Top-down, Non-inclusive and Non-egalitarian Characterizing the communication of members of parliament with the public on their Facebook pages (original) (raw)
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Aslib Journal of Information Management, 2023
Purpose-Social media have become the main channel of direct communication between members of parliament and constituents. The study analyzes the content in all Israeli MPs' Facebook channels throughout an entire term of parliament and asks if the results are consistent with the equalization or the normalization hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach-The study uses automatic analysis to produce a birds-eye-view of the content uploaded to the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs during a full term of parliament. All 106 MP pages were automatically scraped. Some complementary information was added to each post in the dataset, such as post length (number of words) and whether the page belongs to a member of the opposition or coalition. The total of 441,974 posts was analyzed to compare engagement and publication rates between pages, coalition vs opposition MPs, MPs vs users etc. Findings-The findings demonstrate that the MP-Facebook sphere is non-egalitarian, in that it follows skewed distributions by MPs in terms of post publication and engagement rates; non-inclusive, in that pages of coalition members receive significantly much more engagement visa -vis pages of members of the oppositions; and "top-down", in that MP-authored posts receive dramatically more engagement then user-authored posts, suggesting MPs have a near-monopoly on setting the agendas manifest in their pages, while users have extremely limited agenda-setting capabilities in these pages. Originality/value-Previous studies have looked at the character of the interactions between MPs and constituents on the Internet and particularly on online social media. Yet, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study provides a birds-eye-view of the content in all MPs' Facebook channels throughout a full term of parliament. Such an analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of the character and dynamics of conversations that take place in such arenas.
Coalition and Opposition MPs on Facebook
Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, 2018
Social Media platforms are today the main spheres in which politicians make political and personal statements, confront other public figures and interact with the public. In the current study, the Facebook pages of all Israeli MPs were scraped and analyzed for the entire period of the 19 th Israeli parliament service (between 2013-2015), in order to find similarities and differences between the posting behavior and acceptance of coalition and opposition members. We found that popular posts published by members of coalition and opposition differ in terms of scope of publication, scope of user engagement (posts by coalition members were more engaged-with), content and format (posts by members of opposition more varied in format, more mobilizing, critical, opinionative and negative, less formal but also less personal). The implications for the character of Facebook as a key parliamentary discursive arena are discussed. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing ~Web-based interaction • Social and professional topics
Digital Government: Research and Practice, 2020
Social media platforms are today the main spheres in which politicians make political and personal statements, confront other public figures, and interact with the public. In the current study, the Facebook pages of all Israeli Members of Parliament (MPs) were scraped and analyzed for the entire period of the 19th Israeli parliament service (between 2013 and 2015), in order to find similarities and differences between the posting behavior and acceptance of coalition and opposition members posts. We found that popular posts published by members of coalition and opposition differ in terms of scope of publication, scope of user engagement (posts by coalition members were more engaged with), content, and format (posts by members of opposition more varied in format, more mobilizing, critical, opinionative and negative, less formal but also less personal). The implications for the character of Facebook as a key parliamentary discursive arena are discussed.
Key to the idea of a democratic public sphere has always been the ongoing conversations among citizens and between citizens and politicians (Koch, Mansbridge, Habermas, etc.). The conversations between politicians and citizens in the Danish political system have traditionally taken place at political party meetings and at public meetings and hearings. However, the rise of new social media like Facebook provides new, interesting platforms for these conversations—and many opinion makers and scholars have high expectations for their democratic potential. This chapter examines what happens when traditional democratic conversations between citizens and politicians are moved away from the old face-to-face meetings and into Facebook. Through interviews with Danish Members of Parliament (MPs), the paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of online democratic conversations on Facebook as experienced by the MPs. The paper builds on a former quantitative mapping of the political conversation activities between Danish MPs and their followers on Facebook (Sørensen 2016).
Silent Partners: How Politicians' Facebook Communication with Constituents is Mediated
Politics & Policy, 2020
Theoretical research on political communication between Members of Parliament (MPs) and the public has focused on the role, activities, and perceptions of the MPs themselves without noting the existence of an intermediate layer: Parliamentary Assistants (PAs). This study examines the presence of PAs in the process of MPs' interactions with the public, and their PA's role in this process. The study investigates the perception that social media involves direct contact between the public and parliamentarians, raising questions regarding how communication is conducted between these two actors in political representation. The study found that PAs' social media skills and knowledge are hardly considered in the hiring process, although they play a central role in the MPs' social media connection with the public. Subjective variables generate differences in PA level of involvement operating MP social media channels. Based on these findings, a typology of PA involvement in MP social media operation is offered.
