook and Twitter……………………………………...96 Table 5.4. Purpose of Using Facebook and Twitter Fulfilled……………………………97 Table 5.5. Verification and Responsiveness on Facebook and Twitter………………….99 Table 5.6. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Purpose and fulfillment of Purpose Twitter..100 Table 5.7. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Fulfillment and Purpose of Activity Facebook……………………………...... 101 Table 5.8. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Verification and Purpose Twitter...... 101 Table 5.9. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Verification and Purpose of Facebook……..102 Table 5.10. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of Immediate post and purpose Twitter…...... 103 Table 5.11. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of Immediate post and purpose Facebook...... 104 Table 5.12. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of Response across Purpose of using Twitter………………………………………………………………..104 Table 5.13. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of response across Purpose of Using Facebook…………………………………………………………….105 Table 5.14. Political Party Affiliation…………………………………………………..106 Table 5.15. Purpose of Activity Using Twitter and Facebook…………………………109 Table 5.16. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook Fulfilled…………………………110 Table 5.17. Verification and Responsiveness…………………………………………..112 Table 5.18. Believe in Communication through Social Media…………………………114 Table 5.19. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Purpose and Fulfillment of Purpose Twitter...... 115 Table 5.20. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Fulfillment Across Purpose on Facebook...... 116 Table 5.21. Kruskal Wallis Test: Verification and Purpose Twitter...... 117 Table 5.22. Test of Kruskal Wallis Test: Verification and Purpose Facebook...... 117 Table 5.23. Test of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of Posting Immediately and Purpose Twitter...... 118 Table 5.24. Test of Kruskal Wallis Test: Difference in Level of Posting immediately and Purpose Facebook……………………………………………………………………….119 Table 5.25. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Response and Purpose Twitter…..119 Table 5.26. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Response and Purpose Facebook..120 Table 5.27. Frequency of Post or Tweet...... 122 Table 5.28. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook...... 123 Table 5.29. Nature of Content on Twitter and Facebook...... 123 Table 5.30. Image Building or Distortion on Facebook and Twitter…………………...124 Table 5.31. Language used in Posts and Tweets………………………………………..125 Table 5.32. Cross tabulation Purpose of Post and Tweet *Language used………….….126

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Table 5.33. Cross tabulation: Purpose of Post *Language Facebook……………….…..127 Table 5.34. Cross tabulation Purpose of Tweet * Language used in Tweet……………128 Table 5.35. Cross tabulation Purpose of Post and Tweet * Nature of Post and Tweet…129 Table 5.36. Cross tabulation Purpose of Tweet * Nature of Tweet…………………….130 Table 5.37. Cross tabulation Purpose of Post * Nature of Post…………………………131 Table 5.38. Cross tabulation Purpose of Post and Tweet * Nature of Post and Tweet…133 Table 5.39. Cross tabulation Purpose of Post * Nature of Post………………………...134 Table 5.40. Cross tabulation Purpose of Tweet * Image building or distortion………..135 Table 5.41. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of audience engagement differ across Purpose of Post…………………………………………………………………..138 Table 5.42. Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of audience engagement differ across Image Building………………………………………………………………………….140 Table 5.43. Kruskal Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across “language”...141 Table 5.44. Kruskal Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across “purpose of tweet”……………………………………………………………………………………143 Table 5.45. Kruskal Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across “image building”………………………………………………………………………………...145 Table 5.46. Kruskal Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across language of tweet”……………………………………………………………………………………146 Table 5.47. Analysis of Language used in Comments on Posts and Tweets…………...148 Table 5.48. Analysis of Language used in Comments on Posts………………………...148 Table 5.49. Analysis of Language used in Comments on Tweets……………...149 Table 5.50. Correlation………………………………………………………………….151

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Road Map of Research……………………………………………………….10 Figure 2.1. Use of social media as a Strategic Communication Tool for Building Image and Managing Reputation………………………………………………………………..35 Figure 3.1. Relevant Approaches of Political Communication………………………….37 Figure 3.2. Change in Political Communication…………………………………………42 Figure 4.1. Research Framework and analysis strategies………………………………..63 Figure 4.2. Model for Quantitative Research……………………………………………64 Figure 5.1. Assembly wise respondents of Four Provinces and National Assembly…....89 Figure 5.2. Who operates Twitter Handle of the Political Actors (N=148)……………...91 Figure 5.3. Who operates Facebook Page of the Political Actors (N=148)………….…..92 Figure 5.4. Target Audience (N=189)……………………………………………………93 Figure 5.5. Where Political Actors share information First (N=189)……………………94 Figure 5.6. Who operates Twitter handle of MNAs…………………………………….107 Figure 5.7. Who operates Facebook pages of MNAs…………………………………...108 Figure 5.8. Target Audience of MNAs………………………………………………….109 Figure 5.9. Where to share information first (N=189)……………………………….....113

Abstract

The advent of social media has opened a multitude of horizons for political actors and their audiences. Social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, are considered to be extremely effective means of propagating self-promotion, thereby enabling the political actors to timely inform the audiences about their political activities and views. Most political actors actively use social media to develop their public relations and project and promote their political ideology and preferences. The purpose of this study was to understand the behaviour of political actors of Pakistan in terms of their usage of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. The theoretical framework of this study was knit around strategic political communication and political public relations. In addition to this reputation management framework and relationship cultivation framework were also incorporated to explore the strategic communication of political actors. For this purpose, the survey was conducted among the political actors who were the members of provincial assemblies (MPAs) and National assembly (MNAs) in the last democratic regime i.e.

2013-2018. The total number of the respondents of survey was 247 out of which 207 were

MPAs and 40 were MNAs. The purpose of the survey was to gather information about the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter and the quality of relationship they were cultivating with the audiences. Three different variables of quality: trust, satisfaction and responsiveness were selected from the work of Hon and Gruing (1999) and applied to this study. The content analysis of Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of 34 MNAs was also conducted to evaluate the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter, image building and language used in posts. In addition to this, results of survey of MNAs and content analysis were also compared to see if there was any consistency between the perceived purposes stated by the political actors in the survey vis-à-vis the actual purposes depicted

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in their shared content. The variable of credibility from the work of Kiousis, Mitrook, Wu

& Seltzer (2006) was also studied to explore the reputation management strategy of the political actors.

Based on the findings, it was concluded that most of the political actors were using Facebook and Twitter to propagate their own political agendas. They were also sharing personal content to cultivate their relationship with the masses and manage their reputation. Nonetheless, in this process they might be ignoring the quality and strength of the relationships. In terms of audience engagement, it was found that the political actors were generating different audience engagement on Facebook and Twitter with reference to purpose, language, nature and image building. It can also be inferred that the political actors were enjoying more credibility on Facebook as compared to Twitter as they were facing discouraging and abusive comments more on Twitter.

Keywords: Social Media, Usage, Purpose, Political actors, Twitter, Facebook, Political Communication, MNAs of Pakistan

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Introduction 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Recent years have seen the speedy proliferation of an innovative class of information technologies, generally called as social media, which aids interpersonal communication and collaboration exhausting Internet-based platforms. Social media has become an “integral part of public discourse and communication in the contemporary society” (Muntean, 2015, p. 6) and present an entirely new perspective at how people engage with each other. Social media can be defined as the digital multi-way communication channel between people and information resources which are personalized, scalable, rapid and convenient (Katz, Barris &

Jain, 2013). These new platforms are diverse and widely used for spreading ideas. Social media is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). Social media has become a vital part of public discourse and communication in modern society and presents a completely new perspective of how people engage with each other. The emergence of social media technologies has been embraced by a growing number of users who post text messages, pictures, and videos online (Duggan, 2013).

There is no doubt that the widespread adoption of social media is challenging the way traditional media have been used to disseminate news and to debate on top social and political issues (Yang, Chen, Maity, & Ferrara, 2016). Social networking tools like Twitter,

Facebook, My Space, and blogging offer dominant new ways to connect, influence and engage fellow citizens (Grant, Moon, & Busby, 2010). Moreover, the significance of social media has been mainly established in politics due to the use of social networking sites Introduction 2

(Facebook) and micro-blogging services (Twitter) which are believed to have the potential of positively influencing the political participation, as quoted by Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan

(2012). In fact, interactive aspect of digital political communication differentiates it from traditional modes of communication, commonly divided into personal and mass communication (Kalsnes, 2016). Basically, social media offers both citizens and political actors a platform to join political discussions and share any political content either publicly or privately.

This study intends to analyze how the political actors of Pakistan perceive the purpose of using social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter and to explore whether there is consistency between the perceived purpose stated by the political actors in the survey and the purpose depicted in the content shared by them in their posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter. This study also focuses on analysing how the political actors are cultivating their relationship with the audience. The quality of the relationship has also been analysed by measuring three indicators of quality i.e. trust, satisfaction and responsiveness. Furthermore, how the political actors are managing their reputation and generating more audience engagement through social media.

It is argued that advancement in new information and communication technologies has restructured the current political communication strategies (Kurt & Karaduman, 2012).

Social media has brought key changes in political communication. These outlets have become valuable resources often used by the political actors to reinforce their visibility.

Social media has developed as an essential tool of communication and has created new methods of political mobilization, encouraging “social media users” to participate in political happenings ranging from linking to their political groups to following status updates. Introduction 3

According to Stieglitz, Brockman and Dang-Xuan (2012) with regard to political sector, social media can be an enabler for participation and democracy among citizens.

Enli, and Skogerbø (2013) argued that in social media, political communication has become increasingly focused on personalities and personal traits of politicians. Politicians and political parties need a constant presence on these platforms to promote their image and maintain interactive, real-time communication with their supporters and potential voters. A political banner has a mandate and its opinion leaders carry their mandate as the face of every campaign, but this platform of new media gives them a chance to interact on a more open platform where a mandate must be reflected but does not necessarily shadow every comment on every post. It is said that as social media permits candidates to campaign more independently, therefore it has the potential to influence power relations in political parties

(Chadwick, Galley, Karlsen, & Enjolras, 2016). Analyzing and aggregating the times of today and tomorrow is now nothing, but a disturbing tweet that may change the whole scenario in a 140-character statement. From personality building to political profiling, social media pages play an important role. This newer platform has also now given access to political leaders to personalize their profiles and bring forward information and opinions to light that have the capacity to change the opinion of masses. This is an opportunity like never before to bind electoral units and figures.

Since social media stimulates both one and two-way communication, it gives an opportunity to built-up a dialogue with a larger audience, social media offers possibilities to maintain relationships. It also makes it easier to reply, and in some situations, even close a discussion. Therefore, if political actors have to take full advantage of social media they must use it strategically. According to Chadwick, Galley, Karlsen, & Enjolras (2016) the Introduction 4 purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission is strategic communication. The political actors should involve in two-way communication and not use

Facebook and Twitter just as additional venues for one-way information delivery. These mediums can be used in a strategic way not only to mend their relationship with the audience but also to develop their own relationship with the public in a direct way. Social media has developed into a more direct channel of communication, making it easier for politicians to bypass the heavily mediated connections offered by traditional media (Hallahan, Holtzhausen,

Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007) and to “draw the public’s attention” (Broersma and

Graham, 2012), so it has a great potential for strategic communication. The potential for political parties to connect, communicate, mobilize, fund raise, and affect the news agenda through social media are some of the strategic reasons why political parties are increasingly performing online politics. (Johnson, 2011). Thus, social media plays a progressively important role in the communication strategies of political campaigns by reﬂecting information about the policy preferences and opinions of political actors and their public followers (Nulty, Theocharis, Popa, Parnet, & Benoit, 2016).). “It’s strategic for politicians to use political rhetoric to persuade people to act in the way they (politicians) want” (Jalilifar

& Alavi, 2012, p. 44), so social media such as Twitter and in some cases Facebook, are the ideal vehicle for this kind of self-promotion, giving politicians the ability to inform mass numbers of people about their political activities almost instantaneously, thus involving themselves in political public relations (Aharony, 2012). Stromback and Kiousis, (2011) have defined political public relations as:

The management process by which an organization or individual actor, for political purposes through purposeful communication and action, seeks to influence and to establish, build and maintain beneficial relationships and reputations with its key publics to help support its mission and achieve its goals.

Introduction 5

To address what meta-perspectives provide the best understanding of strategic communication in politics, the political public relations is perhaps the most promising

(Strömbäck, Mitrook & Kiousis, 2010). Moreover, political public relation underscores both short-term and long-term engagement with stakeholders, encompassing both organizational communication, and organization and action (Kaid & Bacha, 2008). It focuses less on the specific context of election campaigns, and political public relations supply a more comprehensive view of strategic communication in politics. It is said that communication is the spine of political strategy and public relations. Newer platforms like Facebook and Twitter have made this more flexible. Facebook posts and Twitter feeds can tilt the whole political mood in an upside notation. From foreign policy opinion staking to political mockery, the political idols play the dice in open grounds; its tilt set the new pitch for the upcoming game.

Not only do these mediums proliferate but also neutralize at times the issues which were previously away from the public eye.

Social media is used extensively by the political parties and political actors of

Pakistan to reach their political units and voters. Government, ministers, opposition leaders and other politicians all have started communicating directly with the audience to build their relationship in a fast and accurate manner through Social Networking Sites (SNS), especially

Facebook and Twitter. It is observed that the political actors in Pakistan are using Twitter and

Facebook to attain some designed objectives to build their relationship with the audience but there are not many studies regarding the purpose and usefulness of their strategic communication with the public. The political actors and citizens link and communicate on social media, boost digital engagement through likes and shares that increase their visibility in public. The broader view of political engagement offered in political public relations Introduction 6 incorporates not only a Reputation Management framework (short term) but also a

Relationship Cultivation framework (long term) for strategic political communication.

1.1. Status of Social Media in Pakistan

Social media and its consumption is growing day by day with every passing second around the world and similarly, its efficacy is also increasing in Pakistan. People understand the usage and influence of social media. According to a report (Internet world stat, 2016) only in Asia growth rate of Facebook is 33.3% and in Pakistan this growth rate is 14% per annum and the total users of Facebook are 2.7 billion till June 2016 (“The digital landscape of Pakistan…”, September 2017).

Many matters that were too debatable to be talked about in a conservative society like

Pakistan are now discussed on the Internet and the vision of people is increasing. According to Alpha Pro, in Pakistan, out of 198.9 million people, 44.6 million people use Internet and out of this number 92.06% people use Facebook. Pakistan is a country, which is going through a democratic transition now days; in some situations, problems faced by common people were overlooked by the mainstream media but now they are being highlighted in the social media. Hence, social media is providing a platform for people of Pakistan to come up and speak for their rights. Social media and digital platforms are not just offering a forum for commercial markets to reach out to the local crowd and grow but it is also giving true freedom of speech and power to the opinion of ordinary people.

1.2. Statement of Problem

Over the past few years, numbers of social networking tools and number of people using these tools has grown remarkably. Therefore, the rules are also continuously shifting, and there is substantial vagueness on how to apply these tools from a strategic perspective. Introduction 7

Political actors are learning how to efficiently use social media as part of their strategic communication initiatives by trial and error method, but there is still much to be learned. It is important to investigate that how strategically the political actors are using social media to achieve their goals because the internet has become an increasingly effective tool for the people to not only get political knowledge, but to become a part of political process itself.

Therefore, this study aims to investigate the purpose of usage of Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan, what strategy they use to cultivate relationship with the audience and how they manage their repute among the audience; this research is unique because it has not been done before in Pakistan. Some scholars suggest that the strategic use of social media may "revitalize democratic society” (Winner, 2003, p. 167) hence, the usage of social media by political actors become worthier of investigation in a society like Pakistan where democracy is still in the transition phase.

Moreover, keeping in mind the ‘popularity’, ‘opportunities’, ‘amount of engagement’ and the ‘effects of social media’ in political public relations, it is imperative to see how political actors in Pakistan are using technology for political communication and to mend their relationship with their supporters/followers. There is also a need to develop epistemological grounds for theory and analysis of social media platforms, their outreach and effects. Studies on how politicians use social media are scant, much of the research emphasize on the networks and patterns of communication that emerge through an analysis of particular hash-tags (Burgess & Bruns, 2012; Larson, & Moe, 2012). Most of the researches conducted is on the usage of social media by political actors during or before an election period but this study concentrates on a non-election time period. This study intends to shed light on the ever-dynamic social media trends and responses of politicians and their Introduction 8 social media feed analysis. It is a strategic base for further researches to join. Literature shows that these types of studies have been conducted among Australian and Dutch politicians, UK and USA parliamentarians but no such study has been conducted with reference to Pakistan. The study is aimed to develop a roadmap for further times to come.

To fulfill the research objectives, Facebook posts and Tweets by political actors are selected for this study as “of all the social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are amongst the most popular ranking within the top 10 most heavily visited sites on the web” (Alexa, 2015) and it has been observed that they are most widely used by the political actors to communicate their message to the audience. According to Karamat and Farooq

(2016), the most common medium for social media communication are Facebook and

Twitter in Pakistan. Facebook is a very significant social media platform that was launched by Mark Zukerberg in 2004 to remain connected with family and friends but it got international recognition when it was revealed in 2012 that it has 845 million users. Twitter was launched in 2006 which was also used for uploading photos, videos and test with general public that are using it. Twitter got recognition in 2011 when the number of users increased to 300 million. Facebook and Twitter are also vital for political actors as it has provided them an opportunity to mobilize and motivate citizens on their political manifesto.

The time period selected for this study is one month i.e. November 2016, considering the amount of data produced on Facebook and Twitter on minute to minute basis. The month was selected randomly for the study because that was the time when the idea for this study had been conceived and access of the data was much easier. Moreover, this study is focused during a non-election time and the selected month was almost in the middle of the five-year Introduction 9 democratic regime; at a time when the political actors were not preparing for elections and were using Facebook and Twitter to share content about their daily routines and activities.

1.3. Research Objectives

The objectives of the research are as follows:

1. To explore the purpose that why the political actors of Pakistan use Facebook and

Twitter

2. To analyze the relationship cultivation strategy of the political actors and also the

quality of relationship they are cultivating with the audience

3. To examine what strategy political actors apply to build their image and manage their

reputation through Facebook and Twitter.

4. To analyze the level of audience engagement across different purposes, nature and

language of posts or tweets

5. To explore whether there is consistency between the perceived purpose stated by the

political actors in the survey and the purpose depicted in the content shared by them

through their posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter

1.4. Significance of the Study

1. This research would add to the growing body of strategic communication research on

social media. This study would give insight into strategic use of social media by

Pakistani political actors, cultivation of their relationship with the audience and

management of their reputation in public.

2. The study would also be a contribution in the field of political communication by

analyzing how far political actors are using the technology to promote and strengthen

democracy in Pakistan by engaging citizens in democratic activities. Introduction 10

3. This study would fill the gap by analysing the difference in usage of social media in

pre-election, election, and post-election time, as these types of studies are scant.

4. This study would provide the basis to compare the attitude of political actors of

Pakistan towards usage of social media with the politicians of other countries, which

has not been done so far.

5. The future research in the field of political communication and democracy cannot be

completed unless the relationship and relevance of new technology in information

and communication is also studied; this study would also point out "new norm"

criteria for political communication.

1.5. Roadmap of the Study

Keeping in view the research objectives, this study is divided into four parts:

Figure 1.1. Road Map of Research

Introduction 11

1.5.1. Part A: Survey to Analyze the Purpose and Quality of Relationship

The first part of this research aims to explore the purpose of using Facebook and

Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan through a survey. This part also focuses on analyzing three indicators i.e. trust, satisfaction and responsiveness to find the quality of relationship cultivation strategy.

1.5.2. Part B: Content Analysis to Measure Purpose and Strategy of Using Facebook And Twitter

The second part of this study intends to investigate the type of content political actors post and tweet on Facebook and Twitter respectively and also what tactics/strategy do they employ to cultivate their relationship with the audience.

1.5.3. Part C: Reputation Management and Audience Engagement

This part focuses on how political actors manage their reputation on social media by measuring audience engagement on the posts and tweets. The behavior of the public would also be analyzed through the language of the comments, to study whether people give discouraging or supportive comments to the political actors.

1.5.4. Part D: Co-Relation between Survey Purpose and Content Purpose

This part would develop a link between the survey and content analysis to explore the consistency between the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter stated by the political actors in the survey and the purpose analyzed in the content shared by them on social media. Hence, this would be an attempt to define the relationship between what producers (political actors) think and what they actually produce (posts and tweets) on social media. Review of Literature 12

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter explores the review of literature on various concepts related to this research. The examination of the relevant text intends to build and support some pertinent arguments related to social media and politics, political public relations and social media and more subjects of this nature. A detailed reference is cited below to support and justify the peculiar and post pragmatic sides of various analogies of the study.

This chapter is divided into three sections

2.1. Usage of Social Media by Political Actors

2.2. Political Public Relations and Social Media

2.3. Relationship Cultivation and Reputation Management

2.1. Usage of Social Media by Political Actors

Every advancement in technology has an impact on everyday life that particularly holds correct for advances in media technology (Baker, 2009). Media is an essential part of life on a day-to-day basis, and it turns out to be even more significant in regard to government and political information. The advent of social media has been adopted by a growing number of users who post text messages, pictures, and videos online (Duggan,

2013; Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, Madden, Rainie & Smith, 2015).

Social media is an important tool for political actors to reach to their public directly and build one to one relationship with them. It is also regarded as the ideal platform to measure public opinion about political actors, politicians and government policies (Steiglitz, Brockmann, & Xuan, 2012). Thus, social media provides both citizens and politicians a platform to contribute in political deliberations and privately or publicly share any political content. Review of Literature 13

There is a plenty of literature on how political actors use social media to gain their benefits all around the globe. Twitter’s rising popularity has made it a platform for the political actors to influence, inform and engage with their people while receiving feedback. Graham, Jackson and Broersma (2016) compared the usage of Twitter by

British and Dutch parliamentary candidates, they conduct a hand-coded content analysis on the way British and Dutch Parliamentary contestants used Twitter during the 2010 general elections. They revealed that Dutch politicians as compared to the UK candidates were more probable in using Twitter and also, they tweeted almost double the time their

British counterparts. The study also found out that the Dutch candidates were also more prone to embrace the interactive prospective and it emerged that their community reacted to this by enchanting in more discourse. The researcher characterized that the more traditional attitude of British candidates in contrast to the Netherlands to remarkable distinctions in the annexation of social media by national elites, and conflicting stages of castigation forced from the central party machines. To further elaborate the use of social media and compare political actor’s behavior from different countries, Aharony (2012) conducted a study to analyze the communication through twitter using statistical descriptive analysis and content analysis of tweets done from August to October in 2010 by the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu; the Prime Minister of Britain,

David Cameron; and the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. The research displayed that the tweets by the US President were far more than the leaders from other countries, with the British Prime Minister tweeting the least, and the reasons for all three leaders to use twitter were transparency and outreach.

As an inherent nature of social media, people tend to share small pieces of information in abundant quantities. Twitter, for instance, did not allow individual messages to be longer than 140 characters till the late 2017. According to numerous Review of Literature 14 scholars, the instant release of concise erupts of information to a large audience (Chun,

Shulman, Sandoval, & Hovy, 2010) is more effective than posting massive amounts of data on public websites (Fung, Graham, & Weil, 2007).

In addition, Oelsner and Heimric (2015) found Twitter was the newest invention in political campaigning. This scholarship was grounded on a comprehensive content analysis on the use of all Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by German MPs in the

Bundestag, the European Parliament and five federal state parliaments in 2012. The findings told that all MPs started the usage of social media, and it was proved as the first step toward communication with constituent associations.

Similarly, Caplan (2013) conducted a content analysis of the categorization and preemptive strategies of the Twitter posts of two political actors, Scott Rigell the

Republican Congressman and Paul Hirschbiel the Democratic Candidate, both being candidates in the 2nd Congressional District of Virginia and attracted their voters in 2012 by using twitter. It was revealed that Twitter was mainly used by the two candidates to post information and update the voters about their day-to-day political activities, thus, showed that important role social media played in their election campaign. The preemptive strategies employed by both the republican congressman and democratic candidate were the calculated methods by which the candidates anticipated to influence citizens, stimulate voters and distinguish themselves from their opponent.

Another study was conducted in Korea, according to which the politicians, particularly National Assembly members, incorporated the social media as a foremost way of interaction for handling election movements and continuing associations with

(probable) followers throughout non-election phases (Hsu & Park, 2012). The growing amount of National Assembly associates had become conscious of the substantial effect that the Internet had on their voters. The results concluded in favor of researcher’s Review of Literature 15 hypothesis that National Assembly members managed to consume a more alike association in the Twitter network than in the homepage or blog network.

Moreover, Momoc (2013) also studied 2009 Romanian presidential elections and the way in which the candidates intermingled with the new interaction tools. After the first study carried out on the 2004 online Romanian electoral campaigns, the contribution

(the number of people knowing how to read and write, or the number of those effectively contributing at the referendum) was very trivial as it was after the social media was just begun and the amount of Internet subscribers amplified later.

Similarly, Grant, Moon and Busby (2010) observed that the current expansion of social media had a noteworthy influence on the modern political scenery. This artifact enhanced by presenting the first quantitative analysis of the usage of Twitter by

Australian politicians to help understand how the public and the political actors were engaged online. The examination advocated that political actors use Twitter for political assignments and interactions, and some were more positive in this than others.

Nielsen and Vaccari (2013) examine the online attractiveness of a small number of incomparable contenders and stated that politicians are given influential novel methods of connecting straight with constituencies by using social media as a platform.

Scrutinizing this is proceeding on a substantial measure, the researcher finds that, grounded on investigation of 224 major party contenders competing in aggressive districts for the U.S. House of Representatives throughout the congressional elections in

2010, most politicians online are, actually, mainly overlooked by the constituency. For significant straight online interaction amongst political actors and their public through these stages is a unusual, outlier occurrence—even in the situation of high-stakes, well- resourced campaigns—we suggest that the most relevant political implications of social Review of Literature 16 media take the shape of (a) new opportunities for indirect interaction about politics and

(b) institutional transformations in political interaction developments.

Another research conducted by Hoffmann, Suphan and Meckel (2016) concluded that politicians’ social media acceptance had determined organizational predecessors, such as race keenness or reserve accessibility. This research proposed that novel media acceptance was profoundly persuaded by user aims. Grounded on a study of politicians functional at the federal level in Switzerland, the researchers examined the influence of usage aims on politicians’ social media acceptance.

Considering the ever-changing dynamics of the social media, Bode and Dalrymple

(2016) conducted research on the approaches by which politicians and policy makers correspond with the community and how these correspondences are continually changing and evolving to the ever-changing media atmosphere. As part of this altering background, this scholarship deliberates the case of Twitter, especially; the authors carried out an examination of political twitter users, in order to comprehend their usage of the channel and their political conducts within it. The findings imply that political Twitter users are more entranced in and employed in politics overall, and less assuming of the conventional media. Furthermore, the scholarship examines the degree to which followers of a campaign might imitate its complete effect in the Twitter verse.

Social media also has an impact on the emotional association of constituents with their political leaders. In this regard, Bode and Dalrymple (2016) further examined whether political parties and candidates’ implementation of social media technologies caused both hopefulness and apprehension about constituent employment in Australia. On one hand, researchers had articulated confidence for a more democratic politics unfettered from conventional media’s gatekeeping function; on the other, scholars discovered political interaction within social media mostly failed to surpass politics. Grounded on Review of Literature 17 international studies, Australian research dedicated on contenders’ usage of Twitter and

Facebook for political campaigning had categorizes an essentially frustrated probable for a participating community sphere. This research donated novel examination to this query of online political employment by observing Victorian state politicians social media usage throughout both non-election and election days.

Furthering the study in Australia, Lukamto and Carson (2016) commenced quantitative content analysis and social networks exploration of politicians’ Facebook and

Twitter use in 2014. The findings stated that the state politicians enjoying their federal and other state complements were quickly implementing digital skills, mainly Facebook, for political interaction. However, notwithstanding the noteworthy amplified social media usage by Victorian politicians for public interaction reasons, the researcher found that alike to other modern Australian findings the magnitude of political interaction between politicians and constituencies on these social media sites continue to be little. The researcher identified two associated features that obstructed political appointment in the digital bubble; they were people’ undesirable comments and politicians’’ long lasting longing to regulate the political communication.

There has not been a study to determine whether there is an impact on political party when the politicians talk about their personal lives on social media. Colliander,

Marder, Falkman, Madestam, Modig and Sagfossen (2017) found that there is a strong split between Politicians' professional and personal lives and it has been questioned by an increasing necessity to be comprehended as personable, particularly on social media as it is considered as a standard there. The findings presented that a steady approach amplified both curiosity in the politician's party and intent to elect for that party. Additionally, liking the tweets appeared as a critical intercessor. This scholarship backs an important Review of Literature 18 understanding on self-presentation approaches of politicians particularly, and largely about self-presentation in the situation failure.

Social media has become a more direct channel of communication, “making it easier for politicians to bypass the heavily mediated connections offered by traditional media and bring issues to the communication by an organization to fulfill its mission”

(Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Vercic & Sriramesh, 2007). To further investigate this notion, Kalsnes (2016a) examined, the three actor groups in the political communication sphere, the media actors, citizens and political actors and their use of social media during the electoral process in Norway 2013. This study is important as it pointed out how political actors could side step the media gatekeepers and could contact directly with their voters using Facebook pages. Concurrently, Facebook and Twitter were significant to bring traffic on social media, and also as a suitable and easy way for political media to reach its target audience and political sources. The study proposed that the evolving philosophies of social media logic could help us comprehend how political communication happened on social media. The researcher explained the foremost effects of the social media logic are media actors’ diminishing part as gatekeepers. Karlsen &

Enjolras (2016) in another study also investigated the association among individualization and digital social media during 2013 Norwegian elections by analyzing candidates’

Twitter data. The researchers were of the view that social media had the probable power to impact control relations in political parties as they let individual contenders to campaign individually of the central party. They revealed that there were mainly two approaches of campaigning on social media: a party-centered and an individualized approach. Additionally, an individualized approach grew the probability of being more active on Twitter, but it could have a negative influence. In a cross communication arrangement, it emerged that the contenders who gain effect in social media were those Review of Literature 19 who were able to make an interaction among conventional media networks and social media.

Escalating Twitter Italian transformation in political communication, Di Fraia and

Missaglia (2014) found that a significant figure of Italian politicians have begun to use social media networks, especially Twitter. For the same purpose the author explored a particular research to fathom the specific consumption of the new media and how politicians actually used them for their political reasons. Statistics of the survey have displayed an essentially unidirectional and top-down usage of Twitter that procreates the conventional media rationality of political communication.

Conway, Kenski and Wang (2015) found out that the queries occurred around the degree to which social media substance could sidestep, track, or appeal the attentiveness of conventional media. The research explores these elements by investigating intermediary agenda-setting properties between the Twitter feeds of the primary presidential candidates of 2012 and articles issued in the top newspapers of the country.

Daily issue regularities within media were examined using time series investigation. An interdependent correlation was uncovered among agendas in Twitter posts and conventional news. The conventional media follow candidates on certain topics; on others they are able to envisage the political agenda on Twitter. It has been observed that the politicians intensively used online platforms to reinforce the links with the constituency, gain appreciation about their standpoint for political views and confirm involvement.

Moreover, Hong (2013) studied the methods of social media establish as one of the grips of campaigns during election periods. Especially twitter, as it is one of the modes of social media, was favored in election campaign owing to delivering immediate messages and operational interaction. The author mentioned the example of Obama and the way he used Twitter during presidential elections in the USA in 2008 and 2012, and Review of Literature 20 its significant role. The author took local election in Istanbul for 2014 and studied with regard to communication, information and agenda through content analysis technique.

The scholarship explored if the political actors adopted social media in order to influence the fund raising process. The results suggested that the political actors raised higher funds with the use of social media.

One of the most critical junctions in the U.S. Presidential elections was the election year of 2008. The role of Facebook in presidential victory campaign of Obama in

2008 stimulated several politicians to use it as a campaign instrument. To further verify the usage of Social Media by the political actors, Ross, Fountaine and Comrie (2015) examined the Facebook wall posts (1148 in total) of New Zealand Members of

Parliament (MPs) leading up to the 2011 general election to regulate posting attitude and variances. It had been observed that Social media had a progressively significant habitation in the lives of people, and their probable to enlarge the influence of communication messages outside individual networks was appealing to those watching to increase message efficacy. It was also learnt in the study that most politicians did not encourage discourse with readers of their posts, hardly got involved in threads of comments and mostly took a monologue tactic, and used Facebook as a technique of broadcasting information rather than as a medium facilitating two-way flow.

Social media is often considered as a tool to formulate mass opinions. Karamat and Farooq, (2016) examines social media as an instrument that lets individuals to generate and distribute diverse thoughts, material and pictures/videos. It is an online technique of interaction to cultivate communication and association between individuals.

The authors also investigate function of social media in constructing the public opinion.

The scholarship also inspects the position of Facebook and Twitter in persuading political Review of Literature 21 engagement. It also assesses the level of liberation caused to awareness through social media. Survey method was used as a method to collect primary statistics.

