Building a Personal Political Brand Using Facebook and Instagram Advertising

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Building a Personal Political Brand Using Facebook and Instagram Advertising BUILDING A PERSONAL POLITICAL BRAND USING FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM ADVERTISING Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics Master’s Thesis 2020 Author: Tommi Puomisto Subject: Digital Marketing and Corporate Communication Supervisor: Heikki Karjaluoto ABSTRACT Author Tommi Puomisto Title Building a personal political brand using Facebook and Instagram advertising Subject Type of work Digital Marketing and Corporate Master’s thesis Communication Date Number of pages 16.6.2020 86 The how and where of political marketing and branding has changed significantly in the past decade. Social networking sites are increasingly used by actors like political parties to brand themselves and interact digitally with voters in real-time. While political branding has been researched extensively from the external perspective of the audience, the internal perspective, “brand identity”, and especially that of individual politicians has remained under-researched, thus presenting a potential research gap. The goal of this thesis is to increase the understanding of the role of Facebook and Instagram advertising in building a personal political brand from the internal perspective of the brand owner and internal stakeholders, therefore addressing the call for further research on the internal perspective of branding. This study is a mixed methods research and was carried out as a single case study. The case was an election campaign of a single political candidate in the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2019. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews, which were processed through the thematic analysis approach. Quantitative secondary performance data of the campaign’s social media advertising was then analyzed and compared with the findings of the qualitative thematic analysis. Both organic content and paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram are seen as an important and growing aspect of the personal political brand building process yet still interdependent with the use of traditional media. The importance of social media advertising is further supported by the advertising performance data, which shows that social media advertising, especially video, was effective during the case campaign. The theoretical contributions of the thesis reinforce findings of existing literature: Social media is seen as a good platform for continuous branding that is a natural continuation after elections, supporting the theory of “permanent campaign”. The findings also support the importance of creating relationships with the audience and the notion that social media advertising is an important part of political campaign strategy. The Finnish political landscape is already in many ways “Americanized”, where political marketing largely takes a market-oriented approach. The habits of the audience and their willingness to give away private information for the use of marketers may largely affect how Finnish political marketing on social media will develop from here. Managers should seriously consider both Facebook and Instagram for political brand building, as they offer cost-efficient ways to reach target audiences and the interactivity enables the creation of personal relationships between the individual politician and their voters. Key words political marketing, personal political branding, social networking sites, social media advertising Place of storage Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics 3 TIIVISTELMÄ Tekijä Tommi Puomisto Työn nimi Henkilökohtaisen poliittisen brändin rakentaminen käyttäen Facebook ja Instagram mainontaa Oppiaine Työn laji Digitaalinen markkinointi ja yritysviestintä Pro gradu -tutkielma Päivämäärä Sivumäärä 16.6.2020 86 Tämän pro gradu -työn tavoite on lisätä ymmärrystä maksullisen Facebook- ja Instagram- mainonnan roolista henkilökohtaisen poliittisen brändin rakentamisessa brändin omistajan ja sisäisten sidosryhmien näkökulmasta ja täten tukee tutkimusta brändäämisen sisäisestä näkökulmasta. Tämä työ on monimenetelmätutkimus, joka suoritettiin tapaustutkimuksen muodossa. Keskiössä on yksittäinen vaalikampanja kevään 2019 Suomen eduskuntavaaleissa. Kvalitatiivinen primääridata kerättiin teemahaastatteluiden muodossa, jotka sitten käsiteltiin temaattisen analyysin kautta. Tuloksia verrattiin tämän jälkeen vaalikampanjan sosiaalisen median sekundäärisen kvantitatiivisen mainontadatan kanssa. Sekä orgaaninen sisältö että maksettu mainonta Facebookissa ja Instagramissa nähtiin tärkeänä ja kasvavana osana henkilökohtaisen poliittisen brändin rakentamista, mutta ennen kaikkea osana laajempaa kokonaisuutta perinteisen median kanssa. Sosiaalisen median mainonnan ja erityisesti videomainonnan tulokset tukevat digimainonnan tärkeyttä. Tutkimus tukee useita aikaisempia kirjallisia löydöksiä: Sosiaalinen media nähdään hyvänä alustana henkilökohtaiseen jatkuvaan henkilökohtaiseen brändäämiseen, tukien ”jatkuvan kampanjan” teoriaa. Suhteiden luominen äänestäjien kanssa nähdään tärkeänä sekä se, että sosiaalisen median mainonta on tänä päivänä tärkeä osa poliittista kampanjastrategiaa. Suomalaisen politiikan kenttä on hyvin ”amerikkalaistunut”, jossa poliittinen markkinointi on pääosin markkinasuuntautunutta. Yleisön käyttäytyminen ja valmius henkilökohtaisen tiedon antamiseen markkinoijien käyttöön tulee suuresti vaikuttamaan siihen, miten sosiaalisen median poliittinen markkinointi Suomessa kehittyy tästä eteenpäin. Päättävässä asemassa olevien tulisi vakavasti harkita sekä Facebookin että Instagramin käyttöä poliittiseen brändäämiseen, sillä ne tarjoavat kustannustehokkaita tapoja tavoittaa kohdeyleisöjä ja interaktiivisuus mahdollistaa henkilökohtaisten suhteiden luomisen yksittäisen poliitikon ja äänestäjien välillä. Asiasanat poliittinen markkinointi, henkilökohtainen poliittinen brändääminen, sosiaalisen median alustat, sosiaalisen median mainonta Säilytyspaikka Jyväskylän Kauppakorkeakoulu 4 FIGURES FIGURE 1. Call for future research in existing literature ............................... 