Kristof Jacobs

Social media, parties, and political inequalities

This book examines how social media have transformed politics in established democracies. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of the unique qualities of social media on the power balance between and within parties. They present a general theory as well as an in-depth case study of the Netherlands and compare it to the US and European democracies. The authors show how and why social medias introduction leads to equalization for some and normalization for others. Additional to national politics, Jacobs and Spierings investigate often-overlooked topics such as local and European politics and the impact on women and ethnic minorities.

Catalysts and barriers: Explaining electoral reform in Western Europe.

Most accounts of electoral system change tend to consider it as being driven by purely partisan interests. Political parties are expected to change the electoral rules as a way to maximise gains or minimise losses. However, little work has been done on the question of why electoral reforms are so scarce in spite of these potential benefits. In this study, a wide range of both factors that may foster (‘catalysts’) and ones that may hinder (‘barriers’) the change of electoral institutions are investigated. A statistical analysis is performed of 16 West European countries from 1975 to 2005, covering 23 reforms of the proportionality of their electoral systems. It is found that procedural barriers are more effective for explaining the likelihood of electoral reforms than (most of) the catalysts. Additionally, there are indications that courts may play a more active role in triggering reform than previously thought.

Saturation or maturation? The diffusion of Twitter and its impact on preference voting in the Dutch general elections of 2010 and 2012

ABSTRACT Does social-media usage (e.g. Twitter) influence candidates’ number of votes? Recent studies have shown that a modest impact might exist. However, these studies used data on elections in which only a limited group of politicians used Twitter. In such a context it was easy for a candidate to stand out. It remains to be seen whether the effect holds in times of widespread usage. This study compares a low-usage with a widespread-usage election, the Dutch 2010 and 2012 national elections respectively. It utilizes unique data on all 1024 candidates of the ‘large’ parties. Interestingly, even in the context of widespread Twitter usage we still find a positive association between Twitter use and preference votes.

Theorizing Social Media, Parties, and Political Inequalities

The role of social media—often called Web 2.0—has been addressed in a growing number of studies, studies that often build on the literature regarding politics and Web 1.0 (Gibson & McAllister, 2014; Schweitzer, 2011; Vergeer, Hermans, & Sams, 2013). Indeed, the central debate in both the earlier and the most recent literature is whether or not new web technologies influence the power balance between parties. By now this question has been puzzling scholars for almost 20 years (Castells, 1996; Cornfield, 2005; Gibson & McAllister, 2014; Gibson & Rommele, 2001; Jackson & Lilleker, 2011; Margolis, Resnick, & Wolfe, 1999; Negroponte, 1995; Schweitzer, 2011; Sudulich & Wall, 2010; Vaccari, 2008). Some suggest that new technologies, such as social media, level the playing field and redistribute the power in favor of previously disadvantaged parties—equalization (e.g., Gibson & McAllister, 2011). Others espouse that new technologies merely reinforce existing inequalities—normalization (e.g., Jackson & Lilleker, 2011). Most recently, Gibson and McAllister (2014) suggested that equalization occurs first (Stage I), then normalization (Stage II).

Keeping an Eye on the People: Who Has Access to MPs on Twitter?

Twitter is credited for allowing ordinary citizens to communicate with politicians directly. Yet few studies show who has access to politicians and whom politicians engage with, particularly outside campaign times. Here, we analyze the connection between the public and members of parliament (MPs) on Twitter in the Netherlands in-between elections in 2016. We examine over 60,000 accounts that MPs themselves befriended or that @-mentioned MPs. This shows that many lay citizens contact MPs via Twitter, yet MPs respond more to elite accounts (media, other politicians, organized interests,…), populist MPs are @-mentioned most but seem least interested in connecting and engaging with “the” people, and top MPs draw more attention but hardly engage—backbenchers are less contacted but engage more.