Kurt and Karaduman (2012) explained the importance and effectiveness of social media applications in today’s era by specially talking about politicians who had decision- making power in public sphere. The increase in the use of social media by politicians led the author to research the usage of social media by the parliamentarians of Turkey. In the scholarship, the researcher studied the amount of usage and the purpose of using social media by the political actors was examined in order to explore how much social media the party leaders of Turkey use. The author analyzed the social media profile of party leaders in Turkey, the regularity and aims of using social media by political actors. By analyzing the message, language, discussions and material shared by the politicians of turkey, the author’s findings shows the effectiveness of the use of social media to reach the public.

In another study related to the social media usage by the politicians of Turkey,

Mengü, Güçdemir, Ertürk, and Canan (2015) studied the candidates of the party in power and their Twitter messages as well as the opponent parties, contesting for the local elections held on March, 30, 2014 in Turkey were examined through content analysis.

Social media was mainly favored because of steadfast and convenient approach to the constituency, one-to-one and friendly interaction prospect, offering truthful material instinctively and averting anecdotes.

Loader and Mercea (2011) conducted a study on primary commencements of virtual democracy as a digital community scope or civic commons had been substituted by a new scientific optimism for democratic regeneration grounded upon the public and cooperative interacting appearances of social media. Lee and Oh (2012) studied the usage of Twitter by the South Korean politicians; they conducted two tests and explored the Review of Literature 22 affects of communication done on the Twitter by the politicians in regard to public’s perceptive, emotional, and behavioral responses, concentrating on the effects of message personalization.

2.2. Political Public Relations and Social Media

Over a period of five to six years, the most emerging form of digital public relations worldwide is Social Media. Some scholars strongly believe that social media is the future of PR worldwide. The power of PR through social media can be explained by the example of the LGBTI movement. In a study carried out by Rodriguez (2016), focused on the prejudice and discrimination towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) immigrants, and also talked about the brawl against the unfair rules against them. For the said matter, the researcher explores the usage of social media platform, Facebook and Twitter accounts, of NGO’s (Organization for Refuge,

Asylum & Migration and International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission) specifically working for asylum issues. The research builds upon the existing research in organizational communication and NGOs by further seconding that social media can be used as functions of information, community and action, and most importantly to build organizational public relationships.

Similarly, the existing literature shows that Politicians, like others, also have been using social media for the purpose of PR and political communication. frame and

Brochette (2015) explored how five French politicians used Twitter as tool for public relation and for this purpose the qualitative approach to political communication was adopted. It advocated that the micro blogging facility has a particular function in permitting them to supervise public opinion and day-to-day happenings, to communicate with constituents, media, shareholders and other political actors and to circulate information. The purpose of politicians to use Twitter is inclined by apprehensions of Review of Literature 23 reputation management hence the political actors find these platforms promising and use it as a PR tool.

Over the last 10 years, there has been an enormous increase in the importance of new technology and hence the exploration has amplified tenfold. According to Taylor and

Kent (2010) the scholarship in public relations and social media should spread onto more important issues as most of the attention of the research has been to study technology interfaces (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), instead of subjects involving shareholders, publics, communication, interpersonal issues etc..

The existing literature also talks about agenda building and agenda setting, the association between public relations, and how by using social media political parties and politicians can affect people’s perception and public opinion. Kim, Xiang and Kiousis

(2011) investigated the same thing in the perspective of 2008 United States presidential elections and found both the levels of agenda building and agenda setting, the associations between public relations, worldwide media, and public opinion. Two candidates’ speeches, press releases, and foreign media coverage was examined and matched with global public opinion. The findings exhibited that entity salience (subject and contender) associations were discovered among public relations communications and global media coverage while affecting characteristic (tone) salience associations were moderately discovered between public relations communications, worldwide media, and public opinion.

Some scholars believe that other than just simple telling their manifesto to the voters, politicians also use social media as a forum to get public approval and support for political policy. Froehlich and Rüdiger (2006) examined that central purpose of political public relations is to consume media channels in order to convey specific political interpretation problems in order to gain public support for political policy. In the survey Review of Literature 24 carried out by Frohlich and Rüdiger (2006), it was studied how fruitful political PR is conveying its media-oriented viewpoint. However, it rests problematic to examine the transmission of information to press from PR. The key drawback is the shortage, in both practice and PR exploration, of a well-defined notion on how to measure PR success.

One important role of social media in Political PR explored by the existing literature is that it increases the probability of voter’s engagement in political participation. Householder and LaMarre (2015) compared the campaign goals with its voter’s behaviors and or that the researcher conglomerates campaign interviews with the secondary data from the 2010 U.S election. The author inspects both the social media prospects from the side of the campaign and contentment of these expectations from the side of the public. The scholarship shows in order to intensify the probability of the voter’s engagement in significant political participation outcomes; their involvement with a campaign using social media needs to be increased.

Some researchers on the other hand have shown concerns about productivity of the usage of social media for political PR. Valentini (2015) challenged the usage of social media for public relation, publics and organization. The research shows that the public relations appear to be exaggeratedly affirmative about the function of social media. The dominant dissertation reasons that the usage of social media as ‘good’ for public relations reason being that the social media has a great advantage in mounting discourses and rapport between organizations and its publics and keeps them involved. However, the pragmatic indication in public relation mostly depends on case to case and is restricted to the dominance of current organizational practices with inadequate knowledge of the tangible worth of publics or organizations. The researcher insists that most of the public relations scholars and scholarship assume that social media is positive and is mainly based on the profession’s demand to connect the two sides of public relations identity- the Review of Literature 25 rhetorical and the relational. In the study, the researcher focuses on these two identities and also discusses the associations of gullible usage of social media in public relations practice.

Another important study that examined the function of Social media in PR was by

Allagui and Breslow (2016) in which they explored the best practices and new term trends in public relations; the researcher explores and compares four-award winning public relations campaign conducted across a variety of social media platforms. The result of the researchers case study fathoms three inclinations in best practices; the storytelling techniques done digitally in social media campaigns employ both emotive and immersive and that leads to the content sharing behavior, the stories used for campaigning involve member of the target audience in some form and that leads to open ended discussions or involvements again promoting content sharing behavior, most of the content shared is customized to be able to open on mobile phones, and finally the content is well-timed. The researchers conclude that public relations can use social media to begin dialogue, assist with brand positioning, and facilitate continued brand sustenance.

The active users on social media play an important role in opinion formation, just like the opinion leaders in print and TV. Similarly, Weeks, Ardèvol-Abreu and Zúñiga

(2017) studied a concept of opinion leaders on social media by examining the prosumers

(highly active users on social media) and how they consider themselves as opinion leaders. The study suggests that the prosumers think they can change others political attitude and behaviors and consequently increase their efforts. According to the researcher the opinion leaders are influential in persuading the people around them about news and politics but social media era’s challenges their probable effect. The scholarship examines a theoretical model of efforts at the political influence within social media by the producers. Review of Literature 26

For the said purpose, the author used the two wave U.S. panel survey data and found that the prosumers consider themselves as vastly persuaded in their social nets and are both directly and indirectly more prone to attempt to influence others. The results also pointed out on the theoretical instrument through which social media users try to influence others and this individual persuasion rests workable within social media.

The significance of online political communication and its difference with offline political communication is becoming a center of discussion. Lilleker, Bebić, Grbeša,

Kersting, Kneuer, and Luengo (2017) studied the comparison between online and offline political communication and also talked about its importance and further discussed how it became effective in democratic life. The importance of various media and political discourse in mind, this scholarship focused on pros and cons of multidimensional comparative prospects on the function of digital technology in the present democratic age.

The online participation, deliberation can lead to social networks while online playing tools played an important role in strengthening mobilization and could support in building social networks (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012).The writer emphasizes the importance of education and social equity as an important qualification for digital media, if properly prearranged it will become a democratic regime. In the scholarship, the writer pointed out that the future research in the fields of political communication and democracy cannot be completed unless there is a study on the relationship and relevance of new technology in information and communication, and also pointed out "new norm" criteria for political communication.

Bennett and Iyengar (2008) grounded on the existing literature in the field of communication, the new evidence on bias in news consumption is constant with the argument that technology will be limited rather than broaden users' political perspectives.

Over time, evasion of unlikable communication may become normal so that users turn to Review of Literature 27 their favored sources instinctively no matter what the subject matter. By trusting on partisan but favored providers, patrons will be able to ''wall themselves off from topics and attitudes that they would desire to elude'' (Sunstein, 2001, pp. 201–202). The conclusion will be a less learnt and more divided constituency, with the political communication game directed at those who have mainly set out.

Taylor and Kent (2010) explore the issue about how the students of public relations are fraternized to understand the significance and power of social media in PR practice. To be able to understand the level of understanding in the students of PR, the researchers explores the existing academic research carried out on social media and also the professional argument about the significance of social media as a tactic of public relations. For the said purpose the scholars carried out a one-year content analysis of public relations tactics problems and the data is seen by the theoretical frame of socialization literature (Jablin, Putnam, & Roberts, 1987). The result of the analysis explains that the power social media outweighs effectiveness of social media as a communication tool. There is a different view between the writers of public relation tactics think as the potential for social media and the research findings about effectiveness of social media. In the last section of this article, the researchers discuss the impact on public relations educators, expert groups, and practitioners, taking into account the tactics of social media in the PR strategy.

Another important aspect studied by the scholars regarding the function of social media in party-political PR is its effect on the political actors. Painter (2015) examines the effect that source of information and communication had on the presidential candidates of United Stated 2012’ online campaign communications on voter- campaign political organization- public relations and political trust. The results of the test imply that the role of Facebook was distinctively far more influential as compared to the websites Review of Literature 28 used for campaigning and also helped in enhancing both citizen relationship and developing trust in the government and the campaign. This was especially true for the users who indulge in significantly extrovert behavior activating advanced levels of elaboration and self-awareness.

The result extend the two ways communication model by examining the persuasion of interactivity and stipulating the online platform and also suggests that the political expression uses the highest results on interpersonal aftereffects and political confidence. The significance and function of public relations in regard to the evolving democratic institutions in Northern Ireland was examined by Rice and Somerville (2013) and the imperative questions revolving around the post conflict power sharing democracies were also largely recognized. The authors explained how this issue is important as the political public relations within obligatory alliances have not acknowledged much importance from scholars to date and the democratic governance of

Northern Ireland’s democratic being power sharing mandatory, is considerably unalike of majoritarian electoral system. This scholarship examines their outlooks on political public relations in democratic institutions, draws on the information collected from the interviews by the elite and journalists in Northern Ireland, and it further explores their views on political public relations in Northern Ireland’s developing democratic organizations.

Avery and Graham (2013) conducted research on the effect of different municipal structures have on indigenous government’s social media use by collecting data from more than 450 local officials of the government from cities all over the US. The research precisely focuses on the affect the use of social media have on time resources, confidentiality issues, resident anticipations, social media efficiency, staff size and public requirements. The findings show that this encourages more participating and transparent Review of Literature 29 government. The findings also specify that general the resident anticipations and apparent social media efficiency by the government officers are robust prognosticators of social media use.

Drawing on the findings of the sociology of uses studies in the method to social media annexation in the arena of corporate communication, the author answers the imperative question whether the strategic planning of the day-to-day professional happenings of manager in social media is a thoughtful arrangement or emergent. Charest,

Bouffard and Zajmovic (2016) describes the actual professional practices of managers of social media and equates them to the concepts established in the literature using semi- structured interviews that were conducted with 12 managers in North American organizations who are operating in social media. And as a result, many practices arisen for which principles were not prearranged always.

Kiousis, Kim, Carnifax and Kochhar (2014) studied the functions of Senate majority leader of the US in formulating the salience of subjects and question accredited in reporting of news media and policy making in 2011, beached in first and second level agenda building. The researcher took a population of 358 public relations communications, 164 newspaper items, and 83 policymaking documents and studied to conclude that noteworthy connections were discovered and all seconding agenda-building connections at both levels. The author explored various kinds of information subsidies, comprising of blog posts, press releases, Facebook and Twitter messages.

Momoc (2013) explores that states people are engrossed with their political image and not concerned much about engaging in a discourse with their voters, while the social media idealist consider online political communication infers a bigger involvement of the consumers that is the audience. Using content analysis method on the Facebook accounts and on blogs of different political leaders of the Romanian parliamentary party, the Review of Literature 30 researcher came up with a theory that supports the idea that politicians are using social media to build their political image and are not doing much in creating a relationship and discourse with their votes. The content analysis was done at two different moments;

January-February 2012 riots and July- August 2012 referendum campaign.

Smith (2010) investigated the connection between technology of communication and social media and discuss the shift of power of communication to social media consumer from the public relations practitioners. The author emphasizes on the information that the power of communication is in the hand of a social media user, who might not take any standard function or definite importance in an organization. The author conducts a qualitative analysis of user participation on twitter observing relief struggles to back Haiti after the 7.0 earthquake in 2010 to study the social public relations. The result of the analysis was a social model of public relation in which the responsibilities of a traditional public relation practitioner are transferred to social media user. The investigation of Twitter posts, moreover, enlarges to understand the online interactivity and validates social media handler contentment of public relations goals.

LaMarre and Suzuki-Lambrecht (2013) studied the efficiency of Twitter as an instrument for communication in public relations in congressional campaigns. Public relations and democracy have a vital relationship (Martinelli, 2011) and also the increasing use of social media for democratic goals, the author feels the significance of conducting the study. The author compared all of 435 U.S. House of Representatives races (N = 1284) with 2010 election results to test the efficiency of Twitter in informing and involving voters. The findings show that the candidates’ chances of winning, directing for tenure and party Identification considerably increased because of their twitter use. Furthermore, noteworthy disparities between officeholders’ and contestants’ Review of Literature 31

Twitter usage throughout the election cycle arose, which had significant consequences for public relations practices targeted at accomplishing democratic results.

Kent (2013) talks about the pros and cons of new technology and how its abundance and easy access are affecting public relation and democracy. The authors study the changing function of public relations practitioners in post mass media society.

The author suggests that if technology used properly can improve public relations. He argues that public relation using technology can improve democracy using discourses and communitarianism. The public relations can resuscitate its conceptualization of, association; communication practitioners can also use democracy and society as a whole.

2.3. Relationship Cultivation and Reputation Management

Karlsson, Clerwall and Buskqvist (2013) explains how there isn’t sufficient studies done on relationship management in digital political public relations. The author’s research investigates whether political parties are utilizing the digital media platform from the viewpoint of long-term commitment and reciprocity using the 2010 Swedish campaign election as a case study. The result indicates that social media tools are mainly used at the time of the election and just before that, it was observed that the exchange between the parties and the voters is weak and insubstantial. There were some differences in frequency of use, but all parties shared the same activity pattern.

In addition, although the user's commitment boosted over time, the vast majority of voters were not easily reachable through these platforms as there were relatively few users who follow political parties. In principle, the results show that social media as a political public relations tool is still behind by the more traditional and akin approaches.

Similarly, Walker, Baines, Dimitriu and Macdonald (2017) describes the word-of- mouth disseminating carried out on twitter is by retweeting and hasn't not attracted much attention. The researcher used chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) Review of Literature 32 decision tree prediction method to encode the readily available Twitter data and manually coded sentiments and content to find out why one tweet is retweeted more than the other in a political marketing sphere.

The aggregated predictive model classified retweeting behavior with a success rate of 76.7%. The number of followers of the one originating the tweet matters significantly in retweeting behavior and when the emotion of the tweet is negative it appears to be retweeted more which is quite the opposite of the previous work (East,

Hammond, & Wright, 2007; Wu, 2013). In addition, certain types of tweet content are associated with very low level retweeting, such as tweets including the originator’s personal life, whereas the content related to fear appeals or expressions support for others also get high levels of retweeting.

Hoffmann and Suphan (2017) explained the significance of social media and how it provided new avenues for political actors, including personalized messages and exchange with the specific communities of interest. However, regardless of the potential advantages, politicians tend to hesitate the active involvement of online users. In this scholarship the author studied the influence and impact of politicians' online boundary management on the use of social platforms. The connections made by social media profiles could be entrenched in diversity of social backgrounds ("Contextual collapse").

Professional communicators face there were difficulties in the management of the division between the professional and the private online self-presentation. According to a study of 106 German parliamentarians, the author explained the four different types of boundary management schemes and analyzes its effect of these on the social media usage of politicians to better understand politicians' online engagement.

Stanyer (2008) talks about the image politicians create of themselves to their voters using the Internet. The article talks about various methods used by the serving Review of Literature 33 government officials of online self-publicity. The author takes the case study of two- advanced industrial democracies- the US and the UK. It pursues to determine the amount to which individual virtues are a vital characteristic of an elected government officials’ online personality, and any alterations that occur between these democracies with different electoral cultures. The author concludes by reflecting the results of experimental study and explains the relationship between the nationwide voting cultures and the government officials’ persona.

Koop and Marland (2012) discusses the gap between the elected representatives and their constituents by making a comparison between the demonstration of individuals by Canadian members of Parliaments (MPs) on the website of the parliament and the parliamentary newsletter which is the older medium used by the parliament. The study basically focuses on how elected representatives present themselves to their voters in order to increase their chance of getting elected again.

It follows Gulati (2004) in using nameplate images of MPs in Parliament and their voters as alternatives for demonstrations of yourself as insiders and outsiders, separately.

Purposely, it inquires (1) how MPs present themselves online, (2) if this varies from presentation in newsletters, and (3) what aspects describe presentation of self-online. The scholarship explores that MPs most likely will display themselves as outsiders especially on their websites that this fluctuates from arrangements witnessed in newsletters, and that party association plays an imperative function in determining self- presentation online.

The inferences of these outcomes and possibilities for future scholarships are discoursed.

Boz, Uhls and Greenfield (2016) studied that self-presentation is a very popular trend in the youth in the current era and the author argues this being the most important reason for the social network site’s popularity. The paper examines the young people’s Review of Literature 34 behavior and how they make their digital identity on facebook.com. The author studies the way young people structure their Facebook profiles using self-presentation tactics.

Additionally, it examines the perception Facebook has among the young people and what their reasons are to use it. The author used the conceptual framework based upon Goffman’s dramaturgy theory and the concept of impression management. The paper contributes to new media literature, social media and youth but also provides a different understanding on youth’s behavior of using social media and how it affects their identity construction and also explains the obvious self-presentation tactics in the digital identity.

Seltzer and Zhang (2010) surveyed the relationship that citizens have with their political parties, using 2008 presidential general election as a case study. The author used the telephone survey method to collect data of listed voters (n ¼ 508), and he examined the communication between politically significant connection predecessors, relationship- farming tactics employed by political parties and results of the relationship to test a model of political organization- public relationships (POPRs). Time, interpersonal trust, mediated communication, interpersonal communication, and dialogic communication emerged as significant predictors of POPR strength. The finding put the groundwork for future investigation of POPRs.

The review of the existing literature has identified numerous research gaps and unexplored research areas that are worthy of investigation So far, many studies have discussed the importance and significance of social media for political communication and politic public relation but there is not a single study available which has examined the use of social media by the political actors in context of relationship cultivation and reputation management strategies. Therefore, the review of the literature mentioned in this chapter provides the basis for the research questions being explored in the study. This Review of Literature 35 study is focused to explore the usage of Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of

Pakistan, what strategy they are using to cultivate relationship with the audience and how they are managing their repute among the audience, this research is unique because it has not been done before in Pakistan and it is imperative to discuss how the political actors are using social media, an important and direct mean of communication with the audience. If social media is used constructively by the political actors, it could strengthen the democratic values here in Pakistan.

In the light of literature reviewed, the schematic model on use of social media as a strategic communication tool for building image and managing reputation is constructed which is as follows:

Social Media

Strategic Communication

Online Political Public Relations

Building Image and Political Actors Convey Reputation Message Directly to Management Audience

Engaging Different Stakeholders to Cultivate Relationship

Figure 2.1. Use of Social Media as a Strategic Communication Tool for Building Image and Managing Reputation Theoretical Framework 36

CHAPTER 3

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter reviews strategic political communication & political public relations, reputation management and relationship cultivation strategies through social media as the theoretical foundations of this study. Reviewing these above-mentioned concepts, this chapter provides theoretical rationales about how political actors use social media strategically to cultivate relationship and manage their online reputation among the public and how people react to their posts and tweets.

The number of social networking tools has grown exponentially over the last few years. Subsequently, the number of users have also increased rapidly. The social landscape is continuously changing and evolving and as a result, the uncertainty makes it a challenge to use these tools from a strategic standpoint. So far, politicians have generally adopted the “trial by fire” method of learning the effectiveness of using social media tools for their strategic communication. It is, therefore, imperative to study the ways and methods in which political actors are integrating social media into their communication strategies to reach and communicate with public.

Main concepts of relevant approaches are defined and background is given to strengthen the research objectives.

Part A. Strategic Political Communication

Part B: Political Public Relation

Part C: Strategic Political Communication & Political Public Relations Through

Social Media

Part D: Reputation Management & Relationship Cultivation Theoretical Framework 37

• "strategic political communication can be used to achieve objectives in elections and Strategic Political policymaking. It can also be used for aims Communication such as increasing internal cohesion or shaping media coverage". (Stromback & Kiousis, 2015).

• "purposeful political communication to Political Public influence, establish, build and maintain Relations relationships & reputations with its key publics" (Stromback & Kiousis, 2011).

• "indicators of relationship cultivation Relationship strategy: trust, openness, satisfaction, Cultivation access, mutual control, and responsiveness Ledingham (2011) ).

• "credibility, morality, intelligence, leadership, Reputation ideology and issue positions" (Kiousis, Management Mitrook, Wu & Seltzer, 2006)

Figure 3.1. Relevant Approaches of Political Communication

3.1. PART A: Strategic Political Communication

3.1.1. Political Communication

According to McNair (2011), the purposeful communication regarding politics is known as political communication. The three points about political communication, which are:

1. Political actors use different forms of communication to attain specific goals and objectives.

2. Non-politicians including columnists and voters, use different forms of communication to address to these political actors. Theoretical Framework 38

3. Communication regarding political actors and their activities done through columns, news reports, features, editorials and many other forms of media debate of politics (McNair, 2011).

Political communication is a subfield of political science and communication.

It deals with the dissemination of political information and the effect of this information on the politics, policy makers, and media and on the general masses.

Political communication focuses on the distribution of public resources (revenues), authority and power distribution (who has power to make decisions, laws, and methods and rules to follow) and official sanctions about rewards and punishments by the state (Denton & Woodward, 1998). Moreover, in Political Communication, the sender has intention to influence or affect the political atmosphere and it is said that the source of a message does not make communication “political” but the vital feature which makes communication “political” in its content and the purpose (Denton &

Woodward 1998).

3.1.2. Political Actors and Strategic Political Communication Under the umbrella of statements discussed about political communication before, it is added that politicians use a variety of media tools to interact with the public directly or indirectly, to run political campaigns, to build good image or repute among the public, to achieve certain political goals and objectives, to shape public opinion in their own way and to seek personal political benefits. Over the years, there has been a significant change in the ways that the election campaigns are systematically organized and conducted (Negrine 2008). Politicians are continuously using new tools (Tenscher, Mykkanen, & Moring 2012) to communicate as purposefully and efficiently as possible (Stromback, 2008). In essence, this means the inception of the notion of strategic political communication, which means party’s Theoretical Framework 39

intentional planning of information and communication is to attain the desired political agendas (Stromback & Kiousis 2015). The increased trend of using strategic political communication by politicians in political campaigns (Esser & Stromback

1997) are often referenced as an enduring process of changing socio-political contexts and media coverages (Stromback & Kiousis 2015). According to Williams (2016),

44% of the U.S. citizens relied on social media for political information about candidates in the 2016 presidential elections. It was argued that there were almost 10 million followers of Trump on Twitter while Hillary Clinton had almost 7 million.

Whereas on Facebook Trump had nine millions that were about double her number of followers. It was found by the Pew study that political candidates used Facebook for five to seven posts per day and used Twitter for 11 to 12 tweets per day.

Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh (2007) defined strategic communication as “the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfil its mission” (p. 3). Similarly, Frandsen and Johansen (2017) argued, “all types of organizations, including private and public sector, political parties, NGOs, and social movements, use strategic communication to reach their goals” (p. 2250).

Macnamara and Zerfass (2012) examined party’s self-interested usage of strategic communication to achieve an objective, attain impact, and to work upon an agenda highlights dynamic ethical issues but little attention has been paid to the usage of strategic political communication by political actors. In this research, the role of the political actors in enhancing the importance and usage of strategic political communication is explored.

3.2. Part B: Political Public Relation

Social media’s increased popularity has transformed the landscape of public relations. Politicians are generally seen modifying their communication strategies and Theoretical Framework 40

making social media as an important part of it. Since political public relations are considered as a kind of strategic political communication, the increasing usage of internet and social media has had a significant place in this discipline.

It is essential for a public relations practitioner to be aware of all the present forms of social media and to prepare for any emerging forms in the future. The practitioner should also know and understand the usage of different tools and should be able to determine the appropriate tool for a particular task and also be able to measure its effectiveness. The very nature of social media is two-way flow of information stream. This can help in promoting and fostering democracy by including participation of citizens, information of different government plans, and more aspects for engagement. Social media highlights “interactivity, co-creation of content, subscription-based information services, and third-party application development”

(Toledano, 2017).

The public relations for political purposes is a growing dimension of research by merging mainstream public relations and political communication. The main emphasis of the dimension revolves around the service to the public through communicating concerns to the news media. However, Froehlich and Rudiger (2006) argued that the main objective of political public relation is the use of media platforms to express specific political opinions, resolutions, and clarifications of issues to gather public support for political policies or election campaigns. It is worth mentioning, though, that due to the increasing trend of personal publishing, the users of political public relations’ technique don’t depend on exclusively media for communication and reaching their target audience.

Strategic public relations may be considered asymmetrical or even manipulative if being strategic results in fulfilling the aims of an organization, Theoretical Framework 41

primarily or solely (Toledano 2017). Many in the field of PR (Heath, 2001; Heath,

Pearce, Shotter, Taylor, Kersten, Zorn & Deetz, 2006) have argued the need of dialogue (Kent & Taylor, 2014) as a major ingredient in building trustworthiness and ethical relationships (Paquette, Sommerfeldt & Kent, 2015) between organizations and stakeholders (Pieczka, 2011, 2015; Stewart & Zediker, 2000).

3.3. Part C: Strategic Political Communication & Political Public Relations Through Social Media

In the contemporary era, social media is the most popular among other forms of media. People use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked Inn, etc. to interact with each other in the whole world. These sites are considered as a forum for sharing activities, opinions, attitudes and behaviours and also, they are the forum for discussion and debates. About more than 2.19 billion people have membership of

Facebook while about more than 336 million people have accounts on Twitter globally (Steiglitz, Brockmann, & Xuan, 2012).

From few years, social media is being used for strategic political communication. Political participation is constantly increasing through social networking sites. Now the political actors have their own official pages on these sites and they have direct interaction with the public. Political actors share their activities and get immediate reaction/response by the public. Similarly, the public share their beliefs and opinions regarding politics and political actors on these sites. This gets intense during election campaign as social media is regarded as the ideal platform to measure public opinion about political actors, politicians and government policies

(Steiglitz, Brockmann, & Xuan 2012).

Public relations practitioners have started to pay attention to the role and potential of an emerging web tool, weblogs or blogs for short, as a tool to express and Theoretical Framework 42

reach out to the key public (Edelman & Intelliseek 2005) and build relationships

(Kelleher & Miller 2006).

Mediatization Journalists/ Mass Politicians/Political Institutions Media

De-centralization

Citizens/ Voters/ Audiences Figure 3.2. Change in Political Communication. Adapted from “Introduction: Mediatization and De-centralization of Political Communication” by K. Brants & K. Voltmer, 2011, Political Communication in Postmodern Democracy: Challenging the Primacy of Politics, p. 4. Copy rights 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan. Adapted with Permission

Over a period of time, with the increasing popularity of the social media, the principles of the communication through mainstream media have also reformed. In

Social media the entire communication is based on the principles of “social interaction”, “multidirectional communication” and “the public impose the media agenda”, on the other hand, since feedback in traditional media is delayed and sometimes even absent, the communication is focused on “broadcast” or

“unidirectional communication”. Thus, the structure of communication mediated by the social networks underwent substantial modifications from the one explained in the so-called “third phase of development of political communication systems” or

“postmodernism”. Theoretical Framework 43

The decentralization of the communication to social groups of online opinion

leaders and eradicating the horizontal dimension, in which vital role is played by mass

media and political actors to spread the political message to the public, can explain

the uniqueness of this communication mechanism. In Social Media, the message is

decentralized from source (Facebook page of political actor) by some regular users,

which in time become effective leaders in the online environment.

Chun, Shulman, Sandoval, & Hovy (2010) argued politicians and government use Twitter to increase their impact of traditional forms of press releases and conferences. They also use the social networking sites to convey their messages to a large audience (Chun & Warner 2010; Chun et al. 2010; Jaeger & Bertot 2010; Bertot,

Jaeger, Grimes 2010). Bertot, Jaeger, Munson, and Glaisyer (2010) added that Twitter and Facebook would be an effective platform of freedom and objectivity. Shogan

(2010) also emphasized that social networking websites have capacity to bring changes in constituent communication strategies.

In a very short span, political actors in modern democratic societies all over

the world have started to use Facebook and Twitter for reaching their target public

(Gulati & Williams, 2010). According to the statistical portal of 2018, Facebook is the

most popular social networking site across the world with more than 2 billion active

users . These political actors have adopted new media because they consider it

fascinatingly important for successful communication more than traditional media

(Posetti, 2010; Westling, 2007).

Steiglitz, Brockmann, and Xuan (2012) argued that new advance technology

oriented tool such as Twitter is considered as less funding means of direct constituent

communication that evades the expensive and large budget political campaigning of

mainstream political advertising on television. In recent years, social media have Theoretical Framework 44

become most popular among other forms of media. People use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked Inn, etc. to interact with each other in the whole world. These sites are considered as a forum for sharing activities, opinions, attitudes and behaviours and also, they are the forum for discussion and debates (Steiglitz,

Brockmann, & Xuan 2012).

Social Media specifically Twitter promote plausible changes in political communication and public involvement (Pingree, 2007). As Trammell (2006) argued that “compared to traditional media, internet platforms allow for more interactive and two-way communication” and research shows “higher levels of interactivity” (Shah,

Cho, Eveland, & Kwak 2005) “may influence the effects of exposure to online political information” (Shah et al., 2007; Tedesco, 2007).

From few years, social media is being used for strategic political communication. Political participation is constantly increasing through social networking sites. Now the political actors have their own official pages on these sites and they have direct interaction with the public. Political actors share their activities and get immediate reaction/response by the public. Similarly, the public share their beliefs and opinions regarding politics and political actors on these sites especially making it intense during election campaigns. Social media is regarded as the ideal platform to measure public opinion about political actors, politicians and government policies (Steiglitz, Brockmann, & Xuan, 2012). However, little research has been conducted to explore the uses and abuses of social media for political interests

(Wattal, Schuff, Mandviwalla, & Williams 2010).

3.3.1. Online Public Relations

Online public relations (OPR) is “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics, in which the actions of either can impact the Theoretical Framework 45

economic, social, cultural or political well-being of the other” (Ledingham &

Bruning, 1998, p. 62). This increasing trend of the Internet usage and embracing the social networking sites provide political actors new ways to build relationships and maintain their credibility in public. To check relationship quality and the effects of using strategic communications, Hon and Grunig (1999) designed four dimensions of organizational public relations that are trust, satisfaction, commitment and control mutuality”. According this four dimension model of interactive strategy is properly applicable to public relations for political interests because “organizations and their strategic publics are interdependent, and this interdependence results in consequences to each other that organizations need to manage constantly” (Hung, 2005, p. 396).

Thus, it is also added that the relational viewpoint uses these four indicators to measure the level to which the audience trusts political actors to act with responsibility (Grunig & Huang, 2000).

Hence, the politicians do no rely on conventional news media any longer.

They use social media web networking in their political campaigns to build relationships with target audience (Sweetser 2011). The usage of strategic campaign communication is so evident in the US presidential elections campaign since 2004

(Stromer-Galley, 2004; Baker, 2000; Williams & Gulati, 2010). In addition, the personalized promotion of the political actors on social networking sites such as

Facebook & Twitter “may foster stronger relationships between the campaigns and the publics, humanize the opposition, and result in greater levels of political trust”

(Baldwin-Philippi, 2012).

3.4. Part D: Relationship Cultivation & Reputation Management

First portion of this segment focuses on the idea of relationship cultivation. As the systematic circle firstly, the relationship is built and then comes the sustainability. Theoretical Framework 46

The smoothness of the circle depends upon the strategy building and then the execution of the plan. Both of the notions need to be carefully tied as in case of a little unconscious act the whole may be collapsed.

3.4.1. Relationship Cultivation

The Relationship cultivation theory is developed in the context of public relations theory. Organizational study has demonstrated that any organization’s behaviour can affect the status of its relationship with its strategic publics.

