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The power of social media to influence politics is one of the narratives of our time ā Obamaās US presidential win in 2008 was hailed as the and the debate over . But can social media messaging really make up or change minds on an issue as unemotive as whether the UK should stay in the European Union?
Campaigners think itās worth a punt. Paul Stephenson, communications director of the campaign group Vote Leave, says Facebook is the prime social media platform. āThereās a massive bias towards Facebook; we think Twitter is more of an echo chamber for Westminster and journalists,ā he says. āBoth campaigns have Ā£7 million to spend and weāll be putting a significant chunk of that in Facebookā.
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On the face of it itās a good bet. In the 2015 UK general election, the Conservatives spent Ā£1.3 million on Facebook adverts, targeting people who lived in the 40 constituencies they needed for a majority. Before the vote, everything pointed to a hung parliament, with the Labour party likely to be the largest party. On the night, the Tories came out on top.
Speaking at you
But despite the myriad start-ups that analyse what likes, shares and comments really mean, itās hard to find out whether this converts to votes. In the case of the 2015 campaign, āall we can do is correlate Facebook spend with the results in those seats that were targetedā, says Darren Lilleker at Bournemouth University, UK.
And doing well on social media doesnāt always lead to a win. In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Yes campaign was ahead on social media throughout ā and lost.
Graeme Baxter of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK, studied the campaignsā social media during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. He says politicians on both sides werenāt using social mediaās full power. In general, he says, campaigns often use it as a broadcast platform. But a monologue tends to appeal only to those who already agree with everything a campaign is saying. It ignores social mediaās potential to draw voters into a richer two-way conversation ā the digital equivalent of door-to-door canvassing.
āCampaigns tend to post something and thatās the extent of their involvement,ā says Baxter. āItās rare for political actors to make further points and clarify. Itās very much one way.ā
Friend effect
Stephenson says Leave does respond to direct messages but not to all the posts people put on their feed: āThat would be impossible!ā
The reticence may also be down to the fact that something said in response to an individual could get rebroadcast across the web and sound inappropriate. āThere have been so many high-profile faux pas over the years, I can understand why some are reluctant,ā says Baxter.
Perhaps the biggest input of social media will be to draw in people who havenāt been thinking about the referendum ā whether thatās via campaign content that people share and Facebook promotes, or via friendsā own grassroots endorsements. āThere will be an element of accidental exposure,ā says Lilleker, which could push people who hadnāt considered voting to vote.
Friends can put information in front of us we may not have sought out ourselves, says Nigel Jackson who studies political persuasion at Plymouth University, UK. He says that friends are one of the most powerful influences on who we vote for.