9 FIGURE 2. Research questions in relation to the theoretical framework ... 10 FIGURE 3. The honeycomb of social media ................................................... 14 FIGURE 4. Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 . 18 FIGURE 5. Social media platforms with most active users worldwide ..... 19 FIGURE 6. Daily hours spent with digital media 2008-2018 (U.S.) ............. 21 TABLES TABLE 1 List of semi-structured interview respondents ...................................... 43 TABLE 2 Case campaign's best performing adverts on Facebook Ads ............... 71 5 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 7 1.1 Motivation for research ..................................................................... 7 1.2 Research problem and research questions ................................... 10 1.3 Structure of the study ...................................................................... 11 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK................................................................ 13 2.1 Social networking sites ................................................................... 13 2.1.1 From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and forward ..................................... 15 2.1.2 Types of content on social media .............................................. 16 2.1.3 Social media use in numbers...................................................... 18 2.1.4 Use of social media in Finland ................................................... 21 2.1.5 Liking, sharing and new rules of social media ........................ 23 2.1.6 Advertising on social media ...................................................... 25 2.1.7 Facebook Ads platform ............................................................... 27 2.1.8 Effectiveness of social media advertising ................................ 28 2.2 Branding ............................................................................................ 29 2.2.1 Personal political brand .............................................................. 30 2.2.2 Branding on social media platforms ......................................... 32 2.3 Political marketing ........................................................................... 32 2.3.1 From meeting halls to the social media age ............................. 34 2.3.2 Permanent campaign .................................................................. 36 2.3.3 Political marketing in Finnish elections ................................... 36 2.3.4 Criticism towards political marketing ...................................... 37 3 METHODOLOGY........................................................................................ 39 3.1 Case study and action research ..................................................... 39 3.1.1 Author’s role in the case campaign ........................................... 40 3.2 Case campaign ................................................................................. 40 3.3 Data collection: Semi-structured interviews ................................ 42 3.4 Analyzing data through thematic analysis .................................. 44 4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS ....................................................................... 47 4.1 Strategy, goals and resources ......................................................... 47 4.1.1 Long-term planning .................................................................... 47 4.1.2 Time & resources ......................................................................... 50 4.2
Recommended publications
  • Uila Supported Apps
    Uila Supported Applications and Protocols updated Oct 2020 Application/Protocol Name Full Description 01net.com 01net website, a French high-tech news site. 050 plus is a Japanese embedded smartphone application dedicated to 050 plus audio-conferencing. 0zz0.com 0zz0 is an online solution to store, send and share files 10050.net China Railcom group web portal. This protocol plug-in classifies the http traffic to the host 10086.cn. It also 10086.cn classifies the ssl traffic to the Common Name 10086.cn. 104.com Web site dedicated to job research. 1111.com.tw Website dedicated to job research in Taiwan. 114la.com Chinese web portal operated by YLMF Computer Technology Co. Chinese cloud storing system of the 115 website. It is operated by YLMF 115.com Computer Technology Co. 118114.cn Chinese booking and reservation portal. 11st.co.kr Korean shopping website 11st. It is operated by SK Planet Co. 1337x.org Bittorrent tracker search engine 139mail 139mail is a chinese webmail powered by China Mobile. 15min.lt Lithuanian news portal Chinese web portal 163. It is operated by NetEase, a company which 163.com pioneered the development of Internet in China. 17173.com Website distributing Chinese games. 17u.com Chinese online travel booking website. 20 minutes is a free, daily newspaper available in France, Spain and 20minutes Switzerland. This plugin classifies websites. 24h.com.vn Vietnamese news portal 24ora.com Aruban news portal 24sata.hr Croatian news portal 24SevenOffice 24SevenOffice is a web-based Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. 24ur.com Slovenian news portal 2ch.net Japanese adult videos web site 2Shared 2shared is an online space for sharing and storage.