Organizations cannot merely maintain relationships with the publics, but must devote time and resources to improve their relationships and/or restore any damaged relationships. To properly cultivate relationships with their strategic publics or stakeholders, organizations/persons can integrate a range of relationship cultivation tactics into their day-to-day communication activities.

Relationship cultivation strategies originated from theories of interpersonal relations (Canary & Stafford, 1994) specifically romantic relationships (Stafford,

Dainton & Hass, 2000). Public relation researchers (e.g., Grunig & Huang, 2000)

“transformed the concept of relationship cultivation strategies in interpersonal communication and applied the strategies to Public Relations” (Hon & Grunig, 1999).

Relationship cultivation tactics are day-to-day communication activities employed by organization/persons to improve the quality of its relationships with various publics or stakeholders and are often considered proactive approaches to fostering high quality relationships.

The most effective strategies, which have been identified to produce positive relationship outcomes (Grunig & Huang, 2000), are “access, positivity, openness, sharing tasks, networking, and assurances” (Hung-Baesecke & Chen, 2013; Ki &

Hon, 2009). In a study of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Seltzer and Zhang Theoretical Framework 47

(2010) explored “the impact of the relationship maintenance strategies of mediated communication, social activities, interpersonal communication, and online communication on relationship quality with political parties along the dimensions of trust, satisfaction, commitment, control mutuality, and supportive behaviours”.

From a general standpoint of Public Relations, Hon and Grunig (1999) added five indicators that are commitment, satisfaction, relationship quality, trust and control mutuality. Similarly, Ledingham (2011) also identified the indicators of trust, openness, satisfaction, access, mutual control, and responsiveness as arguably the most critical in determining relationship quality in a political public relations setting.

It is worth recognizing that this approach goes beyond defining political public relations as communication to include actions and behaviours. Relevant outcomes in strategic political communication include favourable attitudes towards political candidates, parties, or legislation and supportive behaviours such as vote choice, vote intention, volunteering, donating, attending events, joining an organization, protesting, or engaging in activism (Strömbäck & Kiousis 2011).

Regardless of the scales development to measure the relationship cultivation plans, a few researches have been conducted to investigate how organizations integrate these relationship maintenance policies into their visibility on internet, particularly for religions networks. The viewpoint of relationship management argues that the major objective of public relations practitioners is to develop, maintain, and endorse long-term rapport between an organization and stakeholders, no matter who they are. This dimension is an important exit from the exploiting of public views to the unification of ethical and balanced two-way communication. Though, it was not an easily embraced standpoint, public relation scholars took almost 15 years to accept this concept. This developing model has made substantial interest among the Theoretical Framework 48

academic and professional groups because of the emphasis on relationship management. Broom, Casey and Ritchey (2000) added that public relations practitioners accept this new dimension to the extent that now the field is known as relationship management rather than strategic communications.

Relationship management is not a part of public relations only because it has been comprehensively combined with the programs of corporate and integrated marketing communications. Morgan and Hunt (1994) defines the notions of building trust and pledge with target public. According to Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry

(1988), one of the first attempts to check the level of relationships is the SERVQUAL scales from marketing discipline. These scales quantity the statements presented to stakeholders’ reservations and the party’s tilt to support or reject them. Keep the introduction of these scales in view, Bull (2003) argued that relationship management scholars proposed investigation of different aspects of the public relationship from leadership and culture (Eagle & Kitchen, 2000) to message construction (Duncan &

Moriarity, 1998) and interactivity (Grönroos, 2004). All of these features effect the cultivation and maintenance of organizational relationships with public. Tilson and

Venkateswaran (2006) restated that “devotional-promotional communication’ and added “aims to establish and maintain good clergy–congregant/ devotee relations as well as inspire devotion to the faith” (p. 115). Despite the availability of the wide range of communication channels, organizations build relationships with target audience in similar patterns reflected by the process of relationship development between two persons.

According to Grunig & Huang (2000), public relations researchers have already worked on face to face communication for conceptions that can be amended or adapted for a theory of organization-public relationships. Based on interpersonal Theoretical Framework 49

communication theory, Hon & Grunig (1999) argued that “standardized scales have been developed for evaluating organizational relationships. These scales primarily focus on the measurement of the four dimensions of relationships commitment, power balance, satisfaction, and trust” (p.3).

Following a quick idea of cultivation plans by Hon and Grunig (1999), asked for supplementary investigations of relationship management and complete explanation of the face to face approaches that might be applied to the organizational contexts. This perspective of Dialogic Theory (Kent and Taylor, 2002) is accustomed with the prevailing thoughts on the function of communication in making relationships, where these constructive relationships between an organization and its shareholders are built through communication with the help of public relation practitioners (Ledingham, 2003). This “socially informed generation calls for and expects dialog as governments shift their views of citizens from consumers to allowing citizens to contribute online to the development of government” (Azyan,

2012). One exclusive advantage of using social media networks in public relations practitioners is their ability to involve many citizens in two-way communication even in the low budget structure (Duggan, 2010). In addition, Bruning (2002) stated that

“To effectively manage relationships, it is critical that practitioners conceptualize of communication with key public members (rather than simply a transfer of information), and use communication to support an ongoing relationship” (p. 44).

3.4.2. Reputation Management

Another useful perspective is reputation management for the understanding of strategic political communication. The application of reputation management to strategic political communication requires, of course, that it has to be moved out of the traditional business context. That is, the reputation concept is applied to political Theoretical Framework 50

parties, leaders, nations, and so forth (Scammell, 1999). A growing body of research has confirmed this application (Donsbach & Brade, 2011). A related body of work on political candidate images has also illustrated the importance of reputation in strategic political communication.

Such research has examined how the portrayals of political leaders in candidate communications, news media messages, and public opinion can closely correspond to one another. Among the most common attributes of the candidate

(Kiousis, Mitrook, Wu & Seltzer., 2006) images studied were credibility (does the candidate seem believable?), morality (do the candidate’s actions reflect well on his or her ethics or integrity?), intelligence(is this reflected in his or her knowledge or skills?), leadership (is he or she charismatic or inspiring?), ideology and issue positions (what are his or her policies?), and biographical information (details of his or her hometown or family) (Weaver, Graber, McCombs & Eyal, 1981).

The spreading of new media technologies incorporated with the Grunig’s

(1992) idea of public relations as “building relationships with publics that constrain or enhance the ability of the organization to meet its mission” and to move public relations from mainly one-way communication model of relationship management to more systematic, communicating, two-way communication models for developing

Online Public Relations (Kent & Taylor, 2002). The applied tactic to communication orders the crucial component in this dialogic or conscious communication model i.e. two-way communication among the companies, shareholders, and the target audiences. This type of dialogic communication enables organization and target audience to get awareness and have joint understanding about agreement and views.

Therefore, organization considers legitimate publics’ interests and concerns (Kent &

Taylor, 2002). Theoretical Framework 51

Public relations have conventionally focused on the organisation of strategic communication amongst an organization and its stakeholders. Though, the rise of relationship management as the main model in public relations has led this discipline to emphasize on relationship building and maintenance (Ledingham & Bruning,

1998). Just as people cultivate social capital that aids them build relationships and careers, corporations and other organizations improve reputational capital that supports them build relationships and develop their organizations.

A critical first step in reputation management is the constructing and cultivation of relationships with main constituencies. The emerging paradigm of relationship management is a new start to examine various tactics that organizations/ politicians can use to foster relationship growth with their shareholders in physical contexts even though “increasingly individuals are using the Internet to stay connected with organizations” (Ki & Hon, 2009).

3.5. Relevance with this Study

This study is aimed to investigate that how the political actors of Pakistan are strategically using social media to cultivate their relationship with the audience and managing their repute. Political public relations supplied a more comprehensive and inclusive view of strategic communication in politics. That is why the theoretical foundation of this study is knit around Strategic Political Communication and

Political Public Relations through Social Media, where the political actors are producers, posts and tweets are messages and voters are the consumers. In this research, the main focus is on establishing a relationship between the producers, message and consumers as Facebook and Twitter are considered to be more direct mean of two-way communication. Political Public Relations focus on reputation cultivation and controlled candidate communication in the political process. As Theoretical Framework 52

mentioned earlier, from a general standpoint of public relations, Hon and Grunig

(1999) identified the following “indicators of relationship quality: control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, and commitment” whereas Ledingham (2011) identified the

“dimensions of trust, openness, satisfaction, access, mutual control, and responsiveness” as arguably the most critical in determining relationship quality in a political public relations setting. In this study, the indicators of trust, satisfaction and responsiveness have been taken into consideration to analyse the relationship cultivation strategy of the political actors of Pakistan keeping in view that these three could be the most important indicators in a state like Pakistan where democracy is still trying to stand on its own feet. The political actors try to give audience authentic and true information in this age where social media has become a tool of propaganda more than a career of information. In this study, the variable of credibility in terms of supportive and discouraging behaviour has been measured to explore the reputation management strategy of the political actors. The behaviour of the audience has been analysed through the audience engagement and the language of the comments made on the posts and tweets.

Study Methodology 53

CHAPTER 4

STUDY METHODOLOGY

Social media is used extensively by the political parties and political actors of

(SNS), especially Facebook and Twitter. It is observed that the political actors in Pakistan are using Twitter and Facebook to attain some designed objectives to build their relationship with their audience. The political actors and citizens link and communicate on social media, boost digital engagement through likes and shares that increase their visibility in public. The broader view of political engagement offered in political public relations incorporates not only a Reputation Management framework (short term) but also a Relationship Cultivation framework (long term) for strategic political communication.

Therefore, this study intends to analyse how the political actors of Pakistan perceive the purpose of using social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter and to explore whether there is consistency between the perceived purpose stated by the political actors in the survey and the purpose depicted in the content shared by them through their posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter. This study also focuses on analysing how the political actors are cultivating their relationship. The quality of the relationship has also been analysed by measuring three indicators of quality i.e. trust, satisfaction and responsiveness. Furthermore, how the political actors are managing their reputation and generating more audience engagement through social media. Study Methodology 54

This chapter describes the purpose of the study, research questions and the methodology of this study about the usage of Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan and analysis of audience feedback. The data is collected by quantitative methods and analysed statistically by using SPSS. Therefore, the main focus of this study is the quantitative analysis and to support quantitative results, examples of posts, tweets and audience feedback is given and argued qualitatively in the discussion chapter.

The study is conducted among the political actors of all four provincial assemblies

of Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the National Assembly. In

Pakistan, an assembly means a place/house composed of the representatives of the nation.

The methods used in this research are survey and content analysis, for the survey,

questionnaire is filled by 247 members of national and provincial assemblies.

4.1. Research Questions

“It’s strategic for politicians to use political rhetoric to persuade people to act in the

way they (politicians) want” (Jalilifar & Alvi, 2011, p. 44), so social media such as Twitter

and in some cases Facebook, are the ideal vehicle for this kind of self-promotion, giving

politicians the ability to inform mass numbers of people about their political activities

almost instantaneously, thus involving themselves in political public relations (Aharony,

2010). Thus, giving an opportunity to the political actors to use social media strategically

to cultivate their relationship with the audience and manage their reputation online. The

research questions of this study have been developed keeping in view the previous studies

and need to fill some gaps. The research questions would help in exploring that why and

how the political actors are using social media especially Facebook and Twitter, how they Study Methodology 55

are cultivating their relationship with the audience, how much audience engagement they are generating on their posts and tweets and how they are managing their reputation online.

RQ.1. How do political actors perceive the purpose of using social media and is their

purpose of using social media being fulfilled?

RQ.2. What is the quality of relationship of political actors with the audience?

RQ.3.What kind of purpose is presented in posts and tweets to attract the

audience?

R.Q.4.What strategy do political actors apply to cultivate their relationship on social

media? (Types of content, Language, Nature)

 R.Q. 4a. What is the nature of content shared by political actors in posts and tweet?

 R.Q. 4b. What kind of language style do they employ in their posts and tweets?

 R.Q. 4c. Which tactic do political actors use more for building their image whether

through self-promotion or attacking opponents?

 R.Q. 4d. Is there any difference among the purpose and the type of content,

language and promotion?

RQ. 5. Do different reputation management strategies generate disproportionate audience

engagement?

 R.Q. 5a. Do different purposes show different audience engagement, including (a)

number of ‘likes’ on Facebook, (b) number of ‘shares’ of posts on Facebook, (c)

number of comments on Facebook post, (d) the number of ‘retweets’ of tweet on

Twitter, (e) the number of favourites’ on Twitter?

 R.Q. 5b. Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “purpose”?

 R.Q. 5c. Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “image building”? Study Methodology 56

 R.Q. 5d. Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “language”?

R.Q.6. Is the behaviour of public supportive or discouraging for the political actors?

R.Q.7. Is there any co-relation between purposes depicted in the content posted on

Facebook and Twitter with the perceived purpose stated by the political actors?

Both primary and secondary data was used to assemble empirical evidences to answer the research questions. The primary data was collected from the members of all four provincial assemblies and a National Assembly through survey. Later, in second stage, the content analysis was conducted to compare the results of survey with the content of posts and tweets. The content analysis was also used as a tool to measure the relationship cultivation and reputation management strategies of the political actors.

Table 4.1 shows the research questions developed according to the research objectives and also the methods used to investigate the research questions.

Table 4.1

Research Objectives, Questions, Methods and Analytical Strategy

Research Objectives Research Questions Method Used Analytical And Nature of Strategy Data 1 To explore the purpose RQ1. How political actors Survey/ Statistical that why the political perceive the purpose of Quantitative/ Analysis actors of Pakistan use using social media and is Primary Data Facebook and Twitter their purpose of using social media being fulfilled?

2. To analyse the R.Q.2. What is the quality of Survey/ Statistical relationship relationship of political Quantitative/ Analysis cultivation strategy of actors with the audience? Primary Data the political actors and also the quality of relationship they are cultivating with the audience Study Methodology 57

3. To examine what R.Q.3. What kind of purpose Quantitative/ Statistical strategy political is presented in posts and Secondary Data Analysis actors apply to build tweets to attract the Content Analysis their image and audience manage their reputation through R.Q.4.? What strategy do Facebook and Twitter. political actors apply to cultivate their Quantitative/ relationship on social Secondary Data media? (Types of content, Content Analysis Language, Nature) Quantitative/ R.Q. 4a. What is the nature of Secondary Data content shared by Content Analysis political actors in tweets and posts? Quantitative/ Secondary Data R.Q.4b. What kind of Content Analysis language style do they employ in their posts and tweets? Quantitative/ Secondary Data R.Q.4c. Which tactic do Content Analysis political actors use more for building their image- whether through self- promotion or attacking opponents? Quantitative/ Secondary Data RQ 4d. Is there any difference Content Analysis among the purpose and the type of content, language and promotion? Quantitative/ Secondary Data R.Q.6. Is the behaviour of Content Analysis public supportive or discouraging for the political actors? 4. To analyse the level of RQ. 5. Do different Quantitative/ Statistical audience engagement reputation management Secondary Data Analysis across different strategies generate Content Analysis purpose, nature and disproportionate audience language of posts or engagement? tweets Quantitative/ Study Methodology 58

R.Q. 5a. Do different Secondary Data purposes show different Content Analysis audience engagement, including (a) number of ‘likes’ on Facebook, (b) number of ‘shares’ of posts on Facebook, (c) number of comments on Facebook post, (d) the number of ‘retweets’ of tweet on Twitter, (e) the number of favourites’ on Twitter? Quantitative/ R.Q.5b. Does level of Secondary Data “audience engagement” Content Analysis differ across “purpose”? Quantitative/ R.Q.5c. Does level of Secondary Data “audience engagement” Content Analysis differ across “image building”? Quantitative/ R.Q.5d. Does level of Secondary Data “audience engagement” Content Analysis differ across “language”?

5. To explore whether R.Q.7. Is there any co- Quantitative/ there is consistency relation between purposes Secondary Data between the perceived depicted in the content Content Analysis purpose stated by the posted on Facebook and political actors in the Twitter with the survey and the purpose perceived purpose stated depicted in the content, by the political actors shared by them through their posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter

Study Methodology 59

4.2. Conceptualization and Definitions

4.2.1. Political Actors

Political actors include those individuals who have some capacity to influence on

decision of public through their legitimate power and authority in a particular society. In

a democratic state, it includes political leaders; candidate of national and provincial

assembly and policy makers who can influence the decision, media and policies that

may has effect on society as a whole. In this study, the term “political actor” means the

politicians who were the members of National or Provincial assemblies in the last

democratic regime i.e. 2013-2018.

4.2.2. Political Communication

“Political communication” is a multidimensional phenomenon that refers to the

institutionalize activity of group or individual to disseminate information, ideas and

symbols among public, media and politicians about governmental affairs (Franklin,

2004).

4.2.3. Social Media

“Social media” is a form of electronic communication based on social networking sites, bookmarking, wikis and micro-blogging through which people interact and collaborate with one another (Shirky, 2011). Primarily it was associated with mobile phones applications and tools to share information and ideas content and personal messages. It includes popular websites like Facebook and Twitter. In this study, two platforms of social media which are under observation are Facebook and Twitter.

Study Methodology 60

4.2.4. Audience

According to the definition of Merriam-Webster, “audience” refers to a group of listeners or spectators, ardent admires or devotees. Audience may be any target segment to which message or campaign is aimed. A media audience may be an individual or as billion people around the globe that are consuming the message or information.

Audience has deep relationship with the product or message they consume. Media audience consume different type of media such as chatting on the internet, watching videos and listening to music. In this study, the term audience means the people from any pay part of the world who are commenting and reacting on the posts and tweets of the political actors.

4.2.5. Reaction

According to the definition, “reaction” is the act or process or an instance of reacting. In simple words, reaction is the response of the receiver on some message or information, without it the communication process remains incomplete and one-sided. It is one of the powerful ways of achieving goals (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). In this study, reaction of the audience means audience engagement which is measured through likes, shares and comments on Facebook and retweets, replies and likes on Twitter. Reaction also includes comments on the posts and tweets.

4.2.6. Behaviour

In this study “behaviour” means the attitude of the audience towards the post or tweets apparent in their comments. The behaviour is further divided into three categories, i.e. supportive, discouraging and abusive.

Study Methodology 61

4.2.7. Active Users

In this study, active users mean the political actors who have followers and posted

or tweeted at least one time a day

4.3. Study Settings

The study is conducted among the political actors belonging to all four provinces

and capital of Pakistan. Pakistan is a democratic country though the process of

democratization has been very slow and passive and nature has remained fragile (Junejo,

2010). Pakistan has a federal government established by the Constitution of Pakistan

where the Prime Minister of Pakistan is the executive head-of-government. Pakistan has a

federal parliamentary republic type of government and is known as the Islamic Republic

of Pakistan. It has administrative areas called provinces and territories. Every province

has a provincial assembly.

4.3.1. National Assembly

The legislative branch of the government of Pakistan is made up of a bicameral parliament that was inherited from the United Kingdom. The parliament is composed of two houses, namely the National Assembly, which is the lower house comprises of 342 members, 272 who are directly elected by the people and 70 seats reserved for religious minorities and women. The other house is the Senate which is comprised of 104 Senators elected by the members of the provincial assemblies.

4.3.2. Punjab Assembly

The Punjab assembly of Pakistan is the largest provincial assembly of Pakistan consists of single body of legislature of political representative in Lahore. The provincial Study Methodology 62

assembly consists of total 371 seats, including 9 seats for non-Muslim and 66 seats for women. Punjab assembly was formed under Article 106 of the constitution of Pakistan.

4.3.3. Sindh Assembly

The Sindh assembly of Pakistan is made up of single chamber which mean a unicameral parliament of elected representative in the province of Sindh, which is located in Karachi. Members of Parliament are elected for the duration of five years until and unless the house is dissolved earlier. The provincial assembly of Sindh consists of total

168 seats of directly elected representative, including 9 seats for non-Muslim and 29 seats for women representation under Article 106 of constitution of Pakistan.

4.3.4. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly

The Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwais one of the four provincial assemblies of Pakistan made up of a unicameral parliament located in Peshawar. The provincial assembly of KPK consists of total 124 seats of elected representative, which include 99 regular seats while 22 seats for women representation and 3 seats reserved for

Non-Muslim under the Article 106 of constitution of Pakistan.

4.3.5. Baluchistan Assembly

The legislative branch of the government of Baluchistan is also made up of single chamber which means unicameral parliament located in Quetta, province of Baluchistan.

The provincial assembly of Baluchistan consists of total 51 seats of directly elected members, including 3 seats reserved for non-Muslim and 11 seats for women under the

Article 106 of constitution of Pakistan.

Study Methodology 63

4.4. Research Framework

Nature of Data

Quantitative

Method

Survey Content Analysis

Survey of Survey of Social Media

MPAs (207) MNAs (45)

Facebook posts Twitter Accounts of 33 MNAs of 33 MNAs

MNAsMNAs

Audience reaction

and comments

Figure 4.1. Research Framework and analysis strategies

4.4.1. Nature of the data

The research objectives of this study could be best achieved by applying different methods. So, for this study, to collect the data, survey and content analysis are applied.

The data is collected by the political actors of Pakistan, male and female both, through Study Methodology 64

questionnaire and from their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and the comments

made by the audience.

4.5. Section I: Survey

Survey in this study is divided in two parts, one is the survey among the members of provincial assemblies and the other one is among the members of the National

Assembly. The selection criteria for both the surveys is slightly different because the other sections of the study are more linked with the survey results of the political actors of the

National Assembly.

Survey

Provincial Natioanl Assembly Assembly Members Members

Content Analysis Co-relation Analysis of of Facebook Pages between Survey Audience and Twitter Results and Feedback Accounts Content Analysis

Figure 4.2. Model for Quantitative Research

4.5.1. Respondents from Provincial Assembly

One of the purposes of the study is to investigate that how the political actors

perceived the purpose of using social media. For this purpose, the survey is conducted

among the political leaders of Pakistan which is the most difficult and challenging task Study Methodology 65

because they were not easily approachable for general public, they were not ready to give much time and above all they were reluctant to fill the questionnaire though it is kept very simple and to the point.

4.5.1.1. Eligibility of Respondents

The eligibility criteria to select the respondents is quite simple and is laid down keeping in view the difficulties to access the political actors. The political actors are selected on the following grounds:

1. The members of the provincial assemblies

2. The members who were willing to respond and fill the questionnaire

4.5.1.2. Selection of Respondents

Though Pakistan is a democratic country but the political actors are not easily approachable. They usually do not respond on emails. Keeping the political culture of

Pakistan in view, the political actors were not much eager to be a part of any study as they thought that information they provided could be used for some counter propaganda.

Thus, the matter of confidentiality is extremely important in this study. As the population of this study is difficult to handle so the selection of the respondents is made on the basis of willingness, availability and convenience of the political actors.

Another challenge for this study was how and where to contact the members of the provincial assembly. After many deliberations, it was decided to contact the political actors during the sessions of the respective assemblies when all the members get together at one place on the basis of following grounds:

1. All the members of provincial assemblies are not necessarily residing in the

provincial capitals. Most of them belong to different cities even rural and tribal Study Methodology 66

areas. Thus, it was extremely difficult to go to their native towns and collect

information, it could be much more time taking and also more resources were

needed.

2. There was no surety of meeting with the political members at their houses even if

the focal person goes there after taking appointment because of the uncertain

schedule of the political actors.

Bearing all the limitations in mind, the assembly sessions were considered to be the time to get the questionnaires filled by the potential respondents, as they all get together there at a specific date and time.

4.5.1.3. Sample Size

The lists of the members of provincial assembly were collected from the offices of the speakers. All the members were contacted but all of them were not ready to respond so the sample size is selected on the basis of the availability and convenience of the political actors. In total, 207 political actors from different provinces responded to the questionnaire,

110 from Punjab, 38 from Sindh, 36 from Baluchistan, and 23 from KPK.

Table 4.2.

Selected Sample from four Provincial Assemblies

Provinces Total Members No. of respondents Punjab 371 110 Sindh 206 38 KPK 124 23 Baluchistan 65 36 Total 766 247

The questionnaires were sent to the focal persons and they got them filled by the members during the assembly sessions. Study Methodology 67

4.5.2. Respondents from National Assembly

The process of data collection from the political actors of National Assembly was much more critical and time taking, as the study requires the purposive sampling not based on random or convenient sampling technique. As mentioned above, the selected respondents were not easily approachable and many of them were not ready to respond on email either. Keeping the political culture of Pakistan in view, the political actors were not much eager to be a part of any study as they think that information they provide could be used for some counter propaganda. So much so that one member of National

Assembly belonging to opposition party tweeted the questionnaire stating that the government was collecting the data about the usage of social media to put ban or restrictions on them. In this scenario the matter of confidentiality is extremely important for this study.

Another challenge for this study was how and where to contact the selected members of National Assembly. After many deliberations, it was decided to contact the political actors during the sessions of the respective assemblies when all the members get together at one place on the basis of following grounds:

1. All the members of National Assembly are not necessarily residing in Islamabad

(capital city of Pakistan), most of them belong to different cities even rural and

tribal areas. Thus, it was extremely difficult to go to their native towns and collect

information, it could be much more time taking and also more resources were

needed. Study Methodology 68

2. There was no surety of meeting with the political members at their houses even if

the focal person goes there after taking appointment because of the uncertain

schedule of the political actors.

3. There was a possibility that if the questionnaires are mailed or posted to them,

they could ask anyone else to fill it on their behalf, so it was important to get the

questionnaires filled face-to-face to avoid getting wrong or altered information.

4.5.2.1. Eligibility of Respondents

The eligibility criteria to select the respondents is laid down keeping in view the difficulties to access the political actors, so the criteria is not much complex but slightly different from the respondents of provincial assemblies because the further content analysis of Facebook accounts and Twitter handles is dependent on the data collected by the political actors of National Assembly. Those political actors are selected on the following grounds:

1. The members of National Assembly who use Facebook and Twitter both

2. The members who show willingness to be a part of the survey

4.5.2.2. Selection of Respondents

To fulfill the objective of the study that how and why do political actors use social media and is there any correlation between the purposes perceived in survey and the content they post on Facebook and Twitter, the data from the members of National

Assembly is collected in two phases. This was again not an easy task as the members of Study Methodology 69

National Assembly are much busier than the members of provincial assemblies and were more reluctant to fill the questionnaire. It is also more difficult to approach them.

4.5.2.3. Sample Size

The sample was collected from National Assembly after rigorous and systematic effort to avoid any duplication or fake information which could affect the results of the study. In the first phase, a simple form was sent to the research cell of National Assembly asking about the usage of Facebook and Twitter by the member. The information about their official Facebook pages and Twitter handle was collected to know which members are using social media. According to that list there were 84 out of 342 members who were using Facebook and Twitter both. Then 45 out of 84 members were selected who were using Facebook and Twitter both and their accounts were active. In the second phase of the survey, questionnaires were sent to those 45 members belonging to different political parties. Forty members returned the questionnaires but five respondents did not fill the questionnaire. All the efforts were made to contact them but they neither gave time nor willingness to talk on phone. This turned out to be one of the limitation of this study because the content analysis of their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts is done keeping their initial consent in view but later on they did not fill the questionnaires.

Table 4.3.

Selected Sample of National Assembly

Members Frequency Total Members 342 Members using social media 84 Active Members 45 Questionnaires Returned by 40

Total Respondents 40 Study Methodology 70

4.5.3. Induction of Focal Persons in Provincial Capitals and Islamabad for Survey

The focal persons were inducted in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta and

Islamabad on the following basis:

1. The person who had an access to the provincial and national assemblies

2. The person who could contact the political actors and was also trustworthy.

3. The focal persons were then trained so they could get the questionnaires filled

correctly.

4.5.4. Instrument of Data Collection for Survey

Keeping in view the target audience of this study, a brief, to-the-point, 5-scale questionnaire is prepared in English. The basic aim is to gather information from the politicians of Pakistan considering the fact that they are all educated people and questionnaire could be the best tool to collect data from them. The questionnaire is kept short and comprised close-ended questions so that it could be easily filled. Another reason of depending on questionnaire for data collection is the busy schedule and reluctance of political leaders to give much time. It could be difficult to conduct face-to- face interviews with them. Furthermore, all the political leaders are spread throughout the country, therefore it would need more time and resources.

4.5.4.1. Questionnaire

The questionnaire is devised by research with the help of the supervisor. First of all, researcher reviewed the literature and explored the strategies used by political actors of Pakistan for political communication through social media. On the basis of that, the list of all possible questions is prepared which would help the researcher to empirically Study Methodology 71

verify the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan and variables of trust and responsiveness of relationship cultivation so that the findings could be generalized.

The questionnaire consists of pre-coded close ended questions which are further divided into four major sections. Section-I deals with the demographic profile of the political actors; Section-II investigates the purpose of using social media (Facebook and

Twitter); Section-III intends to measure the verifiability of news or information disseminate to general public whereas Section-IV is proposed to measure the most used social media platform by political actors of Pakistan.

4.5.4.1.1. Section A: Demographic information

The demographic questionnaire is used to extract the relevant information such as, name, age, political party, Facebook ID, Twitter Handle and number of years using

Facebook and Twitter.

4.5.4.1.2. Section B: Information related to purpose of using Facebook and Twitter

The second section of the survey is about the questions to get information related to the purpose of using Twitter and Facebook by political actor and fulfillment of purpose using Social Media. For measuring the purpose, researcher asks question about the perceived purpose and fulfilled purpose separately.

4.5.4.1.3. Section C: Information related to verifying the news or information while posting on Facebook and Twitter

The three important indicators of relationship cultivation strategy i.e. trust, satisfaction and responsiveness have to be measured through survey. So, questions about verification are asked from the political actors. They are asked whether they verify news or information before sharing it on Facebook and Twitter and do political actor post Study Methodology 72

information immediately and how immediate they respond to someone’s post or tweet? It is very important to know whether the news is being verified or not before sharing because if the post is not verified it could create disinformation among the voters. And it becomes more important in case of political actors because they are not random users but the decision makers and policy makers of the state.

4.5.4.1.4. Section D: Information Related to whether political actors believe in News/Information they get through Social Media

It is very important to know that whether the political actors believe in news or information they get through social media, because if they don’t believe in information they get through social media then it will be difficult for them to cultivate quality relationship with the audience and manage their repute online. As it has been observed in various studies that social media has over shadowed the traditional media so it was also important to know whether the political actors consider social media a better platform to communicate with their audience. The questions related to believe, authenticity and credibility of news or information gathered through social media were also designed to collect the desired information.

4.5.5. Conceptualization

4.5.5.1. “Purpose” of Using Social Media

In this study, the term “purpose” means that why political actors were using social media. The purpose was further divided into five categories:

i. Personal Activity

“Personal activity” is defined as using social media to promote personal or

family activities, Personal activity includes any information about the private

activity of the political actor, e.g. his own photograph, his selfie, his photograph Study Methodology 73

with friends or family, attending any family or personal function which were not

related to politics at all.

ii. Political Activity

“Political activity” includes any activity to promote political agendas,

their party or leaders, meeting with other politicians, visiting the constituency or

meeting people there, coverage of any political rally.

iii. Educate the audience

It means that the political leaders are using social media to equip

audience with some kind of factual information about any project, intervention or

development.

iv. Call for action

“Call for action” means if the political actors are using social media to

ask the audience to take some practical step, to motivate the audience to attend

some rally, go to some protest or for any type of fundraising.

v. Give response on some issue

It means whether they are using social media to directly give their

feedback or clarification on some issue.

4.5.5.2. Indicators of Relationship Cultivation

In this study, three indicators of relationship cultivation has been studied,

which are as follows:

i. Trust

The indicator of “trust” has been measured through survey, in this study

trust is measured by asking the political actors whether they verify the Study Methodology 74

information before sharing it on social media considering the fact that posting an

accurate and factual information would increase the trust of the political actor

among the public.

ii. Responsiveness

The indicator of “responsiveness” is also measured through survey by

asking the political actors whether they post information as soon as they get it on

social media and how immediate they were in responding to any issue. iii. Satisfaction

The indicator of ‘satisfaction’ is also explored through survey by asking

the political actors whether they think that their purpose of using social media was

fulfilled or not.

4.5.5.3. Indicator of Reputation Management

i. Credibility

The indicator of credibility has been measured in this study to explore the

reputation management strategy of the political actors. Credibility has been measured

by analysing the language of the comments on the posts and tweets. If the political

actors would get more supportive comments would be considered more credible.

4.5.6. Pre-testing

Before distributing the questionnaire among the target audience, pre-testing was done with political actors who were not members of Provincial or National Assembly to check the workability of the questionnaire. Four respondents from each province and

Islamabad were selected to fill the questionnaire. These were then, excluded from the Study Methodology 75

final study sample. In the light of the feedback given during pre-testing, the questionnaire was further modified.

4.5.7. Data Collection Process

The questionnaires were sent to the focal persons in various cities, equivalent to the number of seats in the assembly. All the focal persons used to get the information about the date and time of assembly sessions and took prior permission from the speaker’s office. The focal persons went to the assembly on the fixed time and got the questionnaires filled by the members who were willing to be a part of the study. This was not a one-day process and took almost five to six months because the political actors who even showed their consent kept on making excuses. Sometimes the sessions were on consecutive days but sometimes they were adjourned for weeks or even months. In such cases, the focal person had to wait for the next session. The secrecy of the respondents was ensured and all the ethical considerations were kept in view. All the political actors were educated so there was no need to read the questionnaire to them or to translate it into Urdu. No financial compensation was provided to the focal persons or the political actors as this was the study for academic purposes and the budget was very restricted.