Research on political communication between MPs and the public has focused on the role, activities and perceptions of the members of parliament (MPs) themselves. However, the authors' prior research demonstrated that in fact social media necessitate a new prism through which to study such communication. The contribution of the present study is to look at this relationship through the heretofore under-researched prism of those who in fact are doing much of the actual communication (at least in Israel): the parliamentary assistants (PAs). Whereas other studies tend to focus on the communicative contents, the present research deals mainly with the behindthe-scenes processes that produce such content.
How Deeply are Parliaments Engaging on Social Media
Information Polity - vol.18, 2013
This article explores how parliaments are using social media, assessing the role this plays in public engagement. Relatively latecomers to the world of social media, parliaments have made considerable strides in the last couple of years with many now joining a platform that is still perceived as an unknown and vulnerable space for formal political institutions. We show that parliaments are using social media mainly to report parliamentary business, interacting with citizens only on the margins. We consider the extent to which this approach constitutes public engagement and explore the differences in strategy between parliamentary institutions. In our analysis we consider in particular the specificity of parliamentary institutions in their ability to use this type of tools effectively. We also reflect on the limitations and challenges these tools raise to an institution such as a parliament, namely in terms of engaging with the public. Our study includes an overview of social media accounts in parliaments across the world, being mainly based on a content analysis of a sample of Facebook and Twitter feeds from five European parliaments, supported by information drawn from elite interviews with senior parliamentary officials and representatives.
Facebooking a different campaign beat: party leaders, the press and public engagement
Media, Culture & Society
Social media are increasingly entrenched in politicians’ campaigning. Yet even as they become more ubiquitous, evidence suggests widely used platforms normalize rather than equalize the existing power dynamics of the political landscape. Our study of New Zealand’s 2017 general election uses a mixed-method approach including analysis of five Party Leaders’ (PLs) public Facebook wall posts, campaign coverage in four newspapers and interviews with Party workers and MPs. Our findings show PLs seldom interact with citizens and mostly use posts to promote campaign information. Citizens are more likely to ‘like’ a PL’s post than share or comment and there are important divergences between Party and media agendas. These findings demonstrate not only the importance of social media for Parties’ attempts to control messaging and disrupt journalistic interference, but also highlight that neither Parties nor citizens seem much invested in dialogue. However, understanding which posts excite citiz...
Political conversations on Facebook – the participation of politicians and citizens
Media, Culture & Society
Political conversations are according to theories on deliberative democracy essential to well-functioning democracies. Traditionally, these conversations have taken place in face-to-face settings, for example, in party meetings and town meetings. However, social media such as Facebook and Twitter offer new possibilities for online political conversations between citizens and politicians. This article examines the presence on Facebook and Twitter of Members of the Danish National Parliament, the Folketing, and focusses on a quantitative mapping of the political conversation activities taking place in the threads following Facebook posts from Danish Members of Parliament (MPs). The article shows that, in comparison with previous findings from other countries, Danish MPs have a relatively high degree of engagement in political conversations with citizens on Facebook – and that a large number of citizens follow MPs, read posts from the MPs and discuss politics with them and other citize...
Facing up to Facebook: politicians, publics and the social media(ted) turn in New Zealand
Media, Culture & Society, 2014
Social media have an increasingly important place in the lives of citizens, and their potential to expand the reach of communication messages beyond individual networks is attractive to those looking to maximise message efficiency. The influence of Facebook in Obama's 2008 campaign success galvanised many politicians into taking it seriously as a campaign tool. Our study explored the Facebook wall posts (1148 in total) of New Zealand Members of Parliament (MPs) leading up to the 2011 general election to determine posting behaviours and differences. Among other things, we found that women posted more frequently than men and that Labour MPs posted more than their National counterparts. Additionally, most politicians do not invite dialogue with readers of their posts, rarely get involved in comment threads and mostly take a monologic approach, using Facebook as a way of broadcasting information rather than as a medium enabling two-way flow. In other words, same old, same old.