    [Show full text]
  • Regulating “Fake News” and Other Online Advertising
    FOOL ME ONCE: REGULATING “FAKE NEWS” AND OTHER ONLINE ADVERTISING ABBY K. WOOD* AND ANN M. RAVEL† A lack of transparency for online political advertising has long been a problem in American political campaigns. Disinformation attacks that American voters have experienced since the 2016 campaign have made the need for regulatory action more pressing. Internet platforms prefer self-regulation and have only recently come around to supporting proposed transparency legislation. While government must not regulate the content of political speech, it can, and should, force transparency into the process. We propose several interventions aimed at transparency. First, and most importantly, campaign finance regulators should require platforms to store and make available (1) ads run on their platforms, and (2) the audience at whom the ad was targeted. Audience availability can be structured to avoid privacy concerns, and it meets an important speech value in the “marketplace of ideas” theory of the First Amendment—that of enabling counter speech. Our proposed regulations would capture any political advertising, including disinformation, that is promoted via paid distribution on social media, as well as all other online political advertising. Second, existing loopholes in transparency regulations *. Associate Professor of Law, Political Science, and Public Policy at University of Southern California ([email protected]). †. Senior Fellow, Maplight Digital Deception Project and former Chair of the Federal Election Commission and California Fair Political Practices Commission. This article has benefited from insights from Rebecca Brown, Chris Elmendorf, and Rick Hasen. Daniel Brovman, Samantha Hay, Justin Mello, Brandon Thompson, and Caroline Yoon provided fantastic research assistance. Teresa Delgado and Alex Manzanares joyfully created the time and space required to focus on the project.
    [Show full text]
  • Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites
    U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division Washington, D.C. 20530 CRM-200900732F MAR 3 2010 Mr. James Tucker Mr. Shane Witnov Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 Dear Messrs Tucker and Witnov: This is an interim response to your request dated October 6, 2009 for access to records concerning "use of social networking websites (including, but not limited to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and other online social media) for investigative (criminal or otherwise) or data gathering purposes created since January 2003, including, but not limited to: 1) documents that contain information on the use of "fake identities" to "trick" users "into accepting a [government] official as friend" or otherwise provide information to he government as described in the Boston Globe article quoted above; 2) guides, manuals, policy statements, memoranda, presentations, or other materials explaining how government agents should collect information on social networking websites: 3) guides, manuals, policy statements, memoranda, presentations, or other materials, detailing how or when government agents may collect information through social networking websites; 4) guides, manuals, policy statements, memoranda, presentations and other materials detailing what procedures government agents must follow to collect information through social- networking websites; 5) guides, manuals, policy statements, memorandum, presentations, agreements (both formal and informal) with social-networking companies, or other materials relating to privileged user access by the Criminal Division to the social networking websites; 6) guides, manuals, memoranda, presentations or other materials for using any visualization programs, data analysis programs or tools used to analyze data gathered from social networks; 7) contracts, requests for proposals, or purchase orders for any visualization programs, data analysis programs or tools used to analyze data gathered from social networks.