4.5.8. Data Analysis

The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 25) program. Initial analysis included the calculation of frequencies and percentages and to analyse the difference between level of fulfilment, verification and responsiveness across different purposes. Kruskal Wallis test was applied. After being entered into SPSS, the data was checked for all the missing values and errors.

Study Methodology 76

4.5.8.1. Kruskal Wallis Test

The Kruskal-Wallis H test (sometimes also called the "one-way ANOVA on ranks") is a rank-based nonparametric test that can be used to determine if there is statistically significant difference between two or more groups of an independent variable on a continuous or ordinal dependent variable and it also tells mean rank that which category was highest and which one was lowest. It is used for comparing two or more independent samples of equal or different sample sizes. In this study, it is applied on the survey to get the results related to:

1. the difference between level of fulfilment, verification and responsiveness across

different purposes

2. to know the mean rank of different categories

4.6. Section II: Content analysis of Facebook pages and Tweets of Political Actors

The second part of the study comprises the content analysis of posts and tweets of the political actors of National Assembly. For this purpose, quantitative content analysis method is used in this research.

4.6.1. Selection of Members for Content Analysis

The content of Facebook pages and Twitter handles is the most important part of the study as to know what they post on social media and how they use it strategically.

For this purpose, the simple form about the usage of social media by the members was sent to the research cell of National Assembly. The data was gathered about their usage and the official accounts. It was very important to get details of their official accounts to avoid the possibility of selecting someone’s fake account. According to the list provided,

84 members stated that they use both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook pages and Twitter Study Methodology 77

accounts of 84 members were checked and it was found that many of them though stated that they use social media but their pages and accounts were not active. At first stage 45 members were selected out of 84 and at the end this number was confined to 34 subjects based on the permission to access their accounts; six political actors did not allow to collect data from their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

4.6.2. Facebook Pages

The official Facebook pages of 34 members of National Assembly are selected on the basis of information given by the political actors themselves to avoid selection of fake accounts.

4.6.3. Twitter Handles

The official Twitter handles of 34 members of National Assembly is selected on the basis of information given by the political actors themselves to avoid selection of wrong handles.

4.6.4. Sampling Technique

Purposive sampling is employed in this study because the researcher intended to get insightful information about the posts and tweets of the political actors. The official

Facebook pages and Twitter handles are selected according to the information provided by the political actors themselves. The participants of the research are taken from the

National Assembly of Pakistan.

4.6.5. Sample Size

The sample size for content analysis of Facebook pages and Twitter handle was

34 each which make 68 in total. The total number of Facebook posts and tweets was 3243 Study Methodology 78

which includes 1313 posts and 1930 tweets. All the tweets and posts were collected and analysed manually without the help of any software.

4.6.6. Unit of Analysis

In this study, for the content analysis of Facebook page and Twitter handle, the unit of analysis is each and every post and tweet shared by a political actor in November

2016.

4.6.7. Instrument for Content Analysis

The instrument for this study to conduct content analysis is coding sheet.

4.6.7.1. Coding Sheet

The coding sheet is developed to measure the purpose of the posts and tweets, nature of content, language used and image building. These variables are further divided into different categories, the categories and their indicators are mentioned below:

Table 4.4.

Categories, Sub Categories and Indicators

Category Sub-Category Indicators Personal If there is photograph of political actor, his selfie, his photograph with friends or family, attending any family or personal function which is not related to politics at all.

Political Any post or tweet to promote political agendas, their party or Purpose leaders, meeting with other politicians, visiting the constituency or meeting people there, coverage of any political rally, photographs or link depicting themselves or any other person involved in the political activity.

Study Methodology 79

To Educate The posts or tweets shared by the political leaders to inform about any development, factual information, report, project or invention

Call for Action Any content which persuade the audience to take some practical step, to motivate the audience to attend some rally, to gather at some place, to go to some protest or for any type of fundraising

Response on Some Any content to give their feedback issue or clarification on some issue

Link/sharing Political actors sharing any link to newspaper, TV program, article etc.

Meme Any image or piece of text distorted, humorous and sarcastic Nature in nature with slight variations

Giving news If a political actor is breaking some news to the audience or giving information about any incident which is just happen or updating about any incident.

Opinion Opinion includes any personal statement of the political actor, his own view point on some issue.

Blessed words Any verse from Quran, poetry, quote of any famous personality or proverbs

Self-Promotion Any content which promotes his own personality, praising himself, sharing pictures in which sleeping or eating with the workers, presenting himself as a hero Type of Content Study Methodology 80

Image building/distortion Party Promotion Any content which promotes or praises his party, party leader or other members, presenting party leader or members as hero, using words like Moses, man of steel etc. Opponent Attack Any content shared by the political actors which criticizes the opponent party or leader e.g. prime minister would be in the jail for the first time, calling other person corrupt

Self-Promotion + Any content shared by the Opponent Attack political actors which criticizes the opponent party or leader and praises themselves or their party, e.g. calling their leader Moses and other Pharaoh

Insulting for Others Any post or tweet containing derogatory words or foul language, like dacoit, donkey

Appreciation for self Any content in which the political actor is praising and admiring Language himself

Appreciation for Any content in which the political other actor is praising and admiring any other person

Sarcastic/taunting The post or tweet containing teasing stuff or words like “Ijaz Ch. Bringing 5000 people”, “At least he didn’t get married this time”

Criticism on others The post or tweet shared to condemn or criticize any one or his/her actions

Threatening The post or tweet containing threats like if our condition will not be fulfilled we will shut down the city etc. Study Methodology 81

4.6.8. Training of Coders

The four coders were trained to code the data. They were guided about the categories and indicators. They coded the data according to the operationalization and indicators mentioned above.

4.6.9. Pilot Study

The pilot study was conducted to check the validity of the coding sheet, the posts and tweets of first five days of four political actors were analyzed. The categories were revised and finalized according to the results of the pilot study.

4.6.10. Reliability Test

The reliability was checked statistically after pilot study and Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.887, which was more than 0.7.

4.6.11. Cross Tabulation

Cross tabulation is a tool that allows you compare the relationship between two variables; in this study this is applied to know the relationship between the purpose and language, image building and nature of content

4.7. SECTION III: Content Analysis of Audience Reaction and Comments

4.7.1. Collection of Data for Audience Analysis

This study also intends to examine the audience reaction on the Facebook posts and tweets, to investigate that what type of posts generated more number of comments, shares, likes and replies, the reaction on every post and tweet posted in the month of

November was analyzed. The language of comments of the audience is also analyzed in the study.

Study Methodology 82

4.7.2. Sampling Technique for Comments

To analyse the language of the comments, systematic random sampling method was used to select the comments, so if the number of comments on the post or tweet is less than 50, then every 5th comment is selected, if the number of comments is more than

50 then every 10th comment is selected for analysis and if the number of comments on any post or tweet is above 100 then every 50th comment is selected and if the number of comment is above 1000 then every 100th comment is selected subject to the availability.

4.7.3. Sample Size

In this study, to explore the audience engagement, each and every reaction on all posts and tweets is taken into consideration and total 10722 comments are collected and analysed manually.

4.7.4. Unit of Analysis

In this study, to measure the behavior of audience, the unit of analysis is the comment made by the audience.

4.7.5. Instrument for Content Analysis of Comments

The coding sheet was developed as an instrument to conduct content analysis.

4.7.5.1. Coding Sheet

Table 4.5.

Categories and Operationalization for the Analysis of Comments

Category Sub Category Indicator

Audience engagement Likes, Shares, Comments Reaction on Posts (Facebook) Replies, Retweets, Likes Tweets (Twitter)

Study Methodology 83

Audience behaviour Abusive The comment is considered abusive if it contains insulting or foul language.

Supportive A comment is considered supportive if any one commented any kind of encouragement or emotional help or in favour of the political actor or his party and against his political opponent.

Discouraging The comment is considered discouraging if it is against the member or his party on whom post and tweet, the comment is posted and show the expression of disapproval of someone or something.

4.7.6. Training of Coders

The four coders were trained to code the data, they were guided about the categories and indicators. They coded the data according to the operationalization and indicators mentioned above

4.7.7. Pilot Study

The pilot study was conducted to check the validity of the coding sheet, the comments on posts and tweets of first five days of four political actors were analyzed. The categories were revised and finalized according to the results of the pilot study.

4.7.8. Reliability Test

The reliability was checked statistically after pilot study and Cronbach's Alpha was

0.9, which was more than 0.7.

Study Methodology 84

4.7.9. Kruskal Wallis Test

The data analysis is done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS-24).

The quantitative date is statistically analysed to get the frequencies, moreover, Kruskal

Wallis Test is also applied to see the difference in level of audience engagement across, language, image building and nature of content. Before the statistical test the data is checked for common error, missing values and normality.

4.8. SECTION IV: Co-Relation between Purpose in Survey and Purpose of Posts and Tweets

4.8.1. Sample Size To measure the relationship between the purpose stated in survey and purpose of posts and tweets, the survey results of 29 MNAs and the results of content analysis of

Facebook pages and Twitter handles of only those 29 members are taken into consideration to make a fair comparison.

4.8.2. Data Analysis

The data is analysed using SPSS and test of Co-relation is applied.

4.9. Limitations of the study

Following are the limitations of this study:

1. All the members of provincial assemblies were contacted but all of them were not

ready to respond so the sample size was selected on the basis of the availability and

convenience of the political actors. The number of respondents from provincial

assemblies is comparatively less because political actors were not easily

approachable, they were not ready to give much time and above all they were

reluctant to fill the questionnaire though it was kept very simple and to the point.

Most of them were not even ready to respond on emails. Study Methodology 85

2. The political actors were not much eager to be a part of the study as they thought that

the information they provided could be used for some counter propaganda. So much

so that one of MNA shared the questionnaire claiming that the government is

gathering information about the social media usage of politicians with an intention to

put ban on Facebook and Twitter.

3. Forty members returned the questionnaires but five respondents didn’t fill the

questionnaire. All efforts were made to contact them but they neither gave time nor

were willingness to talk on phone. On the basis of the prior consent of the political

actors, the data from the Facebook and Twitter accounts of 34 political actors was

collected who allowed access to their accounts, but at the end five of them didn’t fill

the questionnaire so the responses of 29 political actors were considered to find out

the correlation between the survey and the purpose.

4. All the data for this study was collected and analysed manually keeping in view the

requirements of the study. That is why the time period for this study is kept one

month, which could be a limitation of this study too.

4.10. Ethical Issue

While conducting this, the ethical issues were also taken into consideration.

1. Each respondent was informed about the purpose and aim of the study, before getting

information, the informal consent was sought from the respondents. They were assured

that their identity would not be revealed, all the information will be kept confidential

and would only be used for statistical purposes. Study Methodology 86

2. The informal consent was also sought before conducting the content analysis of the

posts and tweets of political actors and who didn’t allow, their content was removed

from the analysis.

3. The names have been altered to maintain the confidentiality of the political actors

whose posts and tweets are used for qualitative discussion in this study.

4. The names from comments used in the discussion have also been omitted to conceal

the identity of the audience.

Results and Interpretation 87

CHAPTER 5

RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION

This study was intended to analyse how the political actors of Pakistan perceive the purpose of using social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter and also to explore whether there is any consistency between the perceived purpose stated by the political actors in the survey and the purpose depicted in the content shared by them through their posts and tweets on Facebook and Twitter. This study also focused on analysing how the political actors were cultivating their relationship. The quality of the relationship had also been analysed by measuring three indicators of quality i.e. trust, satisfaction and responsiveness. Furthermore, how the political actors were managing their reputation and generating more audience engagement through social media.

The primary data for the study was collected through survey questionnaire method to explore the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter by the political actors and the quality of the relationship they were cultivating with the audience. The secondary data was collected through the quantitative content analysis method to analyse the purpose, nature and language of posts and tweets of the political actors to examine their relationship cultivation strategy. Furthermore, audience reaction and the language of the comments made by the audience were also taken into consideration to investigate how the political actors were managing their repute among the public. This chapter includes the results and interpretation of the primary and secondary data collected through survey and content analysis.

This chapter is divided into following four sections:

Section I: Survey Results of Political Actors (overall) and MNAs (separately)

Section II: Content Analysis of Posts and Tweets of Political Actors

Section III: Content Analysis of Audience Reaction and Comments Results and Interpretation 88

Section IV: Co-relation between Survey Purpose and Content Analysis Purpose

5.1. Section 1: Survey Results of MNAs and MPAs (overall) and MNAs (separately)

This section focuses on the results of the survey of political actors of all four provincial assemblies and the National Assembly to explore that how political actors use social media strategically as a tool for online political public relation, to cultivate their relationship with the audience and also the quality of the relationship cultivated.

5.1.1. Part A

5.1.1.1. Assembly Wise Respondents

In order to explore the usage of Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of

Pakistan, it was important to include respondents from four provinces of Pakistan to get a more diverse picture. Hence, it was decided to randomly select respondents from four provincial assemblies and a National Assembly. However, every assembly has different numbers of seats, so the number of respondents from all the assemblies differs. Figure 5.1 reflects the number of respondents participated in the survey from four different provincial assemblies and National Assembly of Pakistan. The total number of participants is 247, with the highest participation from Punjab i.e. 110 participants making 44.5% of the total participants, 15.4% from Sindh Assembly, 14.6% from

Baluchistan and minimum participants i.e. 9.3% are from KPK. The descriptive analysis shows that 16.2% participants belong to National Assembly. The respondents were the members of assemblies in last democratic regime i.e. 2013-2018. Results and Interpretation 89

300

247 250

200

150 110 100 100

44.5 50 40 38 36 23 16.2 15.4 9.3 14.6 0 National Punjab Sindh KPK Balochistan Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.1. Assembly Wise Respondents of Four Provinces and the National Assembly

(N=247)

5.1.1.2. Political Affiliations of Respondents

The political affiliations play a significant role in the behaviour and political activity of the political actors, it is believed that political affiliation influences actor’s information seeking and dissemination behaviour (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2012). Table

5.1 shows the political affiliation of the political actors who responded to the questionnaire, and it also represents that maximum participants belonged to Pakistan

Muslim League N (PML N) with maximum percentage of 52.6%. It is also important to note that PML N was the ruling party of Pakistan when the data was collected. Similarly

15.8% participants were from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) which was the strongest opposition party in Pakistan at that time and on third number is Pakistan People’s Party

(PPP) making 12.6%. Others include respondents from various small political parties.

Results and Interpretation 90

Table 5.1.

Political Affiliation of Political Actors (N=247)

Political Parties Frequency Percentage (%) PML(N) 130 52.6

PTI 39 15.8

PPP 31 12.6

MQM 9 3.6

JUI-F 7 2.8

PKMAP 7 2.8

National Party 6 2.4

Others 18 7.2

Total 247 100.0

5.1.1.3. Usage of Facebook and Twitter by the Respondents

According to the data collected, 31.7 % of the total respondents were using

Facebook whereas 2.5 % were using Twitter and 44.6 % were using both Facebook and

Twitter.

5.1.1.4. Gender Distribution of Political Actors

During the data collection, efforts were made to get equal percentage of male and female respondents but this could not happen. Firstly because, the number of female political actors in assemblies was less than male political actors and secondly, females were more reluctant to fill out the questionnaires as compared to male respondents.

Subsequently, the ratio for male respondents are higher than the female political actors.

There were 196 male political actors, which makes 79.4% of the total in the survey and the number of female participants was 51, which makes 20.6% of the total. Results and Interpretation 91

5.1.1.5. Operator of Twitter Handle

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter place the focus on the individual politician rather than the political party (Enli & Skogerbø, 2013) and they can get maximum benefit by showing willingness to adopt new technology. Various studies have reported that some individuals develop more competencies in handling information technology, (Schwalbe, 2015) but some may not be able to handle technology themselves, so they had to get assistance from other people. This factor could effect on how they communicate with the audience through social media. It is an important element to measure their political public relations strategy and according to the findings mentioned in figure 5.2, most of the political actors operate their Twitter themselves i.e. 125 and their percentage was 50.6% and only 6.9% had hired media team or personnel for this purpose and 2.4% had some relative to assist them.

160 148

140 125 120 100 80 59.9 60 50.6 40 17 20 6 2.4 6.9 0 Yourself Any Relative Personal Media Team Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.2.Who Operates Twitter Handle of the Political Actors? (N=148)

5.1.1.6. Operator of Facebook Page

Same is the case with Facebook; according to the findings in figure 5.3, majority of the political actors operate their Facebook pages themselves i.e. 134 participants, which makes 54.3% of the total respondents. Interestingly, the use of personal media Results and Interpretation 92 team to operate Facebook account is much higher than Twitter; it is 16.2% for Facebook and 4.9% political actors take help of some relative to operate Facebook page.

200 186 180 160 134 140 120 100 75.3 80 54.3 60 40 40 12 16.2 20 4.9 0 Yourself Any Relative Personal Media Team Total

Frequency Percentage (%) Column2

Figure 5.3. Who Operates Facebook Page of the Political Actors? (N=148)

5.1.1.7. Target Audience of Political Actors

All politicians have their own target audience to whom they want to communicate, convey their messages and project their accomplishments through Twitter and Facebook.

A question was asked from the political actors about their target audience and as per the findings shown in figure 5.4, the target audience of majority of the political actors is youth, 34.4% of the political actors stated that their target audience is between 25-35 years, 30.7% thought they target people between 36-45 years, interestingly 21.2% want to communicate to the elderly people who are from 46-50 years and 12.7% believe that their target audience is 18-24. Results and Interpretation 93

200 189 180 160 140 120 100 100 80 65 58 60 40 34.4 30.7 40 24 21.2 12.7 20 2 1.1 0 18-24 25-35 36-45 46-50 Above 50 Total

Frequency Valid Percent

Figure 5.4.Target Audience (N=189)

5.1.1.8. Platform Preferred by Political Actors

It is to be said that the social networking sites (SNS) are quickly becoming one of the most popular tools for social interaction and information exchange (Hughes, Rowe,

Batey & Lee, 2012). Our political actors are also using social media to disseminate information among their audience, so a question was asked about their preference of using a platform, which they consider more appropriate to communicate strategically with their audience. As far as the preference of political actors is concerned, 59.5% political actors prefer Facebook and only 17.0% said that they prefer Twitter to Facebook.

5.1.1.9. Where Political Actors Share Information First

Social media has become an influential platform for dissemination of information in which Facebook and Twitter are considered as the most popular platforms. To identify the most preferred medium for sharing of information, a question was asked about their priority. Figure 5.5 shows that 68.3% said that they share the news on Facebook first; which is much higher than Twitter i.e. 31.7%. This is similar with the results of preference, where the majority of political actors stated that they prefer Facebook over

Twitter to communicate with the audience. Results and Interpretation 94

200 189 180 160 140 129 120 100 100 80 68.3 60 60 40 31.7 20 0 Facebook Twitter Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.5. Where Political Actors Share Information First (N=189)

5.1.1.10. Believe in Communication through Social Media

It has been discussed in many studies that social media gives an opportunity to political actors to communicate with their audience directly without any barrier or middle person (Yamamoto, & Kushin, 2010). Therefore, to know the behaviour of Pakistan’s political actors, it was important to know whether they consider social media a better way to communicate with their audience and whether they believe in the news or information received from Facebook and Twitter. The findings in the table 5.2 show the opinion of the political actors regarding the information received from social media; 48.1% respondents agreed and 13.8% strongly agreed that social media is a better way to communicate, only

7.9% disagreed and 29.1% remained neutral.

Moreover, 46% agreed that they believe in information they get through

Facebook, whereas 8.0% strongly agreed, 7% disagreed, 2.1% strongly disagreed and

36.9% neither agreed nor disagreed. Furthermore, 37.8 % agreed that they believe in information they get through Twitter, whereas 8.5% strongly agreed, 8.5 % disagreed,

1.1% strongly disagreed and 39.4% neither agreed nor disagreed. Results and Interpretation 95

Likewise, the political actors were asked whether they believe in information they get through Twitter more than Facebook, 37.8% agreed, 8.5% strongly agreed, 13.3% disagreed, only 1.1% strongly disagreed and 39.4% remained neutral. Moreover, the table

5.2 shows that 36.9% political actors agreed that twitter was more authentic and credible mean of communication as compared to Facebook, 6.5% strongly agreed whereas 17.6% respondents disagreed and 1.1% strongly disagreed and 35.8% remained neutral.

Furthermore, the result shows that 54.0% political actors agreed that social media increased their popularity, 7.4% strongly agreed whereas 7.9% disagreed and 1.1% strongly disagreed with the notion that Twitter and Facebook increased their popularity.

It is evident from the data that significant number of respondents agreed that social media is a better way to communicate. Whereas, majority of the respondents were neutral about the news and information received through Facebook and Twitter.

However, substantial number of respondents believed that Facebook and Twitter increased the popularity of the politicians.

Table 5.2.

Believe in Communication through Social Media

Communication through Strongly Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Social Media Agree Disagree f % f % f % f % f %

Social Media a better way to communicate (N=189) 26 13.8 91 48.1 55 29.1 15 7.9 2 1.1

Believe in news/information 15 8.0 86 46.0 69 36.9 13 7.0 4 2.1 through Facebook (N=187)

Believe in news/information through Twitter(N=188) 16 8.5 71 37.8 74 39.4 25 13.3 2 1.1

Believe in news/information get through Twitter more 16 8.5 71 37.8 74 39.4 25 13.3 2 1.1 than Facebook(N=188)

Results and Interpretation 96

Twitter is authentic and credible mean of communication as 16 8.6 69 36.9 67 35.8 33 17.6 2 1.1 compared to Facebook(N=187)

Facebook and Twitter has increased the popularity of 14 7.4 102 54 56 29.6 15 7.9 2 1.1 political actors(N=189)

5.1.1.11. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook

The most important focus of this study is to explore the purpose behind the usage of Twitter and Facebook by the political actors. The table 5.3 clearly shows that the maximum frequency i.e. 81 respondent for Twitter while 90 respondents for Facebook stated the purpose is to inform audience about their political activity. So according to the findings, most of the political actors i.e. 54.7% use twitter to inform the audience about their political activities while 48% use Facebook for political purpose, 18% use it for their personal purposes which is the second highest for both Twitter and Facebook and the lowest share goes to give response on any issue i.e. 4.7% for Twitter and 4.3 for

Facebook. Only 12.2% wanted to educate the audience on Twitter and 14% on Facebook whereas 8.8% use Twitter to give call for any action while 11.4% use Facebook to call for action on Facebook.

Table 5.3.

Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook

Give your Personal Political Educate the Call for Any Purpose response on Activity Activity Audience Action other any issue

f % f % f % f % f % f % Twitter 27 18.2 81 54.7 18 12.2 13 8.8 7 4.7 2 1.4 N=148

Facebook 35 18.9 90 48.6 27 14.6 21 11.4 8 4.3 4 2.2 N=185

Results and Interpretation 97

5.1.1.12. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook Fulfilled

The purpose of using Twitter and Facebook by political actors and the purpose fulfilled are differently measured in the study. The table 5.4 is based on the opinion of political actors, if according to them, their purpose of using Twitter and Facebook is being fulfilled. The majority i.e. 51.4% of the respondents agreed that Twitter is fulfilling their purpose while 55% agreed that Facebook is fulfilling their purpose, 14.2% political actors strongly agreed that Twitter is fulfilling their purpose and whereas 9.7% respondents strongly agreed that Facebook is fulfilling their purpose. Interestingly nobody strongly disagreed for Twitter but in the case of Facebook, 0.5% strongly disagreed with it. 11.5% participants believed that Twitter is not fulfilling their purpose while only 7.9% believed the same for Facebook. The results show that majority of the political actors was satisfied as far as fulfilment of their purpose was concerned. These finding would also help to analyse one of the variable i.e. satisfaction to measure the quality of relation cultivation.

Table 5.4.

Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook Fulfilled

Purpose Strongly Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Fulfilled Disagree Agree f % F % f % f % f % Twitter 0 0 17 11.5 34 23.0 76 51.4 21 14.2 N=148

Facebook 9.7 1 5 14 7.6 50 27.0 102 55.1 18 N=185

5.1.1.13. Verification and Responsiveness on Facebook and Twitter

It is very important that the news shared by the decision makers and prominent people of society on social media should be verified before posting on both Twitter and

Facebook. If the political actors are disseminating wrong information intentionally or Results and Interpretation 98 unintentionally it would be considered as propaganda. If the post is not verified it could create disinformation among the voters. To understand the behaviour of political actors in this regard, they were asked a question about verifying information before sharing, table

5.5 shows the percentage of the political actors who actually verify the information before posting it on Twitter. The data shows that highest number of respondents, 32.4 %, claimed that they verify the information every time before posting it on Twitter, 30.4 % members verify it sometimes and 27 % of the participants verify the information most of the times. Furthermore, table 5.5 shows the percentage of political actors who actually verify any information before posting it on Facebook. The data shows that highest number of participant 31.4%, said that they sometimes verify the information before posting it on Facebook whereas 25% members verify it every time and 22.9% of the participants verify the information most of the times, 16.5% rarely and 4.3% never verify.

Though, it seems that majority of the political actors verify information before posting but percentage is not very high.

Moreover, table 5.5 also demonstrates that how immediately political actors post any information or news on Facebook and Twitter and to what extent they like to respond to some issue, these questions will help to measure the responsiveness as a part of their relationship cultivation strategy. The data shows that only 6.5% of the respondents post information on Facebook and Twitter as soon as they get it, whereas 28.0% do it most of the times, 45.5% respondents sometimes post the information immediately and 14.3% rarely post it. Additionally, table 5.5 also shows how particular the political actors were, in giving response on some issue, interestingly only 9% members respond every time,

27.5% respond most of the time, 35.4 % which was the highest percentage stated that they respond sometimes. Whereas, 9% of the respondents said that they never respond and 19

% said that they respond rarely. There is an insignificant number of participants who post Results and Interpretation 99 immediately and there is also less number of political actors who respond to others tweets and posts.

Table 5.5.

Verification and Responsiveness on Facebook and Twitter

Relationship Most of the Never Rarely Some Times Every Time Cultivation Time f % f % f % f % f % Verification Twitter N=148 5 3.4 10 6.8 45 30.4 40 37 48 32

Verification Facebook 8 4.3 31 16.5 59 31.4 43 22.9 47 25 N=188

Respond To Someone post 17 9 36 19 67 35.4 52 27.5 17 9 or tweet N=189

5.1.1.14. Statistical Test (Kruskal Wallis)

The Kruskal-Wallis test (sometimes also called the "one-way ANOVA on ranks") is a rank-based nonparametric test that could be used to determine if there are statistically significant differences between two or more groups of an independent variable on a continuous or ordinal dependent variable. This test is applied in this study to measure whether there is any difference in level of fulfilment, verification and responsiveness across difference purpose of activity and also to see the ranks. So even if the difference is insignificant still we can investigate that what type of purpose is getting maximum level of fulfilment, verification and responsiveness.

5.1.1.15. Difference in Level of Fulfilment across Purpose of Activity for Twitter

To investigate the level of fulfilment of using Twitter differ across the purpose of using Twitter, Kruskal Wallis Test was applied. The chi square output (table 5.6) shows that χ2 (4) = 8.035, having the p = 0.09, which means there is no significant difference in level of fulfilment across purpose of activity for Twitter. Though according to the result Results and Interpretation 100 of Kruskal Wallis test, highest mean rank goes to personal activity i.e. 87.74 which means the political actors using Twitter for personal activities had highest level of fulfilment, second highest rank 73.69 is for political activity, third highest rank 69.43 is for, to give the response to any issue, 68.72 for to educate the audience and 51.58 for call for action.

This means that the political actors who were using Twitter for personal purposes were most satisfied among all followed by the political actors who were using it to achieve their political objectives.

Table 5.6.

Result of Krusal-WallisTest: Purpose and Fulfilment of Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Activity on Twitter Mean Rank Fulfil the Purpose of Personal Activity 87.74 Twitter Political Activity 73.69

Educate the Audience 68.72

Call for Action 51.58

Give Your Response On Any Issue 69.43

Chi-Square 8.035 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. 0.090

5.1.1.16. Difference in Level of Fulfilment across Purpose of Activity for Facebook

According to table 5.17, the chi square output shows that χ2 (4) = 5.659, having the p = 0.226, which means the difference is not statistically significant but the highest mean rank was of personal activity i.e. 102.50 which means the level of fulfilment was highest among those who were using Facebook for personal activities, second highest rank is to give the response on some issue i.e. 95.44, political activity has the third highest rank i.e.92.43, to educate the audience is 82.74 and 74.64 for call for action. The results Results and Interpretation 101 indicate that again the political actors using Facebook for personal purpose were the most satisfied among all.

Table 5.7.

Result of Krusal-WallisTest: Fulfilment & Purpose of Activity Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Fulfil the Purpose of Personal Activity 102.50 Facebook? Political Activity 92.43

Educate the Audience 82.74

Call for Action 74.64

Give Your Response On Any Issue 95.44

5.659 Chi-Square Df 4 Asymp. Sig. 0.226

5.1.1.17. Difference in Level of Verification across Different Purpose of using Twitter

The chi square results as shown in table 5.8 reveals that χ2(4) = 1.544, having the p = 0.891 which means there is no significant difference in level of verification across different purpose of using Twitter. The highest mean rank is of, to educate the audience i.e. 76.92, second highest mean rank is 75.89 for personal activity, which means the political actors using Twitter to educate the audience, verify the news most. The thirst highest mean rank is of political activity i.e. 74.46, then 62.35 for call for action and the mean rank of, to give response on any issue is 65.14.

Table 5.8.

Result of Kruskal-Wallis Test: Verification & Purpose of Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Verify the news or Personal Activity 75.89 information before posting on Twitter Political Activity 74.46

Educate the Audience 76.92 Results and Interpretation 102

Call for Action 62.35

Give Your Response On Any Issue 65.14

Chi-Square 1.544 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. 0.819

5.1.1.18. Difference in level of Verification across Different Purpose of Using Facebook

According to the results shown in table 5.9, χ2(4) = 0.824, having p = 0.935 describing there is no significant difference, but the highest mean rank is for political activity, i.e. 92.88, means that the political actors using Facebook for political activities verify the news most, second highest mean rank is of personal activity and there is a slight difference between personal activities and to give your response on any issue.

Table 5.9.

Result of Kruskal-Wallis Test: Verification & Purpose of Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Verification of News Personal Activity 92.60 before posting on Facebook Political Activity 92.88

Educate the Audience 83.13

Call for Action 89.88

Give Your Response On Any Issue 92.38

Chi-Square 0.824 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. 0.935

5.1.1.19. Difference in Level of Immediate Post across Different Purpose of Using Twitter

Table 5.10 shows that χ2(4) = 1.673, having the p = 0.796 describing the difference between the medians is not statistically significant subject to the purpose of activity on Twitter and immediate response. The highest mean rank 80.93 is for personal Results and Interpretation 103 activity that means the political actors who use Twitter for personal activities post information immediately. Second highest mean rank call for action is 76.23, educate the

72.72, third highest mean rank is 71.51 for political activity, and response on some issue is 64.50.

Table 5.10.

Result of Kruskal Wallis: Difference in Level of Immediate Post and Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Immediately post Personal Activity 80.93 Information on Twitter Political Activity 71.51

Educate the Audience 72.72

Call for Action 76.23

Give Your Response On Any Issue 64.50

Chi-Square 1.673 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. .796

5.1.1.20. Difference in Level of Immediate Post across Different Purpose of Using Facebook

The results of statistical test as shown in table 5.11 indicates that that χ2(4) =

1.584, having the p = 0.812 describing there is no significant difference in level of immediate post across different purpose of activity on Facebook. The highest mean rank is for, to give your response i.e. 107.06, second highest is personal activity i.e.95.92, third highest mean rank is 87.88 for political activity, to educate the audience is 91.43, to call for action is 93.21. Thus the results show that the political actors who were using

Facebook to give their response on some issue were the ones who were posting information immediately, which means they were quicker in sharing information as compared to others followed by the political actors who were using it to disseminate their personal activities. Results and Interpretation 104

Table 5.11. Result of Kruskal Wallis: Difference in Level of Immediate Post and Purpose Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Immediately Post on Personal Activity 95.92 Facebook Political Activity 87.88

Educate the Audience 91.43

Call for Action 93.21

Give Your Response On Any Issue 107.06

Chi-Square 1.584 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. .812

5.1.1.21. Difference in Level of Response across Different Purpose of Using Twitter

Table 5.12 shows that χ2(4) = 2.291, having the p = 0.682 describing the difference is not statistically significant subject to the purpose of activity on Twitter and respond on someone post or tweet. The highest mean rank is for personal activity i.e.

81.39, which means the political actors who use Twitter for personal purposes respond more. Second highest rank is for give response on any issue i.e.79.00, third highest means rank is to educate the audience i.e.77.94, third highest mean rank is of political activity i.e. 70.26 and the lowest mean rank is for call for action i.e. 66.65.

