Social Media Political Marketing And The 2016 U S Election

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram create new ways to market political campaigns and new channels for candidates and voters to interact. This volume investigates the role and impact of social media in the 2016 U.S. election, focusing specifically on the presidential nominating contest. Through case studies, survey research and content analysis, the researchers employ both human and machine coding to analyse social media text and video content. Together, these illustrate the wide variety of methodological approaches and statistical techniques that can be used to probe the rich, vast stores of social media data now available. Individual chapters examine what different candidates posted about and which posts generated more of a response. The analyses shed light on what social media can reveal about campaign messaging strategies and explore the linkages between social media content and their audiences’ perceptions, opinions and political participation. The findings highlight similarities and differences among candidates and consider how continuity and change are manifest in the 2016 election. Finally, taking a look forward, the contributors consider the implications of their work for political marketing research and practice. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Marketing.

This edited collection is one of the first books to focus on the distinctive political marketing and branding strategies utilized by the candidates and their parties in one of the most gripping elections in U.S. history. It considers why this election was so unusual from a political marketing perspective, calling for new explanations and discussions about its implications for mainstream political marketing theory and practice. At a time of political upheaval, candidates from both parties – Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in particular – have appeared to overturn the conventional wisdom that has hitherto dominated U.S. politics: that candidates should appear ‘presidential’, be politically experienced and qualified to run for office, and avoid controversial and politically incorrect positions. This book presents scholarly perspectives and research with practitioner-relatable content on practices and discourses that look specifically at the Trump, Clinton and Sanders campaigns and how they took current understandings of political marketing and branding in new directions.

The media have long played an important role in the modern political process and the 2016 presidential campaign was no different. From Trump’s tweets and cable-show-call-ins to Sander’s social media machine to Clinton’s "Trump Yourself" app and podcast, journalism, social and digital media, and entertainment media were front-and-center in 2016. Clearly, political media played a dominant and disruptive role in our democratic process. This book helps to explain the role of these media and communication outlets in the 2016 presidential election. This thorough study of how political communication evolved in 2016 examines the disruptive role communication technology played in the 2016 presidential primary campaign and general election and how voters sought and received political information. The Presidency and Social Media includes top scholars from leading research institutions using various research methodologies to generate new understandings—both theoretical and practical—for students, researchers, journalists, and practitioners.

This book focuses on the U.S. presidential election spectacle, from the primaries through to the November 2020 election and the subsequent events leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president. A follow-up to Political Marketing in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,it uniquely focuses on the political marketing and branding strategies of presidential candidates, with particular attention to how those strategies have changed since the 2016 election. The 2020 election was as much about a continuous strategy of targeting and maintaining voter enthusiasm as it was about swaying undecided voters in the electorate, distinguishing it from the horserace and implications of vote targeting in 2016. Donald Trump had a base of support that was unwavering. Likewise, Joe Biden and the Democrats counted on the same proportion of the electorate to vote against Trump. The election was also a harbinger of major new branding and marketing strategies, including innovative uses of social media and direct appeals to voters. This book presents diverse scholarly perspectives and research, with practitioner-relevant content on practices and discourses that will advance our current understandings of political marketing theories.

Written by leading scholars of political communication, this book provides a comprehensive accounting of the campaign communication that characterized the unprecedented 2016 presidential campaign. The political events leading up to election day on November 8, 2016, involved unprecedented events in U.S. history: Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be nominated by a major party, and she was favored to win the highest seat in the nation. Donald Trump, arguably one of the most unconventional and most-unlikely-to-succeed candidates in U.S. history, became the leading candidate against Clinton. Then, an even more surprising thing happened: Trump won, an outcome unexpected by all experts and statistical models. An Unprecedented Election: Media, Communication, and the Electorate in the 2016 Campaign presents proprietary research conducted by a national election team and leading scholars in political communication and documents the most significant-and in some cases, the most shocking-features of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The information presented in this book is derived from national surveys, experiments, and textual analysis and helps readers grasp the truly unique characteristics of this campaign that make it unlike any other in U.S. history. The chapters explain the underlying dynamics of this astonishing election by assessing the important role of both traditional and social media, the evolving (and potentially diminishing) influence of televised campaign advertisements, the various implications of three historic presidential debates, and the contextual significance of convention addresses. Readers will come away with an appreciation of the content and effects of the campaign communication and media coverage as well as the unique attributes of the electorate that ultimately selected Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States.

Political Marketing in the United States explores how politicians and parties utilize marketing concepts and tools, providing an up-to-date and broad overview of how marketing permeates U.S. politics. The volume focuses on current and recent elections and leaders, and covers a range of topics, including market research, marketing parties and volunteers, strategy and branding, communications, delivery, and marketing in government. The main themes and objectives of the book are to cover: New and emerging trends in political marketing practice Analysis of a broad range of political marketing aspects Empirical examples as well as useful theoretical frameworks Discussion of state/local level as well as presidential politics This is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject available and captures the field as it is rapidly growing. It is a must-read for students and scholars of political parties, political communication, applied politics, and elections.

How elections are reported has important implications for the health of democracy and informed citizenship. But, how informative are the news media during campaigns? What kind of logic do they follow? How well do they serve citizens?e Based on original research as well as the most comprehensive assessment of election studies to date, Cushion and Thomas examine how campaigns are reported in many advanced Western democracies. In doing so, they engage with debates about the mediatization of politics, media systems, information environments, media ownership, regulation, political news, horserace journalism, objectivity, impartiality, agenda-setting, and the relationship between media and democracy more generally. Focusing on the most recent US and UK election campaigns, they consider how the logic of election coverage could be rethought in ways that better serve the democratic needs of citizens. Above all, they argue that election reporting should be driven by a public logic, where the agenda of voters takes centre stage in the campaign and the policies of respective political parties receive more airtime and independent scrutiny. The book is essential reading for scholars and students in political communication and journalism studies, political science, media and communication studies.

Although many developments surrounding the Internet campaign are now considered to be standard fare, there were a number of new developments in 2016. Drawing on original research conducted by leading experts, The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign attempts to cover these developments in a comprehensive fashion. How are campaigns making use of the Internet to organize and mobilize their ground game? To communicate their message? The book also examines how citizens made use of online sources to become informed, follow campaigns, and participate. Contributions also explore how the Internet affected developments in media reporting, both traditional and non-traditional, about the campaign. What other messages were available online, and what effects did these messages have had on citizen’s attitudes and vote choice? The book examines these questions in an attempt to summarize the 2016 online campaign.