    [Show full text]
  • Informed Strategies of Political Action in IP-Based Social Media Andrea Knaut
    Informed Strategies of Political Action in IP-Based Social Media Andrea Knaut To cite this version: Andrea Knaut. Informed Strategies of Political Action in IP-Based Social Media. 10th International Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC), Sep 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands. pp.376-386, 10.1007/978-3-642-33332-3_35. hal-01525114 HAL Id: hal-01525114 https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01525114 Submitted on 19 May 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Informed Strategies of Political Action in IP-based Social Media Andrea Knaut Informatik in Bildung und Gesellschaft, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany [email protected] Abstract. Political campaigning involves the intense usage of all possible media that the campaigners can afford to reach as many potential supporters as possible. Networked information technologies provide an endless source of applications and means of communication. When using computer technologies as a campaigning medium, it is essential to carefully assess the efforts concerning infrastructural and social requirements in consideration of the benefits gained. Therefore, the intertwined dimensions of political campaigning – content, infrastructure, community, protection of activists, planning, and archiving – are discussed as related to the involvement of IP-based media.
    [Show full text]
  • Systematic Scoping Review on Social Media Monitoring Methods and Interventions Relating to Vaccine Hesitancy
    TECHNICAL REPORT Systematic scoping review on social media monitoring methods and interventions relating to vaccine hesitancy www.ecdc.europa.eu ECDC TECHNICAL REPORT Systematic scoping review on social media monitoring methods and interventions relating to vaccine hesitancy This report was commissioned by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and coordinated by Kate Olsson with the support of Judit Takács. The scoping review was performed by researchers from the Vaccine Confidence Project, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (contract number ECD8894). Authors: Emilie Karafillakis, Clarissa Simas, Sam Martin, Sara Dada, Heidi Larson. Acknowledgements ECDC would like to acknowledge contributions to the project from the expert reviewers: Dan Arthus, University College London; Maged N Kamel Boulos, University of the Highlands and Islands, Sandra Alexiu, GP Association Bucharest and Franklin Apfel and Sabrina Cecconi, World Health Communication Associates. ECDC would also like to acknowledge ECDC colleagues who reviewed and contributed to the document: John Kinsman, Andrea Würz and Marybelle Stryk. Suggested citation: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Systematic scoping review on social media monitoring methods and interventions relating to vaccine hesitancy. Stockholm: ECDC; 2020. Stockholm, February 2020 ISBN 978-92-9498-452-4 doi: 10.2900/260624 Catalogue number TQ-04-20-076-EN-N © European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020 Reproduction is authorised, provided the
    [Show full text]
  • My-Trac: System for Recommendation of Points of Interest on the Basis of Twitter Profiles
    electronics Article My-Trac: System for Recommendation of Points of Interest on the Basis of Twitter Profiles Alberto Rivas 1,2,* , Alfonso González-Briones 1,2,3 , Juan J. Cea-Morán 1, Arnau Prat-Pérez 4 and Juan M. Corchado 1,2 1 BISITE Research Group, University of Salamanca, Edificio I+D+i, Calle Espejo 2, 37007 Salamanca, Spain; [email protected] (A.G.-B.); [email protected] (J.J.C.-M.); [email protected] (J.M.C.) 2 Air Institute, IoT Digital Innovation Hub, Carbajosa de la Sagrada, 37188 Salamanca, Spain 3 Research Group on Agent-Based, Social and Interdisciplinary Applications (GRASIA), Complutense University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain 4 Sparsity-Technologies, 08034 Barcelona, Spain; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: New mapping and location applications focus on offering improved usability and services based on multi-modal door to door passenger experiences. This helps citizens develop greater confidence in and adherence to multi-modal transport services. These applications adapt to the needs of the user during their journey through the data, statistics and trends extracted from their previous uses of the application. The My-Trac application is dedicated to the research and development of these user-centered services to improve the multi-modal experience using various techniques. Among these techniques are preference extraction systems, which extract user information from social networks, such as Twitter. In this article, we present a system that allows to develop a profile of the preferences of each user, on the basis of the tweets published on their Twitter account. The Citation: Rivas, A.; González-Briones, system extracts the tweets from the profile and analyzes them using the proposed algorithms and A.; Cea-Morán, J.J.; Prat-Pérez, A.; returns the result in a document containing the categories and the degree of affinity that the user has Corchado, J.M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cost of Democracy Essays on Political Finance in Latin America