Table 5.12

Difference in Level of Response across Purpose of Using Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Respond Someone on Personal Activity 81.39 Twitter Political Activity 70.26

Educate the Audience 77.94

Call for Action 66.65

Give Your Response On Any Issue 79.00 Results and Interpretation 105

Chi-Square 2.291 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. .682

5.1.1.22. Difference in Level of Response Across Different Purpose of Using

Facebook

Table 5.13 shows that χ2(4) = 6.484, having the p = 0.166 describing the difference is not statistically significant subject to the purpose of activity on Facebook and respond on someone post or tweet. However, to give response on any issue has the highest mean rank i.e. 108.06, which means that the political actors using Facebook while responding on some issue, respond to someone’s post most, call for action i.e. 106.64 is the second highest rank, educate the audience i.e. 93.56 is at third place, mean rank of personal activity is 99.46 and the lowest rank is for political activity i.e. 82.51 which is slightly unexpected because the political actors if using Facebook for political purpose then they should be responding more to the audience to fulfil their purpose.

Table 5.13.

Result of Kruskal Wallis: Difference in Level of Response and Purpose Facebook

Purpose of Activity on Facebook Mean Rank Respond to Someone Personal Activity 99.46 Post Political Activity 82.51

Educate the Audience 93.56

Call for Action 106.64

Give Your Response on Some Issue 108.06

Chi-Square 6.484 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. .166

Results and Interpretation 106

5.1.2. Part B

Results of Member of National Assembly (Separately)

This section deals with the results of those Members of National Assembly separately whose Facebook posts and tweets on Twitter are taken into consideration in this research. As this study includes the content analysis of posts and tweets of members of National Assembly, so these results will provide the basis to analyse the strategy of the political actors that how they are managing their reputation among the audience and quality of relationship they are cultivating with the audience through Social Media.

5.1.2.1. Political Affiliations of Respondents

Table 5.14 shows the political affiliation of the members of National Assembly.

Hence the table represents that the maximum participants belong to Pakistan Muslim

League (N), with maximum percentage of 44.8%, it is also important to note that Pakistan

Muslim League (N) was also the ruling party of Pakistan at the time of the data collection for this study, 27.6 % participants are from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf which was the strongest opposition party and at third number is Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) with 10.3 %. Here, others include the participants from various small parties.

Table 5.14.

Political Party Affiliation

Political Parties Frequency Percentage PML(N) 13 44.8

PTI 8 27.6

PPP 2 6.9

Others 5 20.6

Total 29 100.0

Results and Interpretation 107

5.1.2.2. Gender Distribution of Political Actors

It is assumed that gender of political actor may influence the use of social media.

In this study the ratio of male political actors is much higher than female political actors.

The respondents for this study includes 82.8 % males and 17.2 % females, the reason for this uneven distribution is that the female political actors are less in number and they are also more reluctant as compared to males to respond to the questionnaire.

5.1.2.3. Operator of Twitter Handle

As, not all people are able to handle information technology, so some people use it by themselves and some people hire people for this purpose. It’s an important element to analyse their political public relations strategy and according to the findings (figure 5.6) of this study, most of the members i.e. 82.1% are operating their twitter handles and only

17.9 % has hired media team for this purpose.

120 100 100 82.1 80

40 28 23 17.9 20 5 0 Yourself Personal Media Team Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.6. Who Operates Twitter Handle of MNAs

5.1.2.4. Operator of Facebook Page

The same is the case with Facebook, according to the findings in figure 5.7 majority of the political actors of National Assembly are operating their Facebook pages themselves i.e. 63 %. The use of personal media team to operate Facebook account seems interesting, as it is much higher than Twitter i.e. 37%. Results and Interpretation 108

120 100 100

80 63 60 37 40 27 17 20 10

0 Yourself Personal Media Team Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.7. Who Operates Facebook Page of MNAs

5.1.2.5. Platform Preferred by Members National Assembly It is important to know that which platform the political actors preferred to communicate with the audience and are they using it strategically. As far as the preference of political actors is concerned, 59.5% political actors prefer Facebook and only 17.0% said that they prefer Twitter over Facebook.

5.1.2.6. Target Audience of Political Actors

Every politician has his own target audience to convey his message and to project his accomplishment. For this they may use social media such as Twitter and Facebook, a question is asked from8/ political actors about their target audience. As per findings shown in figure 5.8, the target audience of most of the political actors is youth. 51.7 % of the political actors claim that their target audience is between 25-35 years, 24.1 % believe that their target audience is 18-24 whereas 10.3% think they are targeting the people between 36-45 years and interestingly 10.3 % want to communicate to the elderly people who are from 46-50 years. Results and Interpretation 109

120 100 100

60 51.7

40 29 24.1 20 15 7 10.3 10.3 3 3 1 3.4 0 18-24 25-35 36-45 46-50 Above 50 Total

Frequency Valid Percent

Figure 5.8 Target Audience of Political Actors

5.1.2.7. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook

While considering the results of members of National Assembly separately in table 5.15, it’s interesting to see that 75 % political actors use Twitter for political activities and none of them was using it to give their response on any issue, 10.7 % respondents were using it to educate the audience, 7.1 % were using it for personal activity, and 7.1 % were using it for call for action. Whereas, according to the data analysis of Facebook most of the political actors i.e. 57.7 % were using social media to inform the audience about their political activity, at second number i.e. 19.2% respondents were using it for personal purposes, 11.5 % were using to educate the audience, 7.7 % were using it for call for action and no one think that they were using it to give response on any issue. It is noteworthy here that percentage of political actors using Twitter for political purpose is much higher as compared to Facebook.

Table 5.15

Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook

Give your Personal Political Educate the Call for Purpose response on Activity Activity Audience Action Any other any issue f % f % f % f % f % f % Results and Interpretation 110

Twitter 0 N=28 2 7.1 21 75.0 3 10.7 2 7.1 0 0 0

Facebook 5 19.2 15 57.7 3 11.5 2 7.7 0 0 1 3.8 N=26

5.1.2.8. Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook Fulfilled

The purpose of using Twitter and Facebook fulfilled or not is also measured in this study to measure the variable of satisfaction of quality of relationship. Table 5.16 is based on the results regarding the opinion of MNAs, whether Twitter is fulfilling the purpose they have mentioned earlier or not. The majority i.e. 46.4 % of the respondents agreed that twitter is fulfilling their purpose whereas 32.1 % of political actors strongly agreed with this. Interestingly nobody strongly disagreed or agreed and 21.4 % respondents remain neutral. Whereas, according to the results 46.2 % agreed that

Facebook is fulfilling their purpose, 11.5 % of political actors strongly agreed with this notion, 3.8 % political actors said that Facebook was not fulfilling their purpose. 38.5 % respondents remained neutral means they neither agreed nor disagreed. These findings mean that overall the majority of the MNAs were satisfied about their usage of Facebook and Twitter.

Table 5.16.

Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook Fulfilled

Purpose Strongly Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Fulfilled Disagree Agree f % f % f % f % f % Purpose of Twitter 0 0 0 0 6 21.4 13 46.4 9 32.1 Fulfilled N=28 Purpose of Facebook 0 0 1 3.8 10 38.5 12 46.2 3 11.5 Fulfilled N=26 Results and Interpretation 111

5.1.2.9. Verification and Responsiveness

It is very important if news is verified before posting on Facebook and Twitter. If the post is not verified it could create disinformation among the voters. To understand the behaviour of MNAs in this regard, questions about verification was asked from the respondents. The table 5.17 shows the percentage of respondents who actually verify the information before posting it on Twitter. The data shows that highest number of participants 65.4 %, claim that they verify the information every time before posting it on

Twitter. Whereas, 19.2 % members verify it sometimes and 34.6 % of the participants verify the information most of the times while 7.7 % rarely verify.

Moreover, the table shows the percentage of MNAs who actually verify any information before posting it on Facebook. The data shows that 64.3 % participants that was the highest number said that they always verify the information before posting it on

Facebook whereas 17.9 % members verify it sometimes and 17.9 % of the participants verify the information most of the times.

Furthermore, table 5.17 shows how immediately political actors post any information or news on Facebook and/or Twitter. According to the findings, 51.7 % sometimes immediately post, 17.2 % rarely post any information immediately, 13.8 % never post, 10.3 % most of the times and only 6.9 % always post immediately.

In addition to this table 5.17 shows the response rate of the political actors to a post and/or tweet particularly the one against them or their party. According to the findings, 37.9 % said that they sometimes respond, 24.1 % rarely, 20.7 % 0 of the times, only 13.8 % every time and 3.4 % never respond to someone’s post or tweet.

It is evident from the data that significant number of political actor from national assembly verifies the news before posting on Facebook and twitter. Whereas, few of them say they post and tweet immediately on Facebook and twitter. However, moderate Results and Interpretation 112 number of respondents some time responds to the post of others.

Table 5.17.

Verification and Responsiveness

Most of the Never Rarely Some times Every time Total time f % f % f % f % f % f % Verify the news or information before 0 0 2 7.7 3 19.2 4 34.6 17 65.4 26 100 posting on Twitter?

Verify the news or information before 0 0 0 0 5 17.9 5 17.9 18 64.3 28 100 posting on FB?

Immediately post that information/ 4 13.8 5 17.2 15 51.7 3 10.3 2 6.9 29 100 news on FB and Twitter?

Respond someone post 1 3.4 7 24.1 11 37.9 6 20.7 4 13.8 29 100 or tweet?

5.1.2.10. Share information First

Social media has become an influential platform for dissemination of information in which the most popular media is Facebook and Twitter. To identify the most preferred medium, question regarding sharing of information was asked. Figure 5.9 shows that 34.5

% said that they share the news on Facebook first and 65.5 % said that they share the information on Twitter first. Results and Interpretation 113

120 100 100

80 65.5 60

40 34.5 29 19 20 10

0 Facebook Twitter Total

Frequency Percentage (%)

Figure 5.9 Where to Share Information First (N=189)

5.1.2.11. Believe in Communication through Social Media

According to the findings in the table 5.18 highest number of participants i.e. 44.8 % disagree that social media is a better way of communication. Whereas, 20.7 % strongly disagree and 13.8 % agree but nobody strongly agree with this.

Furthermore, data shows that highest number of participant 37.9 % agreed that they believe in information they get through Facebook, whereas 6.9 % strongly agreed,

13.8 % disagreed, 13.8 % strongly disagreed and 27.6 % neither agreed nor disagreed. On the other hand, data shows that 34.5 % agreed that they believe in information they get through Twitter, whereas 20.7 % strongly agreed, 10.3 % disagreed, 10.3 % disagreed and 44.8 % neither agreed nor disagreed. Results and Interpretation 114

The political actors were asked whether they believe in information they get

through Twitter more than Facebook, 27.6 % agreed, 31 % strongly agreed, 17.2 %

disagreed and 24.1 % remained neutral. Moreover, data shows that highest number of

participant 51.7 % agrees that twitter is more authentic and credible mean of

communication as compared to Facebook, 20.7 % strongly agreed whereas 10.3 %

respondents disagreed and 17.2 % remained neutral. Furthermore, the political actors

were asked whether they believe in information they get through Twitter more than

Facebook, 27.6 % agreed, 31 % strongly agreed, 17.2 % disagreed and 24.1 % remained

neutral.

It is evident from the data that significant number of National assembly member

agree that social media is a better way to communicate. Whereas, majority of the

respondents do not believe in news and information received through Facebook and

Twitter. However, significant number of respondents believes that Facebook and Twitter

has no effect on popularity of the politicians. Table 5.18 also shows whether Facebook

and Twitter has increased the popularity of political actors 51.7 % agree, 20.7 % strongly

agree, 10.3 % disagree and 17.2 % remain neutral.

Table 5.18 Believe in Communication through Social Media

Communication Through Strongly Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Social Media Disagree Agree

f % f % f % f % f %

Social Media is better way to communicate (N=29) 6 20.7 13 44.8 6 20.7 4 13.8 0 0

Believe in News/Information through 4 13.8 4 13.8 8 27.6 11 37.9 2 6.9 FB (N=29)

Believe in News/Information through 3 10.3 3 10.3 9 31 13 44.8 1 3.4 Twitter (N=29) Results and Interpretation 115

Believe in News/Information get through Twitter more than 0 0 3 10.3 10 34.5 10 34.5 6 20.7 Facebook (N=29)

Twitter is authentic and credible mean of Communication as 0 0 5 17.2 7 24.1 8 27.6 9 31.0 compared to Facebook (N=29)

Facebook and Twitter has increased the popularity of 0 0 3 10.3 5 17.2 15 51.7 6 20.7 Political Actors (N=29)

5.1.2.12. Difference in Level of Fulfilment across Purpose of Activity for Twitter

According to the findings test mentioned in table 5.19, the chi square output

shows that χ2 (3) = 4.315, having the p = 0.229, which means the difference is not

statistically significant, but highest mean rank goes to personal activity i.e. 24 which

means that the MNAs using twitter for personal purposes has more level of fulfilment,

second highest rank is for political activity i.e. 14.40, rank of call for action is 13 and to

educate the audience was 9.83.

Table 5.19

Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Purpose and Fulfilment of Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Twitter Mean Rank Fulfil the Purpose of Personal Activity 24.00

Twitter Political Activity 14.40

Educate the Audience 9.83

Call for Action 13.00

Chi-Square 4.315 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .229

Results and Interpretation 116

5.1.2.13. Difference in Level of Fulfilment across Purpose on Facebook

To investigate the level of fulfilment of using Facebook differ across the purpose of using Facebook, Kruskal Wallis Test is applied. The chi square output shows that χ2

(3) = 1.975, having the p = 0.578, which means the difference is not statistically significant. According to the result of Kruskal Wallis shown in table 5.20 highest mean rank goes to educate the audience and call for action i.e. 16.50, which means MNAs who are using Facebook to educate the audience and call for action has highest level of fulfilment, second highest rank is for political activity i.e. 12.60 and the lowest is for personal activity i.e. 10.70.

Table 5.20

Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Fulfilment Across Purpose on Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Fulfil the Purpose of Personal Activity 10.70

Facebook Political Activity 12.60

Educate the Audience 16.50

Call for Action 16.50

Chi-Square 1.975 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .578

5.1.2.14 Difference in Level of Verification across Different Purpose of Using Twitter

The findings in table 5.21 shows that χ2(3) = 4.632, having the p = 0.201, depicting that there is no statistical difference in level of verification across different purpose in Twitter. In table 5.21, highest mean rank i.e. 18.00 is same for personal activity, educate the audience and call for action are same and lowest mean rank is for political activity that was 11.84.

Results and Interpretation 117

Table 5.21.

Kruskal-Wallis Test: Verification & Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Verify the news or Personal Activity 18.00 information before posting on Twitter? Political Activity 11.84

Educate the Audience 18.00

Call for Action 18.00

Chi-Square 4.632 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .201

5.1.2.15. Difference in Level of Verification Across Different Purpose of Using Facebook The results in table 5.22 shows that χ2(4) = 9.286, having the p = 0.054 describing that the difference is not statistically significant as far as level of verification across different purpose of using Facebook. In table 5.22, the mean rank i.e. for personal activity, educate the audience and call for action is same i.e. 18.00. The lowest mean rank is of political activity i.e. 10.20.

Table 5.22

Kruskal-Wallis Test: Verification & Purpose Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Verify the news or Personal Activity 18.00 information before posting on FB? Political Activity 10.20

Educate the Audience 18.00

Call for Action 18.00

Chi-Square 9.286 Df 4 Asymp. Sig. .054

Results and Interpretation 118

5.1.2.16. Difference in Level of Immediate Post across Different Purpose of Using Twitter

Table 5.23 shows that χ2(3) = 7.111, having the p = 0.68 depicting that the differences in the level of immediate post across different purposes of using Twitter is not significant. The highest mean rank is for call for action which is 20.50, second highest is

15.31 for political activity, to educate the audience is 13.17 and for personal activity is

2.00.

Table 5.23.

Test of Kruskal Wallis: Difference in Level of Posting Immediately and Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Immediately post that Personal Activity 2.00 information/news on FB and Twitter Political Activity 15.31

Educate the Audience 13.17

Call for Action 20.50

Chi-Square 7.111 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .068

5.1.2.17. Difference in Level of Immediate Post Across Different Purpose of Using

Facebook

Table 5.24 shows that χ2(3) = 4.025, having the p = 0.259 describes that there is no statistical significant difference in level of posting immediately across purpose of using

Facebook. Call for action has the highest mean rank i.e. 18.25, political activity has the second highest mean rank which is 14.03, to educate the audience is 12.50 and personal activity is 8.10.

Results and Interpretation 119

Table 5.24.

Test of Kruskal Wallis: Difference in Level of Posting Immediately and Purpose

Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Immediately post that Personal Activity 8.10 information/news on FB and Twitter? Political Activity 14.03

Educate the Audience 12.50

Call for Action 18.25

Chi-Square 4.025 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .259

5.1.2.18. Difference in Level of Response across Different Purpose of Using Twitter

The findings in table 5.25 shows that χ2(3) = 2.072, having the p = 0.558, which means that there is no significant difference in level of response across purpose of using

Twitter. Personal activity and call for action have same mean rank i.e. 19.75, mean rank of political activity is 13.64 and the mean rank of to educate the audience is 13.50.

Table 5.25.

Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Response & Purpose Twitter

Purpose of Activity of Twitter Mean Rank Respond someone post Personal Activity 19.75 or tweet? Political Activity 13.64

Educate the Audience 13.50

Call for Action 19.75

Chi-Square 2.072 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .558

Results and Interpretation 120

5.1.2.19. Difference in Level of Response across Different Purpose of Using Facebook

The findings in table 5.26 shows that χ2(3) = 1.112, having the p = 0.774 means there is no statistically significant difference in the level of response across different purpose of using Facebook. Here, call for action has the highest mean rank i.e. 18, mean rank of political activity is 12.70, educate the audience has the mean rank 12.33 and the rank of personal activity is 12.30.

Table 5.26.

Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Response & Purpose Facebook

Purpose of Activity of Facebook Mean Rank Respond someone post Personal Activity 12.30 or tweet? Political Activity 12.70

Educate the Audience 12.33

Call for Action 18.00

Chi-Square 1.112 Df 3 Asymp. Sig. .774

With the help of findings it could be concluded that most of the political actors use Facebook and Twitter to share the political information with their audience rather than personal information which means that they were using social media to gain their own specific objectives. While comparing Facebook and Twitter it is explored that overall most of the political actors prefer Facebook and they share their information first on Facebook rather than Twitter, this finding is interesting because it is believed that

Twitter is more widely used to disseminate news or official information. But if the results of MNAs is observed alone, they prefer Twitter over Facebook. To measure, relationship quality, one indicator, satisfaction was measured by asking them whether their purpose of using social media was fulfilled or not. The political actors believe that Facebook and Results and Interpretation 121

Twitter were fulfilling their purpose that is why they were relying on these platforms to connect with the audience. Though, Kruskal Wallis test was applied to see whether the political actors using Twitter and Facebook for different purposes have different level of fulfilment and statistically there is no significant difference in level of fulfilment and their purpose of activity on Facebook and Twitter.

Another variable of relationship cultivation strategy of the political actors is also been analysed with the help of the survey and it is revealed that over all political actors do verify the news but the percentage was not very high which means that verification of news or information was not much essential for them or they overlooked it intentionally may be because verification is tiresome and time taking task and they might be more interested in communicating the information to the audience irrespective of its accuracy.

But if the results of MNAs is considered separately, majority of them claim that they verify the news. Another variable of relationship cultivation strategy i.e. responsiveness was also measured through the survey. And we could infer safely from these results that the political actors were not much responsive while using social media, which could affect their relationship with the audience.

5.2. Section II: Results of Content Analysis of Posts and Tweets

This part deals with the results of content analysis of posts and tweets of members of National Assembly.

5.2.1. Post or Tweet

The table 5.27 shows that 34 members of National Assembly posted 1313 posts on

Facebook and 1930 tweets that made a total of 3243, in one month and they all are included in the analysis.

Results and Interpretation 122

Table 5.27.

Frequency of Post and Tweet

Content Frequency Percentage Post 40.5 1313

Tweet 59.5 1930

Total 3243 100.0

5.2.2. Purpose of Post or Tweet Table 5.28 shows that 52.9 % of the political actors are using Facebook and

Twitter mostly to disseminate information about their political activities, as anticipated.

The second highest purpose of using Facebook and Twitter, according to the findings, was to give response on some issue i.e. 20.3%, which could be considered good strategically, as responsiveness is one of the indicator to measure quality of relationship cultivation. Furthermore, the data demonstrates that 14.8% of the political actors use it to inform audience about personal activities, whereas 6.9% MNAs use it to educate their audience and only 2.1% use it to call for action

While looking at Facebook and Twitter separately, 56.7% members use Facebook to disseminate political information whereas 20.1% post about personal activities, on the other hand, 50.4% members use Twitter to promote political activities and 23% politicians use it to give response on some issue. Therefore, it could safely be stated that the political actors prefer Twitter to give response on some issue to Facebook, but as the findings indicate, Facebook still remains the first preference to post about political activities.

Results and Interpretation 123

Table 5.28.

Purpose of Using Twitter and Facebook

Give your Call for Purpose Personal Political Educate Response on Any other Action Any Issue f % f % f % f % f % f % Post or Tweet 480 14.8 1716 52.9 223 6.9 67 2.1 658 20.3 99 3.1 N=3243

Post 264 20.1 745 56.7 401 54 21 1.6 200 15.2 27 2.1 N=131

Tweet 230 11.9 972 50.4 168 8.7 46 2.4 444 23.0 70 3.7 N=1930

5.2.3. Nature of Post or Tweet The table 5.29 shows that the highest percentage which is 57% goes to posting links or sharing some images, videos and articles, 30.3% content contains the opinion of political actors on different issues, 5% content is about giving news, 3.2% content contains blessed words and 2.1% of content is Memes. Whereas, by comparing nature of posts and tweets, it could be observed that 67% members shared image, video or link on

Facebook and 50.2% tweet images or links. On Facebook 21.3% posts are to give their opinion on some issue whereas on Twitter 36.4% of content is shared to give opinion on some issue by the political actors.

Table 5.29.

Nature of Content on Twitter and Facebook

Link/Sharing Giving Blessed Nature some image, Meme Opinion Any other News Words video, article f % f % f % F % f % f % Post and Tweet 1849 57.0 67 2.1 162 5.0 982 30.3 105 3.2 78 2.4 N=3243

Results and Interpretation 124

Post on Facebook 880 67.0 29 2.2 47 3.6 280 21.3 42 3.2 35 2.7 N=1313

Tweet 969 50.2 38 2.0 115 6.0 702 36.4 63 3.3 43 2.2 N=1930

5.2.4. Image Building or Distortion on Facebook and Twitter

The table 5.30 shows that 31.5% of content posted by the political actors on

Facebook and twitter is about self-promotion and 25.9% are about attacking their opponents. Whereas, 17.9% posts and tweets are about party promotion while 6.9% content is related to self-promotion + attack on opponent. On the other hand, table shows the results of Facebook and Twitter separately, interestingly highest posts on Facebook i.e. 39.6% contain self-promotion whereas highest percentage i.e. 32.4% of tweets shared to attack the opponents and self-promotion is on the second place in Twitter.

Table 5.30.

Image Building or Distortion on Facebook and Twitter Image Self- Party Opponent Self- Promotion Building or Promotion Promotion Attack + Attack Any other Distortion

F % F % f % f % f % Posts and Tweets 1022 31.5 581 17.9 840 25.9 224 6.9 576 17.8 N=3243

Posts 520 39.6 244 18.6 215 16.4 119 9.1 215 16.4 N=1313

Tweets N=1930 502 26.0 337 17.5 625 32.4 105 5.4 361 18.7

5.2.5. Language used in Post and Tweet

As predicted and in relation to the majority of their posts and tweets (table 5.31) i.e. 33.9% is to appreciate themselves, 11% of content is to criticize others and 20.6% posts and tweets are sarcastic posts. The tables 5.31 also shows the language used in posts Results and Interpretation 125

and tweets separately. In both Facebook and Twitter, highest percentage is of appreciation

for self-i.e. 38.5% and 31.1% respectively and second highest percentage in both the

platforms is to criticise others. Insulting language used for others in both the platforms is

almost the same.

Table 5.31. Language Used in Posts and Tweets Insulting Appreciation Appreciation Sarcastic Criticism Language for Threatening Others for Self for Others /Taunting on Others Others f % f % f f f % f % f % f %

Post and Tweet 121 3.7 1098 33.9 668 121 668 20.6 668 11.0 18 .6 860 26.58 N=3243

Posts N=1313 48 3.7 505 38.5 30 2.3 85 6.5 212 16.1 1 .1 432 32.9

Tweet N=1930 65 3.4 601 31.1 98 5.1 257 13.3 468 24.2 17 .9 424 22

5.2.6. Cross-tabulation: Purpose of Post and Tweet * Language used in Post and Tweet Chi square test shown in table 5.32 that χ2 (30) =873.404 and p-value is .000

which is less than .05, so statistically, there is a significant difference between the

purpose of post and tweet and language used in them, which indicates that the political

actors use different type of language for purposes. The appreciation for self appears to be

more political, personal, educate and call for action, whereas they use more critical

language for others while giving response on some issue. There is a huge difference in

expected count and count of appreciation for self while responding on some issue. On the

second place they use more sarcastic language for political purpose.

Results and Interpretation 126

Table 5.32.

Purpose of Post and Tweet * Language used in Post and Tweet Cross-tabulation Language used in Post and Tweet Appreci Insulting Appreciat Sarcasti Criticis ation Threat Purpose for ion for c/Taunt m on Other Total for ening Others Self ing Others Others Personal Count 4 249 8 7 10 1 201 480 Expected 17.9 162.5 17.9 52.8 98.9 2.7 127.3 480 Count

Political Count 78 656 66 210 323 7 376 1716 Expected 64.0 581.0 64.0 188.9 353.5 9.5 455.1 1716 Count Educate Count 2 111 11 7 24 2 66 223 Expected 8.3 75.5 8.3 24.5 45.9 1.2 59.1 223 Count

Call for Count 3 24 2 1 19 0 18 67 Action Expected 2.5 22.7 2.5 7.4 13.8 .4 17.8 67 Count Response Count 34 56 18 131 288 8 123 658 on Some Issue Expected 24.6 222.8 24.6 72.4 135.5 3.7 174.5 658 Count Other Count 0 2 16 1 4 0 76 99 Expected 3.7 33.5 3.7 10.9 20.4 .5 26.3 99 Count

Count 121 1098 121 357 668 18 860 3243 Total Expected 121.0 1098.0 121.0 357.0 668.0 18.0 860.0 3243.0 Count

Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Significance (2- Value df sided) Pearson Chi-Square 873.404a 30 .000 N of Valid Cases 3243 a. 9 cells (21.4%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .37.

5.2.7. Cross tabulation: Purpose of Post * Language Facebook Chi square test shows in the table 5.33 that χ2 (36) =395.816 and p-value is .000

which is less than .05, so statistically there is a significant difference in the purpose of

post and the language used in them. According to the findings, MNAs has the highest

number of posts with appreciative language for themselves in the post. The data shows

that they use appreciative language for themselves mostly in the posts with political Results and Interpretation 127

purpose. The second highest is the critical language and that is also used in political posts

mostly.

Table 5.33.

Cross tabulation: Purpose of Post * Language Facebook

Language used in Post

Appreciat Appreciat Sarcasti Criticism Insulting Threat Purpose ion for ion for c/Taunti on Other Total for ening Self Others ng Others Others Personal 3 117 2 6 3 0 133 264

Political 30 328 19 52 93 1 222 745

Educate 2 34 3 4 2 0 9 54

Call for Action 3 5 1 0 4 0 8 21

Response on Some Issue 10 19 4 22 108 0 37 200

Other 0 2 1 1 2 0 22 9

48 505 30 85 212 1 432 1313 Total

Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic Significance (2- Value df sided) Pearson Chi-Square 395.816a 36 .000 N of Valid Cases 1313 a. 25 cells (51.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .00.

5.2.8. Cross tabulation: Purpose of Tweet * Language used in Tweet The table 5.34 shows the Cross tabulation of purpose of tweet and the use of

language, χ2(36) =591.428 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05, so there is a

significant difference in language used and the purpose of post. The findings show that

the highest number of posts has appreciative language for them, and then critical for

others and on the third number are sarcastic ones. The members use appreciative language

in political posts most and then in personal posts. Critical and Sarcastic language is also

used in the political posts most. Results and Interpretation 128

Table 5.34.

Purpose of Tweet * Language used in Tweet Cross tabulation

Language used in Tweet Appreciat Appreciat Insulting Sarcastic/T Criticism Threat Purpose ion for ion for Other Total for Others aunting on Others ening Self Others Personal 1 132 6 1 7 1 68 216

Political 48 331 47 158 230 6 154 974

Educate 0 77 8 3 22 2 57 169 Call for Action 0 19 1 1 15 0 10 46

Response on Some 24 37 14 109 180 8 86 458 Issue

0 0 15 0 2 0 50 67 Other

Total 73 593 91 272 456 17 428 1930

Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Significance (2- Value Df sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 591.428a 36 .000

Likelihood Ratio 651.658 36 .000

Linear-by-Linear Association 106.609 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1930 a. 16 cells (32.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .03.

5.2.9. Purpose of Post and Tweet * Nature of Post and Tweet Cross-tabulation

Chi Square test show χ2 (30) =931.205 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05,

so statistically there is a significant difference in the nature of content and purpose of post

and tweet. The table 5.35 shows that the political actors have shared images and videos

more for political purposes; opinion appears to be the second highest for political posts

and tweets. The Political actors have also expressed their opinion while responding others

on some issues.

Results and Interpretation 129

Table 5.35.

Purpose of Post and Tweet * Nature of Post and Tweet Cross-tabulation

Nature of Post and Tweet

Purpose Link/Sharing Giving Blessed of Post some image, Meme Opinion Other Total news words and Tweet video, article

Personal Count 351 3 8 50 56 12 480 Expected 273.7 9.9 24.0 145.3 15.5 11.5 480.0 Count

Political Count 1065 38 86 476 17 34 1716

Expected 978.4 35.5 85.7 519.6 55.6 41.3 1716.0 Count

Educate Count 117 16 45 37 7 1 223 Expected 127.1 4.6 11.1 67.5 7.2 5.4 223.0 Count

Call for Count 20 3 6 32 1 5 67 Action Expected 38.2 1.4 3.3 20.3 2.2 1.6 67.0 Count

Response Count 242 6 11 374 23 2 658 on Some Issue Expected 375.2 13.6 32.9 199.2 21.3 15.8 658.0 Count

Other Count 54 1 6 13 1 24 99 Expected 56.4 2.0 4.9 30.0 3.2 2.4 99.0 Count

Total Count 1849 67 162 982 105 78 3243 Expected 1849.0 67.0 162.0 982.0 105.0 78.0 3243.0 Count

Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic Significance Value df (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 931.205a 30 .000

Likelihood Ratio 731.876 30 .000

Linear-by-Linear Association 232.019 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 3243 a. 9 cells (21.4%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 1.38. Results and Interpretation 130

5.2.10. Purpose of Tweet * Nature of Tweet Cross tabulation This table 5.36 shows the Cross tabulation of purpose of tweet and its nature, χ2

(20) =361.944 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05, so statistically there is a significant difference in purpose of tweet and its nature. The findings show that the highest number of tweets are to share some link, image or video i.e. 969, out of which

563 are political and 150 are to give their response on some issue. There are 56 political memes, the second highest number of posts and tweets are the opinion i.e. 369 and out of which 197 is political and 120 are to give response on some issue.

Table 5.36.

Purpose of Tweet * Nature of Tweet Cross Tabulation

Nature of Tweet

Link/Sharing Purpose of Giving Blessed some image, Meme Opinion Other Total Tweet news words video, article

Personal Count 153 6 3 26 23 5 216 Expected Count 108.4 9.1 12.9 41.3 7.1 37.3 216.0

Political Count 563 56 62 197 14 149 1041 Expected Count 522.7 43.7 62.0 199.0 34.0 179.6 1041.0

Educate Count 94 6 36 8 4 21 169 Expected Count 84.9 7.1 10.1 32.3 5.5 29.2 169.0

Call for Count 9 6 4 18 0 9 46 Action Expected Count 23.1 1.9 2.7 8.8 1.5 7.9 46.0

Response on Some 150 7 10 120 22 149 458 Issue Count Expected Count 229.9 19.2 27.3 87.6 15.0 79.0 458.0

Total Count 969 81 115 369 63 333 1930 Results and Interpretation 131

Expected 969.0 81.0 115.0 369.0 63.0 333.0 1930.0 Count

Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic Significance Value Df (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 361.944a 20 .000 Likelihood Ratio 346.001 20 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 149.600 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1930 a. 3 cells (10.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 1.50.