A populist paradise? Examining populists’ Twitter adoption and use

ABSTRACT While populists are claimed to be masters of Twitter, we know surprisingly little about how they use the medium (if at all). This study examines (1) populists’ Twitter adoption and (2) also investigates whether they differ from other political actors in their posting, connecting, and engagement behaviour on Twitter. We use a series of regression analyses to examine populists’ Twitter adoption and use in the Netherlands (2010–2016). We find that populists are less likely to adopt Twitter and suggest this is due to the party structure of populist parties: they are typically highly centralized and are wary of internal dissent. However, when populists do have an account, they do not post less (or more) tweets. They are less likely to have reciprocal interactions though and are more selective in who they befriend. However, these friends are more likely to get retweeted, suggesting that populists actively contribute to creating echo chambers.

Intraparty Relations: David versus Nabal and Abigail

Social media provide individual politicians with tools to build an electorate on a personal basis, which “might lead to less control over the politician … Party discipline … could subsequently become compromised” (Vergeer, Hermans, & Sams, 2013:481). Politicians who seek their own electorate based on nongeographic and personal politics might benefit from this in particular (cf. Karlsen, 2011). Twitter offers a cheap opportunity to build a large personal public of citizens, NGOs, and journalists that individual politicians can inform about their political actions and ideas. Facebook enables politicians to build a personal network and to share and discuss personal experiences, events, and grievances, but if used that way it is a labor-intensive medium. Some ordinary—not high-profile—candidates may have more incentive to take to social media than others. Echoing the second-wave feminist rallying slogan “the personal is political,” our attention is then drawn to politically underrepresented groups such as women and ethnic minorities. In their analysis of the innovation phase, Vergeer, Hermans, and Sams (2011:488) concluded that social media were not actively used for intraparty competition during the innovation phase. But is this still true?

Do Social Media Help Win Elections

So far we have focused on which candidates and parties adopted and made professional use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook. We examined to what extent social media level the playing field and found that social media allow postmaterialist parties to communicate as if they were bigger parties. We also found that some candidates fully exploit the opportunities of social media while others do not. Especially female politicians seem to do well. But does such a (partially) leveled playing field also yield electoral benefits? Do social media merely change the communicative power balance, not the electoral one? If so, that would significantly undermine the equalization argument. Indeed as Gibson and McAllister (2014:2) rightly observe, “if smaller parties are capitalizing on their digital campaign efforts but not gaining any inroads into popular support, then it becomes difficult to see how this is leading to a rebalancing of power within the system.”

Social Media Go “Glocal”: The Local and European Arenas

In line with the lion’s share of studies in the equalization-normalization debate (Gibson & McAllister, 2014:2; Larsson, 2013; Larsson & Svensson, 2014), the two previous chapters analyzed the consequences of social media on the main or “first-order” political arena (national politics) (Reif & Schmitt, 1980:8). In this chapter, we study whether the conclusions from chapters 4 and 5 also hold in sub- and supranational elections—the “second-order” political arenas. This serves two purposes. First, this helps to establish the robustness of our results. Second, there are good reasons to expect that the adoption and impact of social media is similar but of different strength in second-order arenas. After all, voters might feel there is “less at stake,” which results in lower levels of political participation and better chances for smaller parties. Though second-order arenas are influenced by the national-level dynamics, they have their own dynamics as well. Specifically, different coalitions may be in charge or other players may be competing (Reif & Schmitt, 1980:9–10). Second-order arenas typically draw less attention from traditional media, which increases the added value of social media in terms of informing the public (advertisement opportunity) and mobilizing specific electorates (target-group opportunity). Let us take a closer look at local and European elections to see whether this really is the case.

Social Media in Politics: The Netherlands from a Comparative Perspective

In chapter 1, we already provided some information about the Dutch political system and the roles that social media play in Dutch politics. In this chapter, we will present a more complete picture of Dutch politics and of the way social media found their way into it. Aside from sketching out the Netherlands’ political system, this chapter also serves as a descriptive case study of social media and its use in general in Dutch politics. In short, this chapter will study the country level, whereas the later chapters focus on the party level (chapter 4), the candidate level (chapter 5), and the local and supranational level (chapter 6).