    The Cost of Democracy Essays on Political Finance in Latin America Kevin Casas-Zamora Daniel Zovatto © 2016 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance © 2016 Organization of American States © 2016 Inter-American Dialogue International IDEA Organization of American States Inter-American Dialogue Strömsborg 17th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW 1211 Connecticut Ave., NW SE-103 34 STOCKHOLM Washington, DC, 20006 Suite 510 SWEDEN, USA Washington, DC 20036 www.idea.int www.oas.org USA www.thedialogue.org Parts of this publication were first published in Spanish inFinanciamento de los partidos políticos en América Latina (Mexico City: International IDEA/Organization of American States/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2011) The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication as well as to remix and adapt it provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication, and that you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence see: <http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>. Translation: Charles Roberts Graphic design: Catalina Rojas Piza Printed in Costa Rica ISBN: 978-91-7671-032-6 We dedicate this book to the memory of Rodolfo Cerdas, an essential intellectual, generous mentor, and dear friend of both authors. CONTENTS Preface by José Woldenberg ......................................................................................................9
    [Show full text]
  • We Have to Acknowledge That Consumers Are Controlling The
    © Hugh MacLeod. www.gapingvoid.com We have to acknowledge that consumers are controlling the conversation about brands more than ever and they are doing it in real time, online, way faster than you can churn out an ad or distribute a news release. While social media is not the absolute answer to all marketing issues, I think it definitely provides insight into customer behaviors and allows clients to participate in conversations about their brand/ product/service on a more proactive and intimate level. We!ve designated a team of specialists that are immersed in all levels of social media. They spend time scouring the Web, read books and blogs, attend training, workshops and seminars, and actively participate to understand social media inside and out. - Nicole Torstenson, Sr. Marketing Strategist, Innova Ideas & Services © Hugh MacLeod. www.gapingvoid.com Let’s focus on: Nevermind. dominant ual ling ultil h/m l is rta an MR or spa p p p h h o o t t o social networks o social networks + s o o crowd s crowd s c ii p p a ll a n a e content n tt source n source w i i o s s rr k h i h i n based g / / location m u sh llt ngllii d iillii e o ng nt m u miinan in all do a n s t ms space usic mobile communities mu sociiall n e t d w at video ing o Es tu grito r k s portal t n a iin m o d s ks e rk ng o lis w h tw e t n iinterest Innova Ideas & Services | www.innovaideasandservices.com Nannette Rodríguez | Director of Hispanic Marketing, Business Development | 515.697.7200 | [email protected] @rodriguez24 (Twitter) | Nannette Rodriguez+Des Moines (Facebook, Linked In, MySpace) Web Progression Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0 Web 3.5 In the beginning, Then it progressed Commerce then A subset of social the Web served into a place for ushered an era of networks and as an info transactions.
    [Show full text]
  • Automated Coding of Political Campaign Advertisement Videos: an Empirical Validation Study∗
    Automated Coding of Political Campaign Advertisement Videos: An Empirical Validation Study∗ Alexander Tarr† June Hwang‡ Kosuke Imai§ First Draft: April 19, 2019 This Draft: September 26, 2021 Abstract Video advertisements, either through television or the Internet, play an essential role in modern political campaigns. For over two decades, researchers have studied television video ads by analyzing the hand-coded data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project and its successor, the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP). Unfortunately, manually coding more than a hundred of variables, such as issue mentions, opponent appearance, and negativity, for many videos is a laborious and expensive process. We propose to automatically code campaign advertisement videos. Applying state-of-the-art machine learning methods, we extract various audio and image features from each video file. We show that our machine coding is comparable to human coding for many variables of the WMP data sets. Since many candidates make their advertisement videos available on the Internet, automated coding can dramatically improve the efficiency and scope of campaign advertisement research. Open-source software package is available for implementing the proposed methodology. Key Words: audio data, computer vision, image data, machine learning, text data, video data ∗Open-source Python package campvideo is available for implementing the proposed methodology (https:// test.pypi.org/project/campvideo). We thank Dean Knox, Travis Ridout, and seminar participants at Harvard University for helpful comments and discussions. We also thank Austin Colorite, Avner Goldstein, Allison Halter, Vilma Jimenez, Grace Rehaut, David Ribar, Tyler Simko, Rafael Tafur, and Shun Yamaya for their valuable research assistance. †Graduate Student, Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544.