5.2.11. Purpose of Post * Nature of Post Cross tabulation This table 5.37 shows the Cross Tabulation of Purpose of Post and its nature, χ2

(20) =403.209 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05, so statistically there is a significant difference in purpose of post and its nature. The findings show that the highest number of posts is sharing some link, image or video i.e. 880, out of which 556 are political and 198 are personal and 92 are to give their response on some issue. 41 posts out of the total were political memes and the second highest numbers of posts or tweets are the opinion i.e. 112 and out of which 80 are political and 15 are to give response on some issue.

Table 5.37.

Purpose of Post * Nature of Post Cross Tabulation

Nature of Post

Link/Sharing Purpose of Giving Blessed some image, Meme Opinion Other Total Post news words video, article

Personal Count 198 9 5 15 33 4 264 Expected Count 176.9 12.9 9.5 22.5 8.4 33.8 264.0

Political Count 556 41 30 80 4 63 774 Results and Interpretation 132

Expected Count 518.8 37.7 27.7 66.0 24.8 99.0 774.0

Educate Count 23 11 9 2 3 6 54 Expected Count 36.2 2.6 1.9 4.6 1.7 6.9 54.0

Call for Count 11 2 2 0 1 5 21 Action Expected Count 14.1 1.0 .8 1.8 .7 2.7 21.0

Response on Some Count 92 1 1 15 1 90 200 Issue Expected Count 134.0 9.7 7.2 17.1 6.4 25.6 200.0

Count 880 64 47 112 42 168 1313 Expected Total 168. 1313. Count 880.0 64.0 47.0 112.0 42.0 0 0 Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Significance Value Df (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 403.209a 20 .000 Likelihood Ratio 326.088 20 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 128.273 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1313 a. 9 cells (30.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .67.

5.2.12. Purpose of Post or Tweet * Image building or distortion Cross-tabulation The result of Chi Square test shows in the table 5.38 that χ2 (20) =1429.63 and p-

value is .000 which is less than .05, so statistically there is a significant difference in

image building or distortion and purpose of post and tweet. Self-promotion, party

promotion, opponent attack, self-promotion + attack, all appears to be the highest in

political posts and tweets. There is a visible difference in the expected count and the

count of party promotion when it comes to political tweets/posts. There is also a huge

difference in expected count and actual count of personal tweets/posts and self- Results and Interpretation 133

promotion, party promotion, opponent attack and self-promotion + attack. There is also a

visible difference in expected count and count of image building and response on some

issue. Political actors prefer to attack their opponent while they are responding on some

issue.

Table 5.38.

Purpose of Post and Tweet * Nature of Post and Tweet Cross tabulation

Image building or distortion

Purpose of Party Self- Self- Opponent Post and Promoti Promotion+ Other Total Promotion Attack Tweet on Attack Personal Count 305 15 6 7 147 480 Expected 151.3 86.0 124.3 33.2 85.3 480.0 Count

Political Count 554 474 443 111 134 1716 Expected 540.8 307.4 444.5 118.5 304.8 1716.0 Count

Educate Count 91 32 24 10 66 223 Expected 70.3 40.0 57.8 15.4 39.6 223.0 Count

Call for Count 28 12 6 7 14 67 Action Expected 21.1 12.0 17.4 4.6 11.9 67.0 Count

Response on Count 42 47 357 88 124 658 Some Issue Expected 207.4 117.9 170.4 45.4 116.9 658.0 Count

Other Count 2 1 4 1 91 99 Expected 31.2 17.7 25.6 6.8 17.6 99.0 Count

Total Count 1022 581 840 224 576 3243 Expected 1022.0 581.0 840.0 224.0 576.0 3243.0 Count Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Significance (2- Value df sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 1429.631a 20 .000 Results and Interpretation 134

Likelihood Ratio 1441.761 20 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 394.605 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 3243 a. . 1 cells (3.3%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 4.63.

5.2.13. Purpose of Post * Image Building or Distortion Cross Tabulation This table 5.39 shows the Cross tabulation of purpose of post and image building,

χ2 (16) =468.786 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05, so statistically there is a

significant difference in purpose of post and image building or distortion. The findings

show that the highest number of posts goes to self-promotion i.e. 520 out of which again

maximum are political i.e. 316 and then personal 146. The second highest numbers of

posts are for party promotion i.e. 244 which include 211 political posts. 215 posts are to

attack opponent in which 105 are political and 102 are in response to some issue.

Table 5.39.

Purpose of Post * Nature of Post Cross tabulation

Image building or distortion

Party Self- Self- Opponent Purpose of Post Promotio Promotion Other Total Promotion Attack + n Attack

Personal Count 146 7 3 6 102 264

Expected 104.6 49.1 43.2 23.9 43.2 264.0 Count Political Count 316 211 105 68 74 774

Expected 306.5 143.8 126.7 70.1 126.7 774.0 Count Educate Count 26 9 4 6 9 54

Expected 21.4 10.0 8.8 4.9 8.8 54.0 Count

Call for Count 6 6 1 5 3 21 Action

Expected 8.3 3.9 3.4 1.9 3.4 21.0 Count Results and Interpretation 135

26 11 102 34 27 200 Response on Count Some Issue Expected Count 79.2 37.2 32.7 18.1 32.7 200.0

Count 520 244 215 119 215 1313 Total Expected 520.0 244.0 215.0 119.0 215.0 1313.0 Count

Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Value Df Significance (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 468.766a 16 .000 Likelihood Ratio 461.922 16 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 27.733 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1313 a. 5 cells (20.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 1.90.

5.2.14. Purpose of Tweet * Image building or distortion Cross tabulation This table 5.40 shows the Cross Tabulation of Purpose of Tweet and image

building, χ2 (16) =640.587 and p-value is .000 which is less than .05, so statistically

there is significant difference in purpose of tweet and image building or distortion. The

findings show that highest number of tweets goes to self-promotion i.e. 520 out of which

again maximum are political i.e. 240 and then personal 159. Second highest number of

tweets is for opponent attack i.e. 625 which include 342 political tweets. 339 tweets are

for party promotion out of which 266 are political.

Table 5.40. Purpose of Tweet * Image building or distortion Cross tabulation Image building or distortion Party Self- Purpose of Self- Opponent Promotio Promotion + Other Total Tweet Promotion Attack n Attack Personal Count 159 8 3 1 45 216 Expected Count 56.2 37.9 69.9 11.8 40.2 216.0 Results and Interpretation 136

Political Count 240 266 342 44 149 1041 Expected Count 270.8 182.8 337.1 56.6 193.6 1041.0 Educate Count 65 23 20 4 57 169 Expected Count 44.0 29.7 54.7 9.2 31.4 169.0

Call for Count 22 6 5 2 11 46 Action Expected Count 12.0 8.1 14.9 2.5 8.6 46.0

Response Count 16 36 255 54 97 458 on Some Issue Expected Count 119.1 80.4 148.3 24.9 85.2 458.0

Count 502 339 625 105 359 1930 Total Expected 502.0 339.0 625.0 105.0 359.0 1930.0 Count Chi-Square Tests Asymptotic Significance Value df (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 640.587a 16 .000 Likelihood Ratio 683.274 16 .000 Linear-by-Linear Association 161.642 1 .000

N of Valid Cases 1930 a. 1 cells (4.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 2.50.

The content analysis of Facebook posts and Tweets is conducted to examine the

purpose of posting content on Facebook and Twitter and also, to investigate the strategy

applied by the political actors to build their image and manage their reputation on

Facebook and Twitter. According to the results, political actors are using Facebook and

Twitter mostly to share information about their political activities and the second purpose

to use Facebook and Twitter is to give response on some issue, which could be good

strategically as responsiveness is one of the indicator to measure relationship cultivation. Results and Interpretation 137

It is also found that the most of the content posted by the political actors on

Facebook and Twitter is about self-promotion followed by attacking their opponents.

Furthermore, in order to promote themselves, the language they use in posts and tweets is self-appreciating. Cross tabulation is also applied to understand the difference between the purpose of post and tweet and the language used, image building and nature of content and the results are significant.

5.3. Section III: Audience Engagement

One of the basic objective of this study was to analyse if the political actors were using Facebook and Twitter strategically to fulfil their purpose, hence, it was important to look at the level of audience engagement in order to investigate the type of posts that generate more comments, likes and shares and the type of tweets that generate more retweets, likes and replies. To measure the reputation of the political actors among audience, the language in the comments used by the audience was also analysed to see whether the audience feedback is supportive or discouraging. Thus, this part of the study deals with the audience engagement including likes, shares and comments on Facebook posts and likes, replies and retweets on Tweets and, also, the language of comments used by the audience in their comments.

5.3.1. Level of “Audience Engagement” differ across “purpose” Facebook

According to the results shown in table 5.41, there is no significant difference in the level of Facebook comment across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =11.72,

p = 0.20, with the highest mean rank of 815.28 for to educate the audience, 669.97 for political, 651.37 for personal, 607.92 for call of action and 605.62 for response on some issue. Though statistically the difference isn’t very significant but to educate the audience has the highest mean rank that shows that education posts get more comments. Similarly, the test showed that there was no substantial difference in the level of Facebook shares Results and Interpretation 138 across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =13.526, p = 0.009, with a highest mean rank 741.08 for, to educate the audience, 675.38 for call of action, 652.04 for political,

613.73 for response on some issue and 569.16 for personal. Here also, to educate the audience has the highest mean rank, which demonstrates that education posts were shared more on Facebook as compared to the other types of posts. As far as Facebook likes are concerned, the test showed that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =16.594, p = 0.002 which is less than

.05. The highest mean rank is 792.85 for call of action, 754.20 for to educate the audience, 692.13 for political, 629.18 for personal, and 594.97 for response on some issue. The findings show that call for action has the highest mean rank which means that posts which were meant to motivate the audience were liked most by the audience.

Table 5.41.

Result of Kruskal Wallis Test: Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Purpose of Post

Purpose of Post Mean Rank Fb Comment Personal 651.37 Political 669.97 Educate 815.28 Call for Action 607.92 Response on Some Issue 605.62

Fb Shares Personal 569.16 Political 652.04 Educate 741.08 Call for Action 675.38 Response on Some Issue 613.73

Fb likes Personal 629.18 Results and Interpretation 139

Political 692.13 Educate 754.20 Call for Action 792.85 Response on Some Issue 594.97

Fb Comment Fb Shares Fb likes Chi-Square 11.712 13.526 16.594 Df 4 4 4 Asymp. Sig. .020 .009 .002

5.3.2. Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Image Building Facebook According to the results shown in table 5.42, χ2(3) =35.074, p = 0.000, less than

.05 with means there is a significant difference in level of audience engagement across image building on Facebook, with a mean rank of 673.37 for self -promotion + opponent attack, 569.09 for self-promotion, 508.04 for opponent attack, 472.87 for party promotion. The highest mean rank is for self-promotion + opponent attack which means that the audience commented on the posts containing self-promotion + opponent attack most. In addition to this, according to the findings in table 5.42, there a significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across the image building, χ2(3) =34.099, p =

0.000, which is less than .05 with a mean rank of 660.35 for self-promotion + opponent attack, 531.77 for opponent attack, 522.52 for self-promotion, 460.72 for party promotion. Here, also, the highest mean rank is of self-promotion + opponent attack which shows that this type of posts are shared the most by the audience on Facebook.

There is also a significant difference in the level of Facebook likes across the image building, χ2(3) =53.612, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a mean rank of 711.99 for self-promotion + opponent attack, 581.78 for self-promotion, 487.81 for opponent attack, 480.61 for party promotion. Interestingly, self-promotion + opponent attack has Results and Interpretation 140 the highest mean rank, means these posts were liked most.

Table 5.42.

Result of Kruskal Wallis: Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Image Building

Image building or distortion Mean Rank Fb Comment Self -Promotion 569.09 Party Promotion 472.87 Opponent Attack 508.04 Self- Promotion + Attack 673.37

Fb Shares Self-Promotion 522.52 Party Promotion 460.72 Opponent Attack 531.77 Self-Promotion +Attack 660.35

Fb likes Self-Promotion 581.78 Party Promotion 480.61 Opponent Attack 487.81 Self-Promotion +Attack 711.99

Test statistic

Fb Comment Fb Shares Fb likes Chi-Square 35.074 34.099 53.612 Df 3 3 3 Asymp. Sig. .000 .000 .000

5.3.3. Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Language Facebook A Kruskal Wallis test was applied to test the difference of level of audience engagement across language used in Facebook posts, the test results (table 5.43) showed that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook comments across the language used, χ2(4) =171.353, p = 0.000, which is less than .05, with the highest mean Results and Interpretation 141 rank of 917.30 for insulting others, 750.31 for self-appreciation, 730.07 for appreciation for others, 687.45 for sarcastic and 530.21 for criticism on others. According to the above findings, insulting language for others has the highest mean rank that explains the posts with insulting language had the highest comments. A Kruskal Wallis test was applied to test the difference of level of audience engagement across language used in Facebook posts, and the test displayed that there was a significant difference in the level of

Facebook shares across the language used, χ2(4) =138.471, p = 0.000, which is less than

.05 with a mean rank score of 806.38 for insulting for others, 748.85 for self-appreciation,

654.38 for appreciation for others, ,675.28 for sarcastic and 513.12 for criticism on others. In this table the insulting language for others had the highest mean rank, explaining that these posts get the highest shares.

The test showed that there is a significant difference in the level of Facebook likes across the language used, χ2(4) =205.505, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a highest mean rank of 910.94 for insulting for others, 814.18 for self-appreciation, 623.03 for appreciation for others, 617.43 for sarcastic and 529.90 for criticism on others. In this table again insulting language for others had the highest mean score, which suggests that the most of the audience liked the tweets that contain insulting language. The results show that the posts with insulting language for others got highest shares, likes and comments means these posts generated highest audience engagement.

Table 5.43.

Kruskal Wallis Level of “audience engagement” differ across “language”

Language used in Post Mean Rank Fb Comment Insulting for Others 917.30 Appreciation for Self 750.31 Appreciation for Others 730.07 Results and Interpretation 142

Sarcastic/Taunting 687.45 Criticism on Others 530.21

Fb Shares Insulting for Others 806.38 Appreciation for Self 748.85 Appreciation for Others 654.38 Sarcastic/Taunting 675.28 Criticism on Others 513.12

Fb likes Insulting for Others 910.94 Appreciation for Self 814.18 Appreciation for Others 623.03 Sarcastic/Taunting 617.43 Criticism on Others 529.90

Test statistic

Fb Comment Fb Shares Fb likes Chi-Square 171.353 138.471 205.505 Df 4 4 4 Asymp. Sig. .000 .000 .000 a. Kruskal Wallis Test b. Grouping Variable: Language used in Post

5.3.4. Kruskal Wallis level of Audience Engagement Differ across Purpose Twitter A Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to measure the difference of level of audience engagement across purpose of using Twitter, the test in the table 5.44 suggests that there is significant difference in the level of likes on tweets across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =22.641, p = 0.000, with the highest mean rank for call for action i.e.

1065.45, response on some issue 958.96, 948.25 for to educate the audience, 943.35 for political and 781.30 for personal. The highest mean rank is for call for action that shows the posts having call for action get more likes. Thenceforth came the replies, the test Results and Interpretation 143 pointed out a major difference in the level of Twitter replies across the different purpose categories, χ2(4) =47.46, p = 0.000, with a highest mean rank of 1094.58 for call of action, 1019.57 for response on some issue, 932.39 for political, 735.64 for personal and

905.99 for to educate the audience. According to the findings, to educate the audience had the highest mean rank which indicates that the posts shared to educate the audience received more replies. As far as retweets are concerned, the test showed that there is a significant difference in the level of retweets across the different purpose categories,

χ2(4) =73.203, p = 0.000 which is less than .05, with a mean rank of 1097.27 for call of action, 1010.71 for response on some issue, 987.07 for to educate the audience, 939.30 for political and 663.79 for personal. The call for action has the highest mean rank with respect to retweets.

Table 5.44.

Kruskal Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across “purpose of tweet”

Purpose of Tweet Mean Rank Likes Personal 781.30 Political 943.35 Educate 948.25 Call for Action 1065.45 Response on Some Issue 958.96

Replies Personal 735.64 Political 932.39 Educate 905.99 Call for Action 1094.58 Response on Some Issue 1019.57

Retweets Personal 663.79 Political 939.30 Results and Interpretation 144

Educate 987.07 Call for Action 1097.27 Response on Some Issue 1010.71

Test statistic

Likes Replies Retweets Chi-Square 22.641 47.406 73.203 Df 4 4 4 Asymp. Sig. .000 .000 .000 a. Kruskal Wallis Test b. Grouping Variable: Purpose of Post or Tweet

5.3.5. Level of “Audience Engagement” differ across “Image Building” The result of Kruskal Wallis test shown in table 5.45 explains a significant difference in the level of likes on Tweets across the image building, χ2(3) =74.970, p =

0.000, which is less than .05, with a mean rank of 887.21 for party promotion, 870.90 for self-promotion + opponent attack, 800.60 for opponent attack and 637.53 for self- promotion. The highest mean rank goes to party promotion, explaining why the tweets promoting party get most likes, self-promotion + opponent got the second highest mean rank. The test results show that there is a significant difference in the level of replies on tweets across the image building, χ2(3) =108.112, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a mean rank of 895.64 for self-promotion + opponent attack, 858.57 for opponent attack,

828.10 for party promotion and 597.07 for self-promotion. The highest mean rank goes to self-promotion + opponent attack, which clearly justifies why the tweets containing self-promotion and opponent attacks get more replies. According to the results, the test presented a noteworthy difference in level retweets across image building, χ2(3)

=122.082, p = 0.000, which is less than .05 with a mean rank of 934.92 for self- promotion + opponent attack , 855.99 for party promotion, 844.92 for opponent attack, Results and Interpretation 145

586.16 for self-promotion. Interestingly, the most retweeted tweets by the audience are related to self-promotion + opponent attack with the highest mean rank.

Table 5.45.

Kruskil Wallis level of “audience engagement” differ across “image building”

Image building or distortion Mean Rank Likes Self -Promotion 634.53 Party Promotion 887.21 Opponent Attack 800.60 Self- Promotion + Attack 870.90

Replies Self-Promotion 597.07 Party Promotion 828.10 Opponent Attack 858.57 Self-Promotion +Attack 895.64

Retweets Self-Promotion 586.16 Party Promotion 855.99 Opponent Attack 844.92 Self-Promotion +Attack 934.92

Test statistic

Likes Replies Retweets Chi-Square 74.970 108.112 122.082 Df 3 3 3 Asymp. Sig. .000 .000 .000 a. Kruskal Wallis Test b. Grouping Variable: Image buidling or distortion

5.3.6. Kruskal Wallis Level of Audience Engagement Differ Across Language A Kruskal Wallis test was applied to test the difference of level of audience engagement differ across language, the test in table 5.46 display a major difference in the Results and Interpretation 146 level of likes across the different language categories, χ2 (5) =16.239, p = 0.006, with a mean rank of 888.60 for appreciation for others, 829.53 for threatening, 778.59 for criticism on others, 730.94 for sarcastic/taunting, 727.34 for appreciation for self, 680.39 for insulting for others. The tweets with appreciative language for others were liked most followed by threatening tweets.

The findings of the test regarding the difference of level of audience engagement differ across language, showed that there was significant difference in the level of replies across the different language categories, χ2 (5) =32.432, p = 0.000, with mean rank of

909.56 for threatening, 822.45 for sarcastic/taunting, 821.88 for appreciation for others,

788.82 for criticism on others 777.15 for insulting for others, 678.39 for appreciation for self.

A Kruskal Wallis test was applied to assess the difference of level of “audience engagement” differ across “Language”, the test showed that there was substantial difference in the level of retweets across the different Language categories, χ2(5)

=35.648, p = 0.000 with highest mean rank 922.85 for threatening, 863.29 for appreciation for others, 817.15 for criticism on others 762.54 for sarcastic/taunting,

686.21 for appreciation for self, 671.89 for insulting for others. There is major variance occurrence among the variables while again threatening had the highest mean rank in the perspective of retweets.

Table 5.46.

Kruskal Wallis Level of “audience engagement” differ across “language”

Language used in tweet Mean Rank Likes Insulting for Others 680.39 Appreciation for Self 727.34 Appreciation for Others 888.60 Sarcastic/Taunting 730.94 Results and Interpretation 147

Criticism on Others 778.59 Threatening 829.53

Replies Insulting for Others 777.15 Appreciation for Self 678.39 Appreciation for Others 821.88 Sarcastic/Taunting 822.45 Criticism on Others 788.82 Threatening 909.56

Insulting for Others 671.89 Retweets Appreciation for Self 686.21 Appreciation for Others 863.29 Sarcastic/Taunting 762.54 Criticism on Others 817.15 Threatening 922.82

Test statistic

Likes Replies Retweets Chi-Square 16.239 32.432 35.648 Df 5 5 5 Asymp. Sig. .006 .000 .000 a. Kruskal Wallis Test b. Grouping Variable: Language used in Tweet

5.3.7. Language of comments on Posts and Tweets Table 5.49 shows the results of language used in the comments in the Facebook posts and Tweets of the political actors, according to the findings, 50.6 % comments were supportive, 40.9 % were discouraging for the political actors whereas 8.4 % were abusive

Results and Interpretation 148

Table 5.47.

Analysis of Language Used inf Comments on Posts and Tweets

Language Frequency Percentage (%) Abusive 906 8.4 Discouraging 4389 40.9 Supportive 5427 50.6 Total 10722 100.0

5.3.8 Language of Comments on Facebook Posts

The table below shows the results of language used in the comments on the

Facebook posts of the political actors, according to the findings, 65.4 % comments were supportive, and 29.5% discouraging for the political actors, whereas 5.1 % had abusive language.

Table 5.48.

Analysis of Language Used in Comments on Posts

Language Frequency Percentage (%) Abusive 326 5.1 discouraging 1886 29.5 supportive 4178 65.4 Total 6390 100.0

5.3.9 Language of Comments on Tweets Table 5.51 displays the results of language used in the comments on the tweets shared by the political actors, and according to the findings, 28.8% comments were supportive, 57.8% were discouraging for the political actors, and only 13.4 % were abusive. These results are completely opposite to that of Facebook, as mentioned in the last table, even the percentage of abusive comments is also almost double. Results and Interpretation 149

Table 5.49.

Analysis of Language Used in Comments on Tweets

Language Frequency Percentage (%) Abusive 580 13.4 Discouraging 2503 57.8 Supportive 1249 28.8 Total 4332 100.0

Above are the results of audience engagement and the language used in the comments on the posts and tweets. The test results show there was no significant difference in the level of Facebook comment and shares across the different purpose categories, but the highest mean rank was for Education which displays that education posts got more comments and were shared more. There was a significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across the different purpose categories and call for action had the highest mean rank with little bit difference with education. There was a significant difference in the level of likes, replies and retweets across the different purpose categories and call for action got the highest likes, whereas, education had the highest replies and tweets related to “call for action” were retweeted most.

According to the results, there was a significant difference in the level of

Facebook comments, shares and likes across the image building and in all three cases highest mean rank was of self-promotion + opponent attack. Like Facebook, there was a significant difference in the level of likes, replies and re-tweets across the image building.

The highest mean rank was party promotion, indicating that the tweets promoting party got most likes, but on the other hand, the tweets that received more replies were the ones Results and Interpretation 150 containing self-promotion and opponent attacks. Interestingly, the most retweeted tweets were also those which contained self-promotion + opponent attack. There was also a noteworthy difference in the level of Facebook comments, likes and shares across the language used but insulting language for others had highest mean ranks which explains why they receive the highest comments. There was significant difference in the level of

Likes, replies and re-tweets across the different Language categories and in case of twitter, appreciation for others got highest likes and tweets containing threats for other had highest number of replies and were also retweeted the most.

The language used by the audience in the comments was also analysed, a total

10722 comments were analysed. It was found out that most of the comments were supporting for the audiences and a small number were discouraging collectively but if the results of Facebook and Twitter are studied separately, Facebook posts had more supportive comments while Twitter had more discouraging comments, and abusive comments were also much more on Twitter. It could also be inferred that the political actors were considered more credible on Facebook because they received more supportive comments there. So it might be possible that they were managing their reputation well on Facebook rather than Twitter.

5.4. Section IV: Linkage Between Survey Purpose and Content Analysis Facebook and Twitter One of the primary objectives of this study was to understand if the political actors actually post or tweet the content which fulfils their purpose which they mentioned in the survey. For the said purpose, co-relation was applied to see the strategy of political actors. The result in table 5.52 displays that there was no correlation between the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter stated by political actors in the questionnaire and the purpose analysed through the content they post on Facebook and Twitter. Results and Interpretation 151

Table 5.50.

Correlation

Twitter Content & Survey Facebook Content & Survey Personal -0.92 0.82 Political .017 .130 Education -0.64 -.117 Call For Action ------Response ------

5.5. Concluding Remarks This chapter provides a detailed overview of the findings of survey and the content analysis to answer the research questions. The statistical analysis is also applied to get the accurate results. The results of the survey of the political actors demonstrated that the political actors were using social media mainly to fulfil their political objectives, they had different other purposes too but political one dominates. The political actors were cultivating the relationship with the audience through Facebook and Twitter but they might be ignoring the quality of relationship as shown in the results of the survey.

Moreover, the content also reflects that their foremost purpose was to disseminate information about their political activities and to sensitize people to achieve their political agenda.

As far as the audience engagement is concerned, there was no significant difference in the level of Facebook comments and shares across the different purpose categories, but there was a significant difference in Facebook likes. In case of Twitter there was a significant difference in the level of likes, replies and retweets across the different purpose categories. In addition to this, audience engagement was also different across image building on Facebook and Twitter. There was also a noteworthy difference Results and Interpretation 152 in the level of Facebook comments, likes and shares and the level of likes, replies and retweets across different language categories. Furthermore, the language used by the audience in the comments was also analysed to measure the reputation of the political actors among the masses. It was revealed that Facebook posts had more supportive comments while Twitter had more discouraging comments, and abusive comments were also much more on Twitter. This shows that the political actors were enjoying more credibility on Facebook as compared to Twitter. Interestingly there was no correlation between the purpose stated by the political actors in the survey and the content they were posting and tweeting. Discussion and Analysis 153

CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS

The literature depicted that the political parties and politicians are accepting the new opportunities offered by social media to interact with the audience directly.

Politicians across Western democracies are increasingly embracing Twitter (Graham,

Jackson, & Broersma, 2016) and other social media platforms to communicate with their audience. While keeping the world scenario in view, this study was focused on exploring the usage of Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan, the quality of relationship they had cultivated with the audience, how they were managing their reputation and how much audience engagement they generated on their posts and tweets.

To fulfil the objectives of the study, survey and content analysis methods were employed.

This chapter is divided into five sections, first four sections discuss the quantitative results. Fifth and the last section is based on the qualitative discussion on the content of posts and tweets to support the quantitative results. The results of MNAs and

MPAs are discussed collectively and then the results of MNAs are discussed separately

(wherever needed) as well to get a clearer picture and to establish the relationship between the survey results and content analysis of Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of MNAs.

6.1. SECTION I: SURVEY RESULTS 6.1.1. Political Actors and Usage of Facebook and Twitter A glance at the participation of members of provincial assemblies in the survey

(figure 5.1) shows that number of respondents was highest (44.5 %) from Punjab

Assembly which is also the biggest provincial assembly of Pakistan having total 371 seats, where ruling party at the time of data collection was PML (N) and most of the Discussion and Analysis 154 respondents also belonged to this party. The second highest (15.4 %) respondents were from Sindh Assembly and then KPK and Baluchistan respectively. The percentage of participants from National Assembly was 40%. As far as the usage of Facebook and

Twitter was concerned, 31.7 % of the total respondents were using only Facebook whereas 2.5 % of the political actors were using only Twitter and 44.6 % were using both

Twitter and Facebook. From these results, we could safely infer that in Pakistan, the political actors are aware of the advantages and importance of social media and have adopted it as a mean of direct communication with the audience. Karlsen, & Enjorlas

(2016) also concluded in their study that the candidates consider social media important for creating involvement in the campaign, sharing links, reaching out to as many voters as possible, direct communication with voters and mobilizing party supporters in different parts of the world. The overall results show that political actors were using Facebook much more than Twitter whereas the situation is different in many other parts of the world. The political actors rely more on Twitter than Facebook may be because Twitter is considered “asymmetric” form of network which makes it potentially more conducive for political interaction (Porter, 2009; Hong & Nadler, 2012) and number of Twitter users is growing rapidly all around the world (Gucdemir, Mengu & Canan, 2014). Besides this discussion, the notable point is that our political actors have at least, adopted some kind of social media to communicate with their audience in Pakistan. As the number of political actors using Facebook was more than Twitter, so most of the political actors i.e.

59.7 % preferred Facebook on Twitter. That is why according to figure 5.5 majority of the political actors i.e. 68.3 % preferred to share information on Facebook whereas only 31.7

% wanted to share information on Twitter first. Likewise, when they were asked about the medium in which they believe more, their responses reflected the same thought. Most of Discussion and Analysis 155 the political actors i.e. 46 % mentioned in table 5.2 agreed that they believe in Facebook more than Twitter where as 37.8 % agreed vice versa.

It has been widely discussed in the previous studies that social media is challenging the way traditional media have been used to disseminate news and to debate on social and political issues (Yang, Chen, Maity, & Ferrara, 2016). To uncover the real situation in Pakistan, the question was asked form the political actors whether they consider social media a better way of communication; 48 % agreed that social media is a better way to communicate, 13.8 % strongly agreed with this notion and 7.9 % thought that social media is not a better way to communicate as compared to traditional media. It would not be wrong to state that the political actors are accepting social media as an alternate and direct way of communication with their audience. So far, the findings are supporting the fact that the political actors are using social media strategically and their responses to different questions were also aligned.

However, it is important to mention here that majority of the political actors prefer

Facebook on Twitter; interestingly this finding is in contrast to the observed practice in

Pakistan, where it is largely believed that Twitter is being used more and preferred by the political actors and different institutions. They tweet any information or news to disseminate it and reach maximum number of audience in no time. TV channels also get news from Twitter more and not from Facebook posts.

6.1.2. Research Question 1.

How do political actors perceive the purpose of using social media? One of the central objectives of this study was to investigate why and how the political actors were using Facebook and Twitter. The question was asked about the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter, whether they were using it to disseminate political or personal information or they wanted to educate the audience, give their response on some issue or call the audience for some action. In this study, it was revealed Discussion and Analysis 156

(table 5.3) that most of the political actors i.e. 54.7 % used Twitter to communicate about their political activities to the audience and 18.2 % of the respondents used it to disseminate information about personal activities. The situation was also same in case of

Facebook; the highest percentage i.e. 48.6 % of the respondents use it to share their political ideology and 18.9 % wanted to inform audience about their personal activities

(table 5.3). In case of MNAs, according to the results (shown in table 5.15), 75 % MNAs were using Twitter for political purpose and

57.7 % of the respondents using Facebook to diffuse political information. These findings reflect that foremost purpose of using Facebook and Twitter was to promote the political activities and policies, which was very much expected. These results are very much consistent to the previous studies, which suggested that politicians were attempting to use

Twitter for political engagements (Grant, Moon & Busby, 2010). In addition, Larson &

Moe (2011) also observed that the political actors use Twitter to spread information about political events.

It was observed in the results, that the political actors were using Facebook and

Twitter for personal promotion as well, may be to bridge the divide between political elites and voters, even if this nearness is a technologically mediated hallucination

(Coleman and Moss, 2008). This could be said that they were posting personal content comprising family and friends to show their softer side and to build positive image among the voters.

6.1.3. Research Question 2. What is the quality of relationship of political actors with the audience?

As discussed in the theoretical framework, Hon and Grunig (1999) identified four variables of measuring the quality of relationship with the audience i.e. control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, and commitment whereas Ledingham (2011) identified the dimensions of trust, openness, satisfaction, access, mutual control, and responsiveness arguably as the Discussion and Analysis 157 most critical in determining relationship quality in a political public relations setting.

Some of these variables were studied in this research in the perspective of online political public relations. This research was focused to investigate that what type of relationship, the political actors were cultivating with the audience. For that purpose, three variables of relationship quality were selected from the above mentioned studies. One of the variables of relationship cultivation which was measured through the survey was “trust”. The respondents were asked whether they verify the news before posting or sharing it on social media to develop quality relationship with the audience. To develop trust, it is essential to give authentic and verified news to the audience otherwise it would be considered propaganda and would also affect the credibility of the political actors. It would ultimately lead to mistrust and affect the social capital of the political actors.

According to the results presented in table 5.5, highest number of respondents i.e. 32.4 %, claimed that they verify the information every time before posting it on Twitter and 30.4

% members said that they verify it sometimes and as far as Facebook was concerned

(table 5.5) highest number of participant 31.4 %, said that they sometimes verify the information before posting it on Facebook whereas 25 % members claimed that they verify it every time. To further investigate whether there was any difference in level of verification across different purposes, Kruskal Wallis test was applied. According to the results shown in table 5.8, interestingly, the political actors who were using Twitter to educate the audience used to verify the news or information most, followed by the political actors who said that their purpose of using Twitter was to disseminate information about their personal activity. The political actors who claimed that they were using Twitter for political purpose were on third place as far as verification was concerned. The situation in case of Facebook is much different, as shown in Table 5.9; the political actors who were using Facebook for political purposes were the ones who Discussion and Analysis 158 verify the information most, then personal activity and at third place is call for action.

