IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i15p5997-d389887.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Political Social Media Marketing: Effects of Structural Features in Plain Text Messages

Author

Listed:
  • Byungho Park

    (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Seoul 02455, Korea)

  • Moon Young Kang

    (Department of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, College of Business Administration, Soongsil University, Seoul 06978, Korea)

  • Jiwon Lee

    (Kim & Chang, Seoul 03170, Korea)

Abstract

The success of Barack Obama’s 2008 U.S. presidential campaign led politicians and voters all over the world to pay attention to social media. Including Donald Trump for his upcoming 2020 re-election, many politicians around the world have used social media for their political campaigns. While some social media can deliver information in various forms (i.e., video, audio, and interactive content), some popular ones, such as Twitter, are still focused mostly on plain text messaging. With political marketing using simple text messages via social media, there is a need to examine ways of creating messages that ultimately help shape voters’ perception of politicians and eventually win the election. Based on communication science, this study attempts to test the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing by examining whether this model can be applied to the simplest form of mediated message, which is plain text. In order to do so, structural features of text messages exchanged on social media engaged in political campaigns, namely linguistic formality and network-mediated human interactivity, are manipulated in an experiment. Findings suggest that linguistic formality and human interaction in plain text messages influence perceived friendliness, truthfulness, and dependability of the message source (politicians), as well as the receivers’ (constituents’) behavioral intent to vote for the message source in an upcoming election. This implies that politicians should pay more attention on sustainable political marketing through appropriate manipulation of structural features in social media messages.

Suggested Citation

  • Byungho Park & Moon Young Kang & Jiwon Lee, 2020. "Sustainable Political Social Media Marketing: Effects of Structural Features in Plain Text Messages," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-10, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:5997-:d:389887
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/5997/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/5997/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barry Wellman, 2001. "Physical Place and Cyberplace: The Rise of Personalized Networking," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 227-252, June.
    2. David Sally, 1995. "Conversation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas," Rationality and Society, , vol. 7(1), pages 58-92, January.
    3. Jung‐ran Park, 2008. "Linguistic politeness and face‐work in computer mediated communication, Part 2: An application of the theoretical framework," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(14), pages 2199-2209, December.
    4. Levitt, Steven D, 1994. "Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 777-798, August.
    5. William Welch, 1974. "The economics of campaign funds," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 83-97, December.
    6. Hwanho Choi, 2018. "Broadcasting and Telecommunications Industries in the Convergence Age: Toward a Sustainable Public-Centric Public Interest," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-15, February.
    7. Moon Young Kang & Byungho Park, 2018. "Sustainable Corporate Social Media Marketing Based on Message Structural Features: Firm Size Plays a Significant Role as a Moderator," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    8. Jacobson, Gary C., 1978. "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 469-491, June.
    9. Wilson, Jeanne M. & Straus, Susan G. & McEvily, Bill, 2006. "All in due time: The development of trust in computer-mediated and face-to-face teams," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 16-33, January.
    10. Chi Feng & Yang Nathan, 2011. "Twitter Adoption in Congress," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-46, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pejman Ebrahimi & Datis Khajeheian & Maria Fekete-Farkas, 2021. "A SEM-NCA Approach towards Social Networks Marketing: Evaluating Consumers’ Sustainable Purchase Behavior with the Moderating Role of Eco-Friendly Attitude," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-21, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Enrique García Viñuela & Joaquín Artés Caselles, 2008. "Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 177-190, June.
    2. Dennis Coates, 1998. "Additional incumbent spending really can harm (at least some) incumbents: An analysis of vote share maximization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 63-87, April.
    3. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    4. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," Sciences Po publications 2021-08, Sciences Po.
    5. Jeffrey Milyo, 1998. "The Electoral Effects of Campaign Spending in House Elections: A Natural Experiment Approach," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 9806, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    6. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1dp7827s4n8ht8fk3qhmeuvd