    [Show full text]
  • PACKAGING POLITICS by Catherine Suzanne Galloway a Dissertation
    PACKAGING POLITICS by Catherine Suzanne Galloway A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate Division of the University of California at Berkeley Committee in charge Professor Jack Citrin, Chair Professor Eric Schickler Professor Taeku Lee Professor Tom Goldstein Fall 2012 Abstract Packaging Politics by Catherine Suzanne Galloway Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Jack Citrin, Chair The United States, with its early consumerist orientation, has a lengthy history of drawing on similar techniques to influence popular opinion about political issues and candidates as are used by businesses to market their wares to consumers. Packaging Politics looks at how the rise of consumer culture over the past 60 years has influenced presidential campaigning and political culture more broadly. Drawing on interviews with political consultants, political reporters, marketing experts and communications scholars, Packaging Politics explores the formal and informal ways that commercial marketing methods – specifically emotional and open source branding and micro and behavioral targeting – have migrated to the political realm, and how they play out in campaigns, specifically in presidential races. Heading into the 2012 elections, how much truth is there to the notion that selling politicians is like “selling soap”? What is the difference today between citizens and consumers? And how is the political process being transformed, for better or for worse, by the use of increasingly sophisticated marketing techniques? 1 Packaging Politics is dedicated to my parents, Russell & Nancy Galloway & to my professor and friend Jack Citrin i CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Politics, after all, is about marketing – about projecting and selling an image, stoking aspirations, moving people to identify, evangelize, and consume.
    [Show full text]
  • Hacks, Leaks and Disruptions | Russian Cyber Strategies
    CHAILLOT PAPER Nº 148 — October 2018 Hacks, leaks and disruptions Russian cyber strategies EDITED BY Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM Siim Alatalu, Irina Borogan, Elena Chernenko, Sven Herpig, Oscar Jonsson, Xymena Kurowska, Jarno Limnell, Patryk Pawlak, Piret Pernik, Thomas Reinhold, Anatoly Reshetnikov, Andrei Soldatov and Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer Chaillot Papers HACKS, LEAKS AND DISRUPTIONS RUSSIAN CYBER STRATEGIES Edited by Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru CHAILLOT PAPERS October 2018 148 Disclaimer The views expressed in this Chaillot Paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or of the European Union. European Union Institute for Security Studies Paris Director: Gustav Lindstrom © EU Institute for Security Studies, 2018. Reproduction is authorised, provided prior permission is sought from the Institute and the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated. Contents Executive summary 5 Introduction: Russia’s cyber prowess – where, how and what for? 9 Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru Russia’s cyber posture Russia’s approach to cyber: the best defence is a good offence 15 1 Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan Russia’s trolling complex at home and abroad 25 2 Xymena Kurowska and Anatoly Reshetnikov Spotting the bear: credible attribution and Russian 3 operations in cyberspace 33 Sven Herpig and Thomas Reinhold Russia’s cyber diplomacy 43 4 Elena Chernenko Case studies of Russian cyberattacks The early days of cyberattacks: 5 the cases of Estonia,
    [Show full text]
  • Student Voting and College Political Campaign-Related Activities in 2020
    ISSUE BRIEF STUDENT VOTING AND COLLEGE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN-RELATED ACTIVITIES IN 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic is contextualizing nearly every aspect of life on and off our nation’s campuses. Col- lege students are in places they never dreamed they’d be . literally. Some are in campus housing, or sharing an off-campus apartment with other students, as planned. Others are commuting to school from home, also as planned. But for many students, the college experience is playing out in an unanticipated remote location—or may shift that way at a moment’s notice. Student voter registration, casting ballots (by mail or in person), and campaign-related activities on campus are guaranteed to feel and be different in most college communities during this fall’s election season. This issue brief speaks to institutional obligations and other matters relating to student voting. It also updates a September 2018 publication which offered illustrative permissible and impermissible college and university activities in connection with campaigns for public office. Within the context of the Supreme Court’s admonition that residency duration and other voter registration requirements must serve a compelling governmental interest, voting is controlled by the states. In normal times, presumptively simple steps necessary to participate in our country’s democratic process can quickly feel complex to students. As Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education recently noted, “Decentralization has resulted in a morass of inconsistent and confusing registration and voting conditions . Uncertainty and unnecessary inconvenience are bad for all voters, but they uniquely affect the nation’s 20 million college and university students.” With this fall promising to be a more uncertain time than any in memory for our nation’s college students, their anxiety is sure to be amped up regarding how, when, and where to cast a ballot.
    [Show full text]