Though the political actors do verify the news but the percentage was not very high which means that verification of news or information was not very important for them. It could also be said that they may overlook verification intentionally because verifying the information could be tiresome and a time taking task. It may also be possible that sometimes communicating manipulated information is in broader interest of the political actor. This can open another discussion that the political actors themselves might be involved in propaganda against their opponents. This behaviour is very much understandable in this age of fake news where the US President Donald Trump has always been accused of spreading fake news. The proliferation of misleading and distorted information is one of the biggest disadvantages of rapidly growing social media.

Another interesting fact that could be drawn from this result is that the percentage of political actors verifying the news before sharing it on Twitter was slightly higher as compared to Facebook, hence it could be claimed that the political actors were more careful before sharing any content on Twitter considering its interactive and effective nature.

If the case of MNAs is considered separately, the situation is somewhat different.

Table 5.17 reflects that 65.4 % claim that they verify the information every time before sharing on Twitter, which is much higher, 34.6 % verify the information most of the time.

64.3 % claim they verify the information every time before posting on Facebook and 17.9

% do it every time. To further analyse the situation, the statistical test was applied to see whether there was any difference in level of verification across different purposes. The findings in table 5.21 revealed that the mean rank of the political actors who were using

Twitter for personal activity, to educate the audience and call for action was same but the political actors, who were using Twitter to disseminate political information had lowest Discussion and Analysis 159 mean rank. Though the verification percentage was much higher on Twitter but the political actors who claimed that they were using it to achieve their political agendas were much lesser in number. According to results of level of verification across purpose of using Facebook shown in table 5.22, highest mean rank was again to educate the audience, personal and call for action where lowest mean rank was of political activity, again the political actors spreading political information were not much interested in verifying the news. These findings are somewhat debatable, the political actors who stated that their central purpose of using social media was to spread political information but they were not much concerned about verifying the political information, they might believe that everything is fair in politics and as much as they propagate issues and troll others, more they would be successful and popular among the masses.

Another indicator to measure the quality of relationship cultivation strategy i.e. responsiveness was also measured through the survey. In this study, responsiveness meant how active the political actors were in communicating the issue to the audience and how immediate they were in responding to any issue against them or their political party to clear the situation and avoid misunderstanding. As shown in table 5.5, only 6.5 % of the respondents posted information on Facebook and Twitter as soon as they get it, 28.0

% post immediately most of the time and 45.5 % post sometimes. While looking at the results of responding to issue, 9 % said that they respond every time and 27.5 % respond most of the times, and 35.4 % sometimes respond. The statistical test was applied to further investigate the level of responsiveness across different purposes of using

Facebook. Table 5.12 shows that the political actors who were using Twitter for personal purpose highest in number as far as giving response on issue was concerned. The second highest rank was of the political actors who were using Twitter to give response, then educate the audience, followed by political activity and call for action. As far as Facebook Discussion and Analysis 160 is concerned, table 5.13 shows no significant difference but the highest mean rank was for giving response on some issue which makes a lot of sense. The political actors who were using Facebook to give responsive were responding most, followed by call for action, personal and to educate the audience. Last place was of the political actors who were using Facebook for political purposes. The results show that the political actors who were using social media for political activities were not very active in giving their opinion on

Facebook and Twitter. Then comes posting information immediately on social media, table 5.10 shows that the political actors who were using Twitter for personal purposes had highest rank in posting the information immediately. Call for action was at second place, which means that political actors felt that if they need to motivate the audience they must get maximum benefit of Twitter. The percentage of the political actors using Twitter for political purposes had very low share in posting information immediately on Twitter.

Same is the case in Facebook, when it comes to posting immediately, table 5.11 shows that the political actors using Facebook for giving response on some issue were posting information most immediately; this could be termed as good strategy on part of the politicians. Interestingly, the politicians who were using Facebook for personal activities had second highest mean rank followed by call for action and to educate the audience.

Surprisingly, the political actors who were using Facebook for political activities were lowest in number when it comes to post immediately.

While considering the results of MNAs separately, table 5.17 shows that only

6.9 % post any information immediately every time, 10.3 % immediately post information most of the time, 51.7 % sometimes try to post information as soon as they get it. As far as responding to some ongoing issue is concerned 13.8 % MNAs respond every time, 20.7 % respond most of the time, 37.9 respond sometimes. This shows that the highest percentage was of the political actors who respond or give their opinion Discussion and Analysis 161 sometimes on any ongoing issue. If we see the results of level of response and posting immediately across different purposes, table 5.23 shows the results of difference in level of posting immediately across purpose of using Twitter, highest mean rank was for call for action followed by political activity, to educate the audience and lowest mean rank was for personal activity. As far as Facebook is considered (table 5.24) highest mean rank was for call for action followed by political, to educate the audience and at fourth place was for personal activities. While considering response on some issue and purpose of using Twitter was concerned, table 5.25 shows that the highest mean rank was for call for action and personal activity whereas political activity was at second place. According to table 5.26, the political actors who were using Facebook to call the audience for some action were responding to the issues most, followed by political activity.

It could be safely inferred from these results that the political actors were not much responsive while using social media which may not be a right tactic for the political public relations. The followers want to listen to the views or arguments of their political leaders before forming any opinion and if they do not find it on time it may be discouraging for them which could affect the following of the political actor on social media.

Third indicator of quality of relationship cultivation strategy “satisfaction” was also measured through survey. It was important to see whether the political actors were satisfied with the use of social media or not, for this purpose the political actors were asked whether the Facebook and Twitter were fulfilling their purpose of using these platforms, according to table 5.4, majority i.e. 51.4 % agreed that Twitter was fulfilling their purpose, 14.2 % strongly agreed whereas only 11.5 % respondents disagreed that

Twitter was fulfilling their purpose. As far as Facebook is concerned as shown in table

5.4 most of the political actors i.e. 55.1 % agreed whereas 9.7 % political actors strongly Discussion and Analysis 162 agreed that Facebook was fulfilling their purpose of communication with the audience.

Only 7.6 % respondents disagreed with this notion. So overall, the political actors were found satisfied with their purpose of using Facebook and Twitter. To investigate it further, Kruskal Wallis test was applied to see whether there was a significant difference in the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter and the level of fulfilment of purpose as perceived by the political actors. Though there was no significant difference in the level of fulfilment in Facebook and Twitter but it was shown that the political actors using

Twitter for personal purpose were most satisfied followed by the political actors using it for political activities and in Facebook mean rank of political activity was on third place which means they were less satisfied. Thus, overall majority of the political actors using

Facebook and Twitter were satisfied. If we consider the results of the MNAs separately, then table 5.16, shows that 46.4 % of MNAs stated that Twitter was fulfilling their purpose. 32.1 % strongly agreed. 46.2 % were satisfied that Facebook was fulfilling their purpose of using Facebook where as 11.5 % strongly disagreed. Thus, the political actors were satisfied that social media was fulfilling their purpose.

From above mentioned, it could also be concluded that the political actors are cultivating their relation with the audience. Majority of them verify the information before sharing it but the political actors whose foremost purpose was to promote their political agenda were the lowest in number as far as verification was concerned. Also, the majority of respondents claimed that they verify the information but still it’s not much higher. Moreover, the political actors were not much responsive but they were satisfied with their usage. Therefore, the political actors were cultivating the relationship but they were not paying much importance to the quality of relationship.

Discussion and Analysis 163

6.2. SECTION II (CONTENT ANALYSIS)

This section includes the content analysis of Facebook and Twitter content shared by MNAs.

6.2.1. Research Question 3 Which purpose is presented in posts and tweets to attract the audience?

According to the results of content analysis shown in table 5.28, the political actors were using Facebook and Twitter mostly to disseminate information about their political activities i.e. 52.9 %, posts and tweets were political, this was very much expected. The second purpose to use Facebook and Twitter was to give response on some issues i.e. 20.3 %. Further data showed that 14.8% of respondents were using it for personal purposes, 6.9 % MNAs were using it to educate their audience and only 2.1 % were using it for call for action.

While looking at Facebook and Twitter separately, 56.7 % members were using

Facebook for political purposes and 20.1 % posted about personal activities, whereas 50.4

% members were using Twitter to promote political activities and 23 % politicians were using it to give response on some issue. Therefore, this can be safely concluded that foremost purpose of the political actors of using Facebook and Twitter was to share political content with their audience. These findings support the previous studies concluded that social media like Facebook and Twitter allow politicians to set their own political agenda and disseminate among the audience directly and the major motive of using social media is to increase the visibility of their candidacies and parties in public sphere and to promote politics (Jackson & Lilleker, 2011).

6.2.2. Research Question.4

What strategy do political actors apply to cultivate their relationship on social

media?

This research question further divided into sub-sections. Discussion and Analysis 164

6.2.3. Research Question 4a

What is the nature of content they are sharing in tweets and posts?

Table 5.29 shows that the highest percentage i.e.57.0 % was of posting links or sharing some images, videos and articles; at second place 30.3 % content was about the opinion of political actors on different issues; 5 % was news and 3.2 % was of posts and tweets contained blessed words and 2.1 % was the share of memes. While comparing nature of posts and tweets, it was observed that 67 % members shared images, videos or links on Facebook and 50.2 % tweets were either images or links. On Facebook 21.3 % posts were to give their opinion on some issue whereas in Twitter it was 36.4 %. This is apparent from the findings that most of the political actors were sharing links, videos and articles and only 30.3 % were using it to give some opinion which also supports the results mentioned above that they were using Facebook and Twitter less to cultivate effective relationship with the audience and more to give them information. Hence, it can be assumed that though they were connecting to the public directly but undermining the interactive aspect of digital political communication, what differentiates it from traditional modes of communication (Kalsness, 2016).

6.2.4. Research Question 4b What kind of language style do they employ in their posts and tweets? According to the results shown in table 5.31, the political actors shared 33.9 % posts and tweets to appreciate themselves, 30.6 % were to criticize others and 11 % were sarcastic posts; it was expected that the political actors would be using it more to appreciate themselves. If we see them separately, in both Facebook and Twitter, highest percentage was of appreciation for self i.e. 38.5 % and 31.1 % respectively. And second highest percentage in both the platforms was of criticism on others, insulting language used for others in both the platforms was almost the same. This shows that political actors either praise themselves or criticise their opponent on social media. Discussion and Analysis 165

6.2.5. Research Question 4c Which tactic do political actors use more for building their image-whether through self- promotion or attacking opponents? The content of the posts and tweets was also examined to answer the research question about which tactic do political actors use more for building their image-whether through self- promotion or attacking opponents and interestingly, (according to table

5.30) 31.5 % of content posted by the political actors on Facebook and twitter was about self-promotion and 25.9 % was about attacking their opponents which shows that they were trying to build their positive image by self-promotion and also trying to build negative image of their opponents. If we look at Facebook and Twitter separately, highest posts on Facebook i.e. 39.6 % were about self-promotion whereas highest percentage i.e.

32.4 % of tweets were to attack the opponents and self-promotion was at second place in

Twitter, which means that political actors were using different strategies on Facebook and

Twitter when it comes to image building, they were using Facebook to promote their positive image more than Twitter whereas Twitter was used more to build negative image of their opponent. These findings can also be linked with the answer of the R.Q. 3 c that the political actors use self-appreciative language, more which is a pre-requisite for self- promotion and using critical language to attack their opponent.

6.2.6. Research Question 4d Is there any difference among the purpose and the nature of content, language and promotion? 6.2.6.1. Purpose and Language It was important to compare purpose with nature of content, language and image building to see whether they were using different tactics for different purposes. For this purpose, cross tabulation was applied. Statistically, there was a significant difference between purpose of post or tweet and language used in them (table 5.32), which means that the political actors used different type of language to fulfil different purposes. The Discussion and Analysis 166 appreciation for self appears to be more in political, personal, educate and call for action, meaning whatever the purpose of sharing the content was, they were praising and appreciating themselves. Even when they were trying to educate the audience they were indulged in self-appreciation (this element is more clear and highlighted in qualitative discussion of posts and tweets below), whereas they used more critical language for others while giving response on some issue. At second place after self-appreciation, they used more sarcastic language for political purpose.

If we see the case of Facebook and Twitter separately, MNAs had highest number of posts with appreciative language for themselves in the post to achieve political objective as recorded in table 5.35. The second highest was the critical language and was used mainly in political posts. In Twitter (table 5.36), the findings show that highest number of tweets had appreciative language for themselves, followed by critical tweets for others and lastly sarcastic tweets. The members use appreciative language in most political posts and in personal posts. Critical and sarcastic language was also frequently used in political posts.

6.2.6.2. Purpose and Nature of Content According to the findings shown in table 5.35, political actors shared images and videos more for political purposes, opinion appears to be second highest for political posts and tweets. The political actors have also expressed their opinion while responding to others on some issues. The findings show that highest number of posts was of sharing some link, image or video i.e. 969, out of which 563 were political and 150 were to give their response on some issue. There were 56 political memes. The second highest number of posts or tweets were the opinion i.e. 369 and out of which 197 were political and 120 were to give response on some issue.

In the case of Twitter and Facebook, analysed separately, the findings (table 5.38) show that highest number of tweets had some link, image or video i.e. 880, out of which Discussion and Analysis 167

556 were political, 198 were personal and 92 were to give their response on some issue.

41 out of the total tweets were political memes and the second highest numbers of posts or tweets were the opinion i.e. 112 and out of which 80 were political and 15 were to give response on some issue. As far as Facebook is concerned, the table 5.37 shows, statistically there was a significant difference in purpose of post and its nature. The findings also show that the highest number of posts was sharing some link, image or video i.e. 880, out of which 556 were political, 198 were personal and 92 were to give their response on some issue. There were 41 political memes on Facebook. The second highest numbers of posts or tweets were the opinion i.e. 112 and out of which 80 were political and 15 were to give response on some issue.

6.2.6.3. Purpose and Image building or distortion Statistically, there was a significant difference in image building or distortion and purpose of post and tweet (shown in table 5.38) self-promotion, party promotion, opponent attack, self-promotion plus attacks, all appears to be highest in political posts and tweets. The political actors prefer to attack their opponent while they are responding on some issue. While considering Facebook and Twitter separately, the findings in table

5.41 show that the highest number of posts was about self-promotion i.e. 520 out of which again maximum were political i.e. 316 and then personal 146. Second highest numbers of posts were for party promotion i.e. 244 which included 211 political posts,

215 posts were to attack opponents in which 105 were political and 102 were in response to some issue.

The findings in table 5.40 show that the highest number of tweets was about self- promotion i.e. 520 out of which maximum were political i.e. 240 and then personal 159.

The second highest number of tweets was for opponent attack i.e. 625 which included 342 political tweets. 339 tweets were for party promotion out of which 266 were political. Discussion and Analysis 168

From the above-mentioned findings, it is established that political actors use Facebook and Twitter perfectly for public relations and try to build their positive image among the masses by self-promotion and using appreciation for self in their language. To a great extent, they also get involved in attacking their opponents and criticising them, which is again another tactic on their behalf to use social media to fulfil their own purpose effectively, setting direction for their followers and generate public opinion in their favour.

6.3. SECTION III: AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT One of the basic objectives of this study was to analyse that how the political actors strategically use Facebook and Twitter to fulfil their purpose. Thus, it was important to see the level of audience engagement in order to investigate the type of posts or tweets which generated more comments, likes and shares and also to measure the behaviour of the audience as depicted in their comments, whether they were supportive or discouraging. It helped in investigating the reputation of the political actor among the masses. Thus, this part deals with the audience engagement including likes, shares and comments on Facebook posts and likes, replies and retweets on Twitter and the language of comments used by the audience in their comments.

6.3.1. Research Question 5 Do different reputation management strategies generate disproportionate audience engagement? The use of different purposes, language and image-building were considered as reputation management strategies in this study, so to get more accurate results this research question was further divided into sub research questions, discussion on which is as follows.

6.3.2. Research Question 5b

Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “purpose”? Discussion and Analysis 169

The difference in level of audience engagement across purpose of using Facebook was tested statistically and according to the findings shown in table 5.41. Statistically there was no significant difference but education has the highest mean rank which shows that education posts got the highest number of comments. There was also no significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across the different purpose categories but here also, education got the highest mean rank, which shows that people shared the education posts most. It can be observed from the findings that the respondents were more interested in education posts rather than political or any other type. This can also challenge the well-established fact that producers produce what consumers want; no such link is established here. The producers (political actors) were producing more political content which they wanted to share with the public irrespective of the fact that what the consumers (audience) want to read and share. As far as Facebook likes were concerned, the test showed that there was a significant difference in the level of Facebook likes across the different purpose categories. Here, call for action had the highest mean rank with little bit difference with education, meaning people liked more posts which were related to take some action.

As far as the difference of level of audience engagement across purpose of using

Twitter was concerned, table 5.45 show the results of the test that there was a significant difference in the level of likes on tweets across the different purpose categories; call for action received the highest rank i.e. 1065.45, second highest likes were on tweets having response on some issue with a mean rank of 958.96. While considering replies on twitter, test results showed that there was a significant difference in the level of Twitter replies across the different purpose categories; highest replies were on call for action tweets whereas the second highest mean rank was of tweets meant to gain response on some issue. As far as re-tweets were concerned, the results showed that there was a significant Discussion and Analysis 170 difference in the level of re-tweets across the different purpose categories, the highest number of retweets were of call for action tweets and the second highest tweets which were retweeted by the audience were response on some issue.

6.3.3. Research Question 5c Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “image building”? The results of difference in level of audience engagement across image building through Facebook, shown in table 5.42 revealed that there was a significant difference in the level of Facebook comment across the image building with the highest number of comments on posts for self-promotion plus opponent attack and the second highest comments were on self-promotion posts. There was also a significant difference in the level of Facebook shares across the image building, the posts which were shared the highest were related to self-promotion plus opponent attack and second highest number of shares were posts related to self-promotion. As far as the number of likes were concerned, there was a significant difference in the number of likes across image building through

Facebook, here, again the highest number of likes were of the posts containing self- promotion plus opponent attack and second highest number of likes was for the posts having self-promotion. It is thought-provoking to find here that in case of Facebook, the highest number of likes, shares and comments were on posts containing self-promotion plus opponent attack and the second highest were on self-promotion. It could be said that as the political actors were using Facebook to share about their political activities, so by communicating positive self and negative others, they are gaining more audience engagement on Facebook, hence their political purpose is fulfilled.

Now, while looking at the result of difference in level of audience engagement across image building through Twitter, the findings in table 5.45 show that there was a significant difference in the level of likes on Tweets across the image building, the highest number of likes were on the tweets related to party promotion and second highest Discussion and Analysis 171 likes were for self-promotion plus opponent attack. The highest mean rank goes to party promotion, explaining why the tweets promoting party got most likes. There was also a significant difference in the level of replies on Tweets across the image building, with the highest mean rank i.e. 895.64 for self-promotion + opponent attack, and interestingly the second highest replies were on tweets which were shared to attack the opponents. While talking about retweets across image building there was also a significant difference, and on Twitter also self-promotion plus opponent attack tweets were retweeted the most.

Thus, it could be stated that the political actors were generating same audience engagement on both platforms, content having both flavours i.e. positive self and negative others were appreciated by the audience. These findings are partially consistent with the previous studies which showed that politicians and political institutions predominantly employed Twitter for campaigning, self -promotion and to spread information.

6.3.4. Research Question 5d Does level of “audience engagement” differ across “language”? Table 5.43 shows the results of difference in level of audience engagement across language used in Facebook posts, there was a significant difference and highest number of comments were made by the audience on the posts having insulting language for others and then appreciation for self. Facebook posts, which were shared more by the audience, were also the posts containing abusive language and the most liked posts were also the ones that had insulting language for others. The second highest likes and shares were for the posts having content for self-promotion. These findings reinforce the observation that if the political actors would use insulting or humiliating language, they would be giving space to public to react in the same manner which would eventually affect the norms of the society.

The table 5.46 shows the difference in level of “audience engagement” across

“language” on Twitter. According to the results, there was a significant difference in the Discussion and Analysis 172 level of likes across the different language categories with highest number of likes for tweets which were shared to appreciate others, highest number of replies were on the tweets which were threatening which is completely different from Facebook and highest number of retweets were also of threatening tweets. This attitude of audience on Twitter is absolutely different from Facebook where the audience was sharing and liking posts, which had insulting language. This also shows the difference in the behaviour of the audience of two different social media platforms.

6.3.5. Research Question 6 Is the behaviour of public supportive or discouraging for the political actors in Facebook posts or tweets? Table 5.47 shows the results of language used in the comments on Facebook posts and Tweets of the political actors, according to the overall findings, 50.6 % comments were supportive, and 40.9 % were discouraging for the political actors whereas 8.4 % were abusive. This means that overall the political actors were managing their repute well on Facebook and Twitter as they were getting more supportive comments.

While looking at the results of Facebook separately as mentioned in the table 5.48, it was found that 65.4 % comments were supportive, and 29.5 % were discouraging for the political actors whereas 5.1% had abusive language. It can be concluded here that the political actors preferred to use Facebook over Twitter, they use it to inform audience more about their political activities and engagements and they are getting more supportive comments on Facebook; meaning strategically their decision to prefer and depend on

Facebook was right.

The table 5.46 shows the results of language used in the comments on Tweets shared by the political actors, according to the findings, 28.8 % comments were supportive, and 57.8 % were discouraging for the political actors whereas 13.4 % were abusive. These results were completely opposite to that of Facebook mentioned before, Discussion and Analysis 173 the political actors were getting more discouraging comments on Twitter which means their presence and content were not appreciated by the audience of Twitter. The number of abusive comments was also more on Twitter as compared to Facebook. Therefore, it could be concluded that though the political actors were communicating with the audience but they had completely ignored the fact that whether they were cultivating positive relationship or negative and also their reputation was not managed well.

Thus, they need to rethink about their strategy of using Twitter because, globally

Twitter is considered to be a more authentic way of political communication with the audience and early assessment found that politicians are primarily using Twitter as a vehicle for self-promotion (Enli & Skogerbo, 2013; Golbeck et al, 2010) information dissemination (Saebo, 2011; Smal 2011) negative campaigning (Thimm 2012), party mobilization (Dang-Xuan 2013) and impression management (Jackson & Lilleker, 2011).

The political actors should reconsider the fact that the audience are no more passive, they are active.

6.4. SECTION IV: CORELATION BETWEEN SURVEY AND CONTENT ANALYSIS

6.4.1. Research Question 7 Is there any co-relation between purposes posted in social media with the perceived purpose stated by the political actors?

This study was not only focused on investigating the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter by the political actors of Pakistan but also taken into consideration that whether there was any consistency between the purpose stated in the questionnaire by the political actors and the content they were posting and tweeting. To fulfil this objective, the survey results of the MNAs whose Facebook pages and Twitter accounts were selected for content analysis, were analysed separately.

More respondents of National Assembly i.e. 44.8 % were from PML (N), which was the ruling party at the time of data collection, and at second place were the Discussion and Analysis 174 respondents from PTI i.e. 27.6 %. In the study, the huge difference in Facebook and

Twitter usage was found out as shown in the table 59.5%. Political actors preferred

Facebook and only 17.0% said that they preferred Twitter over Facebook. It was also interesting to know that 75% political actors used Twitter for political activities and none of them were using it to give their response on any issue, 10.7 % respondents were using it to educate the audience, 7.1% were using it for personal activity, and 7.1% were using it for call for action. Whereas, according to the data analysis of Facebook most of the political actors i.e. 57.7% were using social media to inform the audience about their political activity, at second number i.e. 19.2% respondents were using it for personal purposes, 11.5% were using to educate the audience, 7.7% were using it for call for action and no one claimed that they were using it to give response on any issue. These results also strengthen the idea presented in the previous studies that political actors were using social media for direct political communication with the public.

To investigate the purpose of sharing content on Facebook and Twitter, the content analysis of Facebook pages and Twitter handles of MNAs was also conducted.

They posted 1313 posts on Facebook and 1930 tweets that made a total of 3243 in one month and they all were included in the analysis. Though the survey and content analysis both revealed that the first and foremost purpose of political actors of using Facebook and

Twitter was to fulfil political purpose and apparently there was a consistency between the both. But to check it statistically, co-relation test was applied and according to the result, no correlation was found between the purpose of using Facebook and Twitter as stated by political actors in the survey and the purpose analysed through the content they were posting on Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, it could be concluded that the political actors need to work more on their strategy to fulfil their own purposes and it could also be Discussion and Analysis 175 inferred that there was a difference between thought process of political actors and their practice.

6.5. Qualitative Discussion on Posts and Tweets In this section, the posts and tweets of the political actors would be analysed qualitatively to strengthen the quantitative analysis. It would be an attempt to explore the hidden meanings of posts and tweets, the political actors are trying to convey through social media. In this section, the original names of the political actors have been altered to ensure confidentiality.

6.5.1. Personal Posts Following are the posts shared by the political actors of Pakistan, containing personal information for the audience. These personal posts contain more of promotional content and appreciation of self. It may be seen from these posts that even these are personal posts but still they have some hidden meanings which supports their political agenda. Discussion and Analysis 176

Post 1 Translation: Friends I am left behind in the race, in terms of corruption. I have left my kids, I couldn’t give them enough time and happiness but I'm satisfied that I did this for Pakistan

Post 2

Post 4 Translation: Even at the climax of war, if there is a time of prayer, the nation would turn the face towards Allah's house and will go in prostration

Post 3

Discussion and Analysis 177

Posts 1, 2, 3 and 4 are few examples of personal posts from the Facebook pages and twitter accounts of political actors, shared by different political actors’ accounts. In Post 1 the political actor says “Haan, doston mei bohat peechey reh gaya, Haan maal na kama saka, haan mei apney bachoon sey door hoon, un ko ziada khushian aur waqt na dey saka per mutmaeen hoon k Pakistan k liye waqf hoon”, translation: “friends I am behind in the race, in terms of corruption, I have left my kids, I couldn’t give them enough time and happiness but im satisfied that I did this for my country Pakistan”. This is a personal post and depicts self-promotion and appreciation, the political actor is trying to communicate to the audience that he has nothing in his hand and is struggling for Pakistan, hence promoting himself. In the Post 2, the same political actor, (Ahmed Muhammad) is seen with his child, both these posts (Post 1 and 2) are personal pictures but it could be inferred that it contains self-appreciation and through this they are trying to cultivate relationship with their audience, they also give an impression of closeness with the audience and conveying their soft image by posting family pictures. In Post 4, again Ahmed Muhammad could be seen

praying which is a religious pracitce and in

our culture the one who prays and performs

religious activites is considered pious,

honest and trustworthy among the masses.

So it is could be said that he is portraying

himself as a religious person and playing

Post 5 Translation: I consider myself a student and follower of Iqbal (the national poet) and Quaid-e- with the religious sentiment of the masses to Azam is my role model

build his positive image and also to cater right wing as he belongs to PTI which is commonly considered as the party of liberals.

In Post 5, the political actor has given a caption praising himself on his own video shared by him, In this post his language is self-appreciating and he is trying to show that Discussion and Analysis 178 he is a follower of our national poet and founder of Pakistan. It seems that he is giving an impression that whatever he is doing is for the better future of this country.

Post 6 Post 7

Post 8 the content of the post is a verse from a poem Post 9

The above posts are also examples of posts to promote personal agenda, for instance in the Post 6, the political actor, Hassan Iqbal, shared a verse of Iqbal (national poet of Pakistan) to pay tribute to the poet on Iqbal day, interestingly, in the caption he is trying to motivate his audience by saying that they should work hard enough to make

Pakistan stand with the four most economically developed countries of Pakistan known as

Asian Tigers. He is taking this opportunity to express his party’s and his own vision as a then Minister for Planning and Development by quoting Iqbal’s verse. Post 7 is a saying Discussion and Analysis 179 of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W), Post 8 is a verse from a poem, and similarly, Post 9 is again a quote by Dante Alighieri. Though, these are the personal posts with no direct political content, however, the messages they are sharing could be linked with their political agendas. Like Post 9 may have some message between the lines as the political actor, Saad Umer, belongs to PTI and according to them this party has been trying to bring a revolution for over a decade now, so this post in which he is trying to convey a message that people must stand up and raise their voices against ill doings could be considered with some hidden message supporting PTI’s political agendas.

After observing and analysing the personal posts of political actors, it could be concluded that though they are sharing their personal activities on Facebook and Twitter but actually they might be communicating their political objectives concealed in verses and poetry etc. While sharing their personal content they are also trying to cultivate their relationship with the audience and trying to manage their repute as well. This factor abides by the previous studies revealing that the politicians commonly tweet about personal content and give insight to their daily lives (Jackson and Lilleker, 2011; Sæbø,

2011), while this is usually classified as broadcasting, but it could be an attempt to bridge the divide between political elites and voters, even if this nearness is a technologically mediated hallucination (Coleman and Moss, 2008).

6.5.2. Political Posts Following are some of the examples of political posts and tweets shared by the political actors. In these political posts, variables like language, content and image buidling have been analysed in detail. Discussion and Analysis 180

Post 10 Masood Saeed is sleeping with his workers on Post 11 the roadside

The above two posts (Post 10 & 11) are finest examples of political posts with self-appreciating language to gain public attention and acceptance. In Post 10, the political actor is sleeping in open air with the party workers on roadisde, this post can be inferred as the political actor, Masood Saeed, is portraying himself a humble person who is more like a worker than a leader. Another important argument to be pondered upon is that Masood Saeed belongs to PTI and his party leader has been seen sleeping and eating with his party’s workers publically to gain publicity. Perhaps Masood Saeed is also trying to influence the audience by following his Party’s Leader’s footsteps. In Post 11 official

Facebook page of Kamal Khan is claiming that they have 7 million followers, it contains self promoting language and also the attack on opponent by calling the opposition as cruel and unjust in the caption. It could be stated that by posting such type of content they are trying to convince the audience that they are one of them. Hence, they are using social media strategically to influence the audience and their foremost purpose is again to accomplish their own political objectives. Discussion and Analysis 181

Post 13 Translation: Khan's fault is that he has changed the Pharaoh of time

Post 12

Post 14 Post 15 Translation: there is a Moses for every Pharaoh, for this Pharaoh also Moses is born and this is Imran Khan

Post 16

Posts 12,13,14,15 & 16 are the examples of political posts in which the political actors are appreciating others, in post 12 the political actor, Saad Umar, is appreciating the Chairman of UC council. In post 15, Ahmed Muhammad, is appreciating his own Discussion and Analysis 182 party leader considering him Moses, in Post 13, Ahmed Muhammad again sharing the same message with different words, calling his leader, Kamal Khan, Moses, in a way he is comparing Kamal Khan with one of the Prophets of Islam and relating it to how Moses defeated Pharoah at that time and now Imran Khan would play the role of Moses and defeat the Pharoah of this time . In all of the above posts, though the political actors are appreciating someone else but that person belongs to their own party, so basically this is another attempt to promote their own party and to prove their political affiliation justified.

In the Post 14, the political leader, Kamal Khan, is congratulating his own party member and crediting him for exposing the corrupt and flawed electoral system of Pakistan. It could be observed that in all of the above posts the political actors are posting content and statements from their own perspective and showing one side of picture, the side that favours them, this is an excellent example of how the political actors are now behaving like public relations expert themselves, telling the story of their own side to manage their reputation. In post 14, Imran Khan is praising Umer Dar for his efforts to expose the corrupt and flawed electoral system, proving his affiliant as a conquerer. In Post 16, CM

KPK is being portrayed as “Man of Steel” showing him as a person who could face every kind of hurdle and could stand firmly whatever the circumstances may be.

Post 17

Post 17 is also a political post by Ahmed Muhammad to congratulate his party supported advocate and exaggerating his victory by calling it “glorious”. He is also Discussion and Analysis 183 criticising the defeat of opponent group i.e. Asma Jehangir which was backed by PML

(N) and PPP.

Post 19 Translation: For the first time in Pakistan's Post 18 history, Prime Minister would be behind the bars.

The above mentioned posts (Post 18 & 19) are the political posts + attacking the opponenets while using critical language. In post 18, Hassan Iqbal, is criticising the opposition leader by saying that someone who is preaching the entire nation about Law, doesn't respect for Law when it comes to his own self. In post 19, Masood Saeed, is criticising the then Prime Minister that for the first time in the histroy, any prime minister would be behind the bars.

Post 20 Post 21 Discussion and Analysis 184

Post 22 Translation: Because of Imran Khan, this nation get to see Nawaz Sharif otherwise Post 23 Translation: Bilawal's uncles should use their where Mughal-e-Azam and where poor kingdom experience on improving the condition of Sindh rather than using it on making Bilawal a leader forcefully

Post 24 Post 25 Translation: Should I go straight or take a U-Turn, Ejaz Chaudhry asked Party Leadership

Post 26 translations: Tsunami has refused to come, Niazi Sb, you must have understood. Imran Khan asked 1 million people to go back, 475 went home and other log-off Post 27 translations: Sheikh Rasheed is waiting for Imran Khan on Committee Chowk

In posts 20, 21, 22 and 23, the political actors have used sarcastic language to

attack their oppoenents. In post 20, the political actor, Saeed Abidi, is making fun of the

leader of the other party in reference to his previous controversy regarding his marriage.

In post 21, Fiaz Saleem Ali, is also taunting by posting a picture of around 50 people of

his opponent, Ayaz Chaudhry, and sarcastingly saying that Ayaz is bring 50,0,00 people Discussion and Analysis 185 from Lahore with a laughing emoticon at the end. Post 22 is also an example of self promotion and attck on the opponent in sarcastic tone. In all these posts, the political actors are putting political content to criticise their opponents just to fulfil their political agenda, they are working on positive self promotion and negative others to generate more social capital for themselves.

Interestingly, Post 21 and 25 are the same but they have been shared with the different captions by the same politician just to taunt and make fun of the opponent, this also shows the aptitude of political actors to use the same content in different manners just like any public relations expert.

In post 24, Fiaz Saleem Ali is making fun of PTI by saying that Tsunami (of people) has refused to come, Niazi Sb (Kamal Khan), you must have understood. Kamal Khan asked 1 million people to go back, 475 went home and other logged-off. He is basically criticisng the extensive use of social media by the followers of PTI which is said to be the party of social media. Post 27 is an image of donkey shared by Fiaz Saleem Ali with a caption that “Mujahid Rasheed is waiting for Imran Khan on Committee Chowk” this type of post is quite insulting. This proves that the politcal leaders can go to any extent just to prove themselves right and the other person wrong. They don’t even hesitate to share derogatory remarks.

Post 28 Translations: Seems like Saad Rafique has not learnt any lesson from the end of people who counted Post 29 Translation: Imran Khan is just like a keeps chairs

Discussion and Analysis 186

Post 28 and 29 are also politcal in nature and the political actors are using humor to criticise their opponents, may be they are making an effort to entertain the audience. Being the opinion leaders in Pakistani society, the use of insulting words by the poltical actors, is highly objectionable. Unfortunately use of such language is a common practice by the political actors on Facebook and Twitter which is promoting bad norms in the society. It has been observed that when the political actors use insulting language they give space to the audience and encourage them to respond in the same and sometimes even worst tone and language.

Post 30 Post 31 Post 30 is also political in nature but has an intimidating language, the political actor is threatening that if the government will not listen to their demand, they will go to the

Supreme Court. Post 31 is also a political post depicting mishandling of a politician who is a leader of PTI and grand son of Allama Iqbal who is our national port. It is apparent from the post that he was caught by police but its caption makes it stimulating. It is obvious that he is being caught during some protest but Ahmed Muhamad Khan, has given is a twist by saying we are sorry that Allam Iqbal’s grand son is treated like this in today’s Pakistan. He is trying to give emotional touch to gain sympathies of the audiecne and to present themselves as innocent and victim. Discussion and Analysis 187

6.5.3. Response on Some Issue Following posts and tweets are the examples of response on some issue, in these posts also the political actors have used different types of langauge to build the image of positive self and negative others

In post 32, the political actor, Fiaz Saleem Ali, is responding on the tweet of another politician in a sarcastic and taunting language and in post 33, Saeed Abidi, the political actor is making fun and asking a question that if shutting down the cities is democratic right then why MQM was abused for shuting down Karachi, basically it was his response to the threat to shut down Lahore by PTI in those days.

Post 32 Translation: Change is not here, in fact change came and already gone Post 33 Translation: Reply....if shutting down the cities is democratic right then why keep kept on abusing MQM on shutting down Karachi

Post 34 Post35

Discussion and Analysis 188

Post 34 is a response on an issue but in sarcastic tone, as Saeed Abidi is calling

Nehal Hashmi (another political leader from opposition party PML N) as ‘Naunehal’

Hashmi (‘Naunehal’ means infant). Again, the political actor is making a sarcastic remark by calling him an infant. Post 35 also contains the reaction or response of Fiaz Saleem

Ali, he is expressing his opinion by saying that Kamal Khan was roaming around (means

Kamal Khan was relaxing) in Bani Gala while the workers were on the roads facing the ferocity.

Post 36

In post 36, Kamal Khan is giving his response that since Punjab Police was using tear gas, he asked the CM KPK to go back and come back with more strength. In a way he is again criticizing the Punjab Police and intimidating them by suggesting the CM to come should come again but with more force. He is also framing the issue in his favour by saying given brutal use of tear gas by Punjab police, trying to establish that his party people are innocent and the Police is victimising them.

Post 37 Post 38 Translation: There is some shame, some

grace, but Imran Khan don't have both

In post 37, Saeed Abidi is giving his response on the imprisonment of his colleague Faisal Abidi and calling it disgusting and badly timed. Again in post 38, Fiaz

Saleem Ali is calling his opppoent Kamal Khan shameless, the use of language is highly dreogratory and demeaning. Discussion and Analysis 189

Post 39 Post 40

Post 39 shows a criticism by Kamal Khan on job description of Attorney General and asking that why he is representing Sharif family, he is government employee and his job is not to defend Nawaz Sharif and family. In Post 40, Kamal Khan, is making a derogratery remark by challenging the ethics of Sharifs by saying that they teach corruption to their kids while responding to Hamza Shehbaz’s statement.

Post 41 Post 42

Post 43 Post 44

Posts 41, 42, 43 and 44 showing responses to different issues, it is worth mentioning here that in most of the cases, the political leaders use sarcastic or critical tone for their opponenets while giving response on any issue. For instance in post 41, Saeed Abidi is talking about panama leaks which was the main issue but he undermines and diverts attention by suggesting that Panama cases would not bring any good to the country but Discussion and Analysis 190 reforms, transperancy and strict implementation of law would. He, while talking about

Panama, is criticizing the government and suggesting that prosperity of country lies in the change in system. Similarly in post 43, Masood Saeed is respomdimg on train accident by criticising the railway system and the govenrnment.

It would not be incorrect to infer that opposition takes full advantage of social media to criticize all actions of the sitting government, social media especially Facebook and

Twitter have become a very effective platform for political actors to communicate their responses to the masses. It could also be concluded that it’s a part of strategy of political actors to keep on criticising the government and opponents to make their own perspective common and show “their reality” to the audiecnce through their “lens”. This is how they are cultivatung the relationship with the audiececn and making every effort to manage their reppute as saviour of the nation.

6.5.4. Educate Others The political actors were also using social media to educate the audience, though the number of the political actors using it for educational purposes was really low. And even when they were trying ot give some factual information ot the audience they were basically promoting themselves and to present their softer and positive image who is working for development day and night. This point is much clear in the posts mentioned in this section and can also strentgthen the quantitative analysis. Discussion and Analysis 191

Post 45 Translation: Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb meeting Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq in Parliment House. Speaker National Assembly congratulated Maryam Aurengzeb on becoming Information

Post 46

Post 45 and 46 are examples of political actors sharing the development projects and

other activities with the audience which are not political but meant to inform the public abour

happenings and events. For instance in Post 45 and 46, Sardar Ayaz Sadiq is sharing about two

different executive committee meetings, in one post he is congratulating another political actor on

becoming the Information Minister and in the other one he is informing the audience the issue

discussed in the meeting i.e. about Kashmir Atrocities.

Post 47 Post 48

Post 47 and 48 are also the posts shared to inform the audience about certaing activies

which are not directly political but to educate the public about current happenings. In post 47

Hassan Iqbal talks about attending a seminar on ‘A world of tomorrow’ at a local school in Discussion and Analysis 192

Lahore. In post 48, writing about his visit to Narowal jail where they have imporved the faciluty.

Though apparently this is a post to inform the audience about development in Narowal but as

Narowal is Ahsan Iqbal’s own constituency so basically he is trying to inform that he has made these advancements in his own constituency. So we can say that they do inform and educate the audience but again to fulfil their own objectives which could be political. By showing positive side they are managing their reputation among the public that they are progressive people, so people would trust them.

Post 49 Post 50

Post 51 Post 52

Post 49, 50, 51 and 52 are also the posts, which are shared to educate the audience about different happenings, and development projects that are going on or are being initiated. One factor which is worth discussing here is that though these are educational posts for the awareness of the Discussion and Analysis 193 public but almost all of them include self-appreciation of the good work these political actors are doing, For instance, in post 51 the political actor, Hassan Iqbal, is educating the people about the vision of his ministry and telling the future agenda, as he was the Minister for Planning and development. He has also stated facts and figures to support his argument. It could be established that political actors are not just consuming social media for political pufferies or activities but also to educating the audience to cultivate the relationship with the audience and they are also managing their reputation by showing positive work they are doing for the country.

Post 53 Post 54

Post 55 Discussion and Analysis 194

Post 53, 54 and 55 also evidently indicate that political actors are using Social media for the purpose of providing information and educating their audiences.

6.5.5. Call for Action

The political actors were using social media to motivate their audience to fulfil their political objectives. Facebook and Twitter are considered ideal carrier to pursue the audience for some protest, rally, fundraising and some movement.

Post 56 translations: Let’s go to Wadiya House, we have come out to save the country, lets go with us

Post 57

Post 58 Discussion and Analysis 195

Post 56, 57 and 58 are the examples of call for action, in post 56, the appeal is made to gather at Wadodiya hall, post 57 is to motivate the public to gather to celebrate our victory against the corruption. It is important to note the use of word, “our” which is making him a part of the audience so he is making full use of participatory approach. In post 58 Ahmed Muhammad is holding a banner to convince the audience to join his campaign.

Apart from these purposes being depicted in the content shared by the politicians, there are certain other note-worthy observations like political actors are also using Facebook and Twitter to frame the issues to attain their own goals which is obvious in the following posts.

Post 60 Translation: Shah Mehmood has proven Post 59 Shah Mehmood refused to shake hand loyal follower of Imran Khan himself with Khawaja Saad Rafique First release our workers from Jail

Discussion and Analysis 196

Post 61 Translation: Who was embarrassed on not shaking hand, see video?

Post 59, 60 and 61 depicts the same incident shared by two different political actors with their own angles and frame. Shah Makhdoom Qureshi (PTI) and Khawaja

Asad Rafique (PML N), are opponents, they appeared in a TV show where Asad Rafique extended his hand and Shah Makhdoom Qureshi refused to shake hand with him. Shah

Mehmood shared the video with a caption that he refused to shake hand cause he wanted the government to release his workers from Jail and Khawaja Asad Rafique shared the same video with a caption stating that Shah Makhdoom Qureshi refused to shake hand with him, so proved himself a true follower of Imran Khan and then in next post (post 61)

Khawaja Asad Rafique is trying to establish who was right and who was wrong, it contains a pamphlet with highly abusive content against Imran Khan, calling him Jewish agent, follower of Satan and much more. This is a classic example of how political actors are framing the issues to fulfil their political agenda; they are manoeuvring and manipulating the situation, which could be a political stunt to attract their followers. The kind of language used by the political leader gives liberty to the audience to abuse and curse openly on public forums. This example proves that the political actors want the public to see the issues from their perspective and generally their perspective is one-sided and conceals fact in order to make it in their favour. Discussion and Analysis 197

Furthermore, while analysing the posts it was also observed that the political actors belonging to PTI shared the posts which were to support Army and the other institutions and also attacking their opponent in this context as shown in post 62, in which

Masood Saeed is saying that Nawaz Sharif is trying to weaken Pakistan army and

Pakistan. In another post (post 63) Imran Khan is blaming PML N for destroying the institutions, weakening the development process and trying to prove that the ruling party is against army and other institutions.

Post 62 Translation: To bring bad name to Pakistan army and weaken Pakistan are Nawaz Sharif's two main objectives Post 62 Post 63 Therefore, it can be stated that majority of the political actors are using Facebook and Twitter for different purposes i.e. to inform about political activity, personal activity, to educate the audience, to give response on some issue and to call audience for some action. It could be inferred that whatever their purpose is, they are using Facebook and

Twitter strategically to cultivate their relationship with the audience and to manage their reputation. Though most of the political actors are portraying themselves as true builder of nation and liberator but at the same time they are also suing Facebook and Twitter as propaganda tool. They are busy in attacking the opponents and promoting their negative image which is very much a part of political game but when they humiliate the others and use abusive language it also damages the morals of the society which ultimately brings destruction, this is obvious in the below mentioned comments which shows the behaviour Discussion and Analysis 198 of the audience and also to what extent political actors are successful in managing their reputation with all their efforts.

6.5.6. Audience Feedback In this section, the examples of the comments posted by the public would be discussed to show the discouraging, supportive and abusive behaviour of the audience.

6.5.6.1. Discouraging Comments by Audience Following are the comments showing the discouraging behaviour towards the posts of the political actors on social media, the discouraging comments clearly show that how incredible the political actors are for the audience. The comments “hand made graph” shows that the person who has made is not trusting the graphic political actor has shown in his post. Discussion and Analysis 199

6.5.6.2. Supporting Comments by Audience Discussion and Analysis 200

Following are the few comments showing the supporting behaviour towards the posts of the political actors on social media. In these comments the supportive behaviour of the audience show that how credible the political actor is for them.

6.5.6.3. Abusive Comments by Audience Following are the comments showing the abusive behaviour towards the posts of the political actors on social media. The audience have used some really derogatory and insulting words in these posts, which could not be translated in English.

Discussion and Analysis 201

These comments show the intolerant behaviour of our public, which could be addressed, if our political actors focus on character building of society as they claim rather than only concentrating on their own image building and distorting the image of others.

They might feel the responsibility being the opinion leader and legislators, only in that way they could use the technology to develop the society and fortify the democratic values.

At the end, in post 64, Hassan Iqbal is meeting CM KPK to address the issues regarding CPEC, both of them from opponent parties but they are sitting together to talk on certain issue which is a very positive gesture, instead of attacking each other, using humiliating and insulting language the power of negotiation should be shown to the public so that the public could also learn to tolerate each other’s opinion and spread positivity and all the political parties work together to strengthen democracy in Pakistan.

Post 64 Discussion and Analysis 202

To conclude the whole discussion, it could be indicated that social media is a public sphere where people can exchange ideas and challenges others opinion but that needs to be done in a positive manner and with respect. Unfortunately, the prevailing situation is quite opposite. In Pakistan where democracy is still in transition, social media is being used as propaganda tool, people, even our political actors who are also the opinion leaders and legislators, are using it more to defame others, criticise others and attack on their opponents as shown in quantitative results. This kind of behaviour of political actors may give generate more audience engagement for them as it is said that the boring (not so active) candidates received little to no coverage, no matter what they discuss, but this could be a short term strategy, it may not work in longer term and can affect their relationship with their voters. The political actors may lose their credibility eventually.

A common observation about the traditional media is that bad news is a news and good news is no news, and similar trend can be seen on social media, also. Additionally, it is said that media feeds off negativity and according to the findings of this study, the tweets that got most of the replies and retweets were related to self-promotion and attacks on the opponents. This can be explained with the example of U.S. Presidential election Campaign of 2016, Trump jested the controversial issues like “build a wall” and “eradicate Obamacare” as he was aware that it would stir up his fundamental followers and would also get him majority of the coverage from the traditional media.

And this is exactly what happened, the traditional media and social media talked about

Donald Trump most of the time.

Besides, in a struggle to prove themselves (political actors) right and others wrong, they completely overlook the basic social norms and values. Social media has provided freedom of expression, the political actors control information on social media Discussion and Analysis 203 and citizens are consuming that information and disseminating it further. Moreover, social media provides new opportunities for politicians such as personalized communication and also the commodification of self, political actors shape and dictate the content, they create their own identity, cultivate their relationship with their audience and manage their reputation on their own without depending on any public relation expert. They could generate more social capital by creating bonds, bridges and linkages with the people because higher social capital leads to greater political participation which would ultimately leads to stable democratic society. The whole society can be transformed if social media is used in constructive manner for the better society but negativity being spread through social media against anyone could decline democracy, which would bring destruction in the society.

On the basis of the above-mentioned quantitative results of this study, it could be established that though the political actors are using social media to communicate with the audience to achieve their political agendas but they are ignoring the quality of relationship they are cultivating with the audience and reputation they have established among the masses. Hence, the political actors should rethink on these lines, they could strengthen democracy with the use of technology for better Pakistan as “internet presents us with an opportunity to support the highest goals of democracy” (Berman & Weitzner,

1997, pg.8).

Conclusion 204

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

Social Media has become an essential element of public discourse and communication in today’s society; it gives an entirely new perspective of how people engage and communicate with each other. The extensive adoption of social media is perplexing the way traditional media have been used to circulate news and to discuss top social and political issues. Social networking site (Facebook) and micro-blogging services (Twitter) have the capacity to positively influence the political participation.

Twitter and in some cases Facebook, are considered to be the best carrier of self- promotion, thus giving politicians the ability to inform the audience about their political activities immediately, therefore, involving themselves in political public relations. They can use social media strategically to persuade people to act in the way they want.

Social media is now extensively used by the political parties and political actors of Pakistan to reach their political units and voters. It was observed that the political actors in Pakistan are using Twitter and Facebook to attain their objectives and to build their relationship with the audience but there is hardly any study regarding the purpose and usefulness of their strategic communication with the public. Therefore, this study was intended to analyze how the political actors of Pakistan perceived the purpose of using social media specifically Facebook and Twitter, it was also explored whether there was any consistency between the perceived purpose stated by the political actors in the survey and the purpose depicted in the content shared by them through their posts and tweets.

This study also focused on analyzing the quality of relationship being cultivated by the

Conclusion 205 political actors with the audience, how they were managing their reputation and generating more audience engagement through social media. This becomes even more important for a society like Pakistan where democracy is still in a transition phase as some scholars suggest that the strategic use of social media may “revitalize democratic society” (Winner, 2003, p. 167). This study was conducted among the MNAs and MPAs of Pakistan, the survey questionnaire was filled by 247 MNAs and MPAs of Pakistan. In addition to this content analysis of Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of 34 MNAs was also conducted to examine what they were posting on Twitter and Facebook.

Furthermore, the language of 10372 comments on the posts and tweets of the MNAs were also analysed.

The theoretical foundation of this study is knit around Strategic Political

Communication and Political Public Relations through social media, where the political actors are producers, posts and tweets are messages and voters are the consumers. In this research, the main focus was on establishing a relationship between the producers, message and consumers as Facebook and Twitter are considered to be more direct means of two-way communication. Political Public Relations focus on reputation cultivation and controlled candidate communication in the political process. The theoretical framework used in this study was strategic political communication, political public relations and the broader view of political engagement offered in political public relations incorporates not only a Reputation Management framework (short term) but also a Relationship

Cultivation framework (long term) for strategic political communication.

It may be concluded with the help of findings that most of the political actors used

Facebook and Twitter to share the political information with their audience rather than

Conclusion 206 personal information which means that they are using social media for their own political agenda. Most of the political actors preferred Facebook and they shared their information first on Facebook rather than Twitter. As far as relationship cultivation strategy is concerned, the political actors were satisfied as they believed that Facebook and Twitter were fulfilling their purpose that is why they were relying on these platforms to connect with their audience. And statistically, there was no significant difference in level of fulfilment and their purpose of activity on Facebook and Twitter. They do verify the news but the percentage was not very high which means that verification of news or information was not much essential for them or they overlooked it intentionally. And the political actors who were using Facebook and Twitter for political purpose were lowest in number when verification across different purposes was tested, which means the “trust” factor may be affected. Another variable of quality of relationship cultivation strategy i.e. responsiveness was also measured through the survey and it was inferred that the political actors were not much responsive while using social media, which could affect the quality of their relationship with the audience.

The content analysis of Facebook posts and Tweets was conducted to examine the purpose of posting content on Facebook and Twitter and to investigate the strategy applied by the political actors to build their image and manage their reputation on

Facebook and Twitter. It was explored that the political actors were using Facebook and

Twitter mostly to share information about their political activities, it is worth mentioning here that though the purpose stated in the survey by the political actors was that they were using it to disseminate information about their political activities and it was also reflected in the results of the content analysis of their posts and tweets but when it was checked

Conclusion 207 statistically by applying correlation, no significant relationship was found between the purpose perceived in the survey and depicted in the content. As observed, it was also revealed in the survey that most of the political actors were using social media for positive self- image and negative image of others.

As far as the audience engagement was concerned, it could be concluded that purpose of post or tweet, its language and image building strategy were different according to different purposes. There was also a difference in audience engagement across different purposes, language and image building. It was also revealed that the behavior of the audience was more discouraging on Twitter as compared to Facebook and people used more abusive language on Twitter.

Therefore, with the help of findings it is further concluded that the political actors were using social media specifically Facebook and Twitter to promote their political activities but their relationship cultivation strategy may not be very so effective. They could make it more effective and useful by inculcating the variables of relationship cultivation strategy, building trust relationship with the audience through verification and if they want to have good relationship with the audience, they should respond to issues and clarify their position whenever needed to get maximum benefit of interactive nature of social media. They were also trying to manage their repute among the audience but they seemed to be more successful on Facebook as compared to Twitter, they face more discouraging behavior from the audience on Twitter.

208

FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS

This study suggests some suggestions for future research in the discipline of social media and political communication that are as following:

1. Relationship cultivation strategy can be analyzed from the perspective of audience

in the genre of social media and political communication.

2. Survey of the audience can also be done to match with the survey of political

leaders in Pakistan for effective political communication through social media.

3. The entire study related to MNA’s of Pakistan can be compared with other

countries to know the effectiveness of strategic political communication through

social media.

4. Effectiveness of the usage of social media for political public relations can also be

investigated in pre and post-election time period in Pakistan.

5. This study can be applied to other political actors and party workers rather than

MNAs and MPAs. 209

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APPENDICES

Appendix A Questionnaire

Questionnaire for Members of National Assembly Name: ______Age:______

Political Party: ______Face book ID: ______Twitter Handle: ______1. How long have you been using Facebook?

2. How long have you been using Twitter?

3. Who operates your twitter account?  Yourself  Any relative  Personal media team  Any assistant  Any other------4. Who operates your Facebook account?  Yourself  Any relative  Personal media team  Any assistant  Any other------

5. Which platform you prefer personally to communicate with Public?  Facebook  Twitter 6. In your opinion, your target audience falls under which age group?  18-24  25-35  35-45  34-60  Above 50

7. What is your purpose of using Twitter? (mark anyone)  To inform about some personal activity  To inform about official/political activity  To educate the audience  To motivate the audience / call for action  To give your response on any issue  Any other ------

8. Do you think that the use of Twitter fulfills your purpose?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

9. What is your purpose of using Facebook? (mark anyone)  To inform about some personal activity  To inform about official/political activity  To educate the audience  To motivate the audience / call for action  To give your response on any issue  Any other ------

10. Do you think that the use of Facebook fulfills your purpose?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

11. Do you verify the news or information before posting it on Facebook?  Every time  Most of the Time  Some time  Rarely  Never

12. Do you verify the news or information before tweeting it through twitter?  Every time  Most of the Time  Some time  Rarely  Never

13. When you come to know about any information/news, do you immediately post that information/news on Facebbok and twitter?  Every time  Most of the time  Some time  Rarely  Never

14. How often do you respond to someone’s post or tweet, about you or your political party?  Every time  Most of the time  Some time  Rarely  Never

15. Where you share the news/information first?  Facebook  Twitter

16. Do you think social media is a better way to communicate with your audience as compared to mainstream media?

 Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

17. Do you believe in news/information disseminated through Facebook?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

18. Do you believe in news/information disseminated through twitter?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

19. Do you believe in news/information disseminated through twitter more as compared to Facebook?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

20. Do you think twitter is authentic and credible mean of communication as compared to Facebook?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree 21. Do you think use of Facebook and twitter has increased your popularity among the masses?  Strongly Agree  Agree  Neutral  Disagree  Strongly Disagree

Appendix B Assembly wise List of Political Actors Filled Questionnaire

National Assembly Ahsan Iqbal Ali Muhammad Khan Aqibullaha Khan Asad Umer Awais Leghari Ch Abid Raza Col (R) Ameer Ullah Marwat Dr Arif Alvi Ghulam Bilur Hamza sharif Jamshed Ahmed Dasti Jehangir Khan Tareen Justice Iftikhar Ahmed Cheema Khawaja Asif Khursheed Shah Maiza Hameed Malik AAmir Dogar Marriyum Aurangzeb Mujahid Ali Khan Murad Saeed Naeema Kishwar Rajab Ali Baloch Rasheed Ahmed Godale Saad rafique Salman Khan Baloch Sardar Ayaz Sadiq Sassui Palejo Shafqat mehmood Shahida Rehmani Shehryar Afridi Shehzada Iftikhar Uddin Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed Syed Ali Raza Abidi Syed Imran Ahmed Shah Syed Javed ALi shah Talal Ch Waheed Alam Khan Punjab Assembly Abdul Majeed Khan Abdul Majeed Khan Niazi Adnan Farid Ahsan Riaz Fatiana Akmal Saif Chattha Ali Abbas Ali Salman Ameer Muhammad Khan Begum Haseena Naz Begum Zakia Shahnawaz Bushra Butt Ch Akhtar Ali Khan Ch AMir Sultan Cheema Ch Iftakhar Ch Iqbal Ch lal Hussain Ch Nazar Hussain Ch Sarfraz Afzal Ch Shahbaz Ahmed Ch. Amjad Ali Javed Ch. Ghulam murtaza Ch. Muhammad Asdaullah Ch. Shabeer Ahmed DR Najma Afzal Khan Dr. Farzana Nargis Dr. Nadia Aziz Dr. Syed Waseem Akhtar Ehsan Riaz Fatiana Ejaz khan Fatima Fareeha Ghazali Saleem Butt Ghulam Dastgir Haji Ehsan ud din qureshi Hammad Nawaz Khan Tipu Hina Pervez Butt Jahangir Khanzada Javed Akhtar Javed Hassan Gujjar Kanwal Nauman Kh M Waseem Khalid Saeed Khawaja M Niazam ul Mahmmood Khawaja Muhammad Wasim Khurram Abbas Sial Makhdoom syed Murtaza Malik Abbas Ran Malik Ahmed Yar Hanjra Malik Javed Iqbal Malik M. Ali Khokhar Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Mehmood Qadir khan Mian Almdar Qurashi Mian Fida Hussain Mian Irfan Daulatan Mian M Rafiq Mian Muhammad Aslam Mian Mumtaz Ahmed Mohammad ilyas Chinioti Mr. Bilal Akhter Bhatti Mr. Zaheer uddin khan ali zai Mrs Awais Karim Khan Mrs Joyce Rofin julius Mrs Kamal Noman Mrs Sadia Nadeem Malik Mrs Suraya Naseem Mrs. Ayesha Javed Mrs. Farzana Afzal Ms Mehvish sultana Muhammad Afzal Muhammad Naeem Akhtar Khan Bhaba Muhammad Naeem Safdar Ansari Muhammad Saqib khurshid Muhammad Shoaib Siddique Muhammad Umer Jaffar Mumtaz ahmed qaisrani Munawar Gill Nawbzada Haider Mehdi Peerzada Mian Shahzad Maqbool Bhodla Qaisar Mehmood Sandhu Qaiser Abbas Khan Maqsi Qazi Adnan Farid Qazi Ahmed Saeed Rai Mansab Ali Khan Raja Ashfaq Sarwar Raja Rashid Hafeez Raja Shaukat Aziz Bhatti Rana Liaqat Rana Mahmood ul Hassan Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan Rana Muhammad Arshad Rana Tariq Shabbir Rao Akhter Ali Rao Kashif Rahim Saba Sadiq Salah-ud-din Sardar Ali Raza Khan Dreshak Sardar sher ali Gorchani Sardar Vickas Hasan mokal Shafqat Mehmood Shahzad Munshi Shaukat Hayat Bosan Shaukat Hayat Khan Bosan Sher Ali Khan Syed Ijaz B Khan Syed M sibtain Raza Tariq Subhani Waheed Asghar Waheed Gul Zeeshan Gurmani Zulfiqar Ali Khan Sindh Assembly Abdul Aziz Junejo Ameer Hyder Shah Dewan Chand Chawla Dr Seema Zia Dr. Rafique Baman Dr. Sikander Ali Shoro Dr. Sohrab Khan Faqeer dad khoso Farhat Semi Fida Hussain Dero Ghazala Siyal Heer Soho Irum Khalid Jam Khan Shoro Khair-un-Nisar Mughal Khurrum Sher Zaman Kulsoom Akhtar Chandio M. Rashid Khilji Mehtab Akbar Rashdi Muhammad Dilawar Qureshi Naheed Bagum Nasir Hussain Shah Nusrat Bano Saher Abbasi Nusrat Sultana Owais Shah Pir Amjad Hussain Shah Rukhsana Shah Sala Mohammad Samar Ali Khan Shabir Hussain Kaim Khani Shaheena Shahnaz Begam Shahyar Mehar Shamim Mumtaz Shazia Jawaid Sorath Thebo Sumeta Afzal Sayed Syeda Shehla Raza Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Ahmed Khan Bahadur Amjad Khan Afridi Arbab Akhtar Hayat Khan Asif Yousaf Gohar Ali Shah Haji Abdulhaq Khan Haji habib-ur-rehman Iftikhar Ali Mashwani Imtiaz Shahid Javed Nasim Muhammad Atif Nighat Orakzai Romana Jalil Ruqia Hina Shah Farman Shoukat Ali Yousaf Zai Sikandar Hayat Khan Sobia Khan Sultan Muhammad Khan Uzma Khan Yaseen Khan Khalil Zia-Ullah Afridi Balochistan Assembly Agha syed liaqat Ali Anita Irfan Dr. Ruqiyya Saeed Hashmi Dr. Shama Ishaq Ghansham Das Haji Abul Malik kakar Haji Akbar Aksani Haji Gul Muhammad dumar Haji Muhammad Aslam Haji Muhammad Islam Kishwar AhmedJatak Manzoor Ahmed Khan Kakar Mir Abdul Karim Nusherwani Mir Abdul Qadus Beznjo Mir Amanullah Notezai Mir Amir Rind Mir Ghulam Dastgir Badani Mir Hamad Kalmati Mir manullah Notezai Mir sarfraz Chakar Domki Ms Arifa siddiq Mufti Gulab Khan Kakar Maulvi Maazullah Musakhel Nasarullah Khan Zayray Nawab Muhammad Khan Shahwani Prince Ahmad ALi Ahmadzai Rahat Jamali Rehmat saleh Balochi Samina Khan Sardar Abdul Rehman Khetran Sardar Dur Muhammad Nasar Sardar Ghulam Mustafa Khan Sardar Raza Muhammad Barrech Shahida Rauf Sheikh jaffar Khan Mandokhail William John barkat

Appendix C Coding Sheets 1. Coding Sheet for Content Analysis of Posts and Tweets Coding Sheet for Content Analysis of Posts and Tweets Name of the Member: ______Date: ______

No. Member Platform Purpose of Nature of Image Language ID Post Content Building Facebook=1, Twitter =2 Personal=1 Link/Sharing Self- Insulting for Political=2 some Promotion=1 others=1 Educate=3 Image=1 Party Appreciation for Call for Meme=2 Promotion=2 Self=2 Action=4 Giving Opponent Appreciation for Response on News=3 Attack=3 others=3 Some Issues=5 Opinion=4 Self- Sarcastic/Taunting= Other=6 Blessed Promotion+ 4 words=5 Opponent Criticism on Others=6 Attack=4 Others=5 Others=5 Threatening=6 7=Others

2. Coding Sheet for Content Analysis of Audience Reaction (Facebook) Name of the Member: ______Date: ______

No. Member No. of Likes No. of No. of Shares of ID Comments Post

3. Coding Sheet for Content Analysis of Audience Reaction (Twitter) Name of the Member: ______Date: ______

No. of Member No. of Likes No. of Replies No. of Tweet ID Retweets

4. Coding Sheet for Content Analysis of Comments on Posts and Tweets Name of the Member: ______Date: ______

No of Comment Member ID Post/Tweet Behaviour Abusive=1 Supportive=2 Discouraging=3

Appendix D List of MNAs whose Facebook Pages and Twitter Accounts Were Analysed 1. Abid Raza 2. Abid Sher Ali 3. Ahsan Iqbal 4. Ali Raza 5. Aqibullah 6. Asad Umer 7. Dr. Arif Alvi 8. Hamza Shehbaz 9. Imran Khan 10. Jamshed Dasti 11. Jehangir Tareen 12. Khawaja Asif 13. Khurram Dastgir 14. Marvi memon 15. Maryam Aurangzeb 16. Muhammad Ali 17. Muhammad Safdar 18. Murad Saeed 19. Nafisa Shah Jillani 20. Rashid Godail 21. Saad Rafique 22. Sardar Ayaz Sadiq 23. Shafqat Mehmood 24. Shah Mehmood Qureshi 25. Shahida Rehmani 26. Awais Laghari 27. Maiza Hameed 28. Naeema Kishwer 29. Salman Mujahid Baloch 30. Shehryar khan Afridi 31. Sheikh Rashid 32. Syed Khursheed Shah 33. Talal Chaudry 34. Waheed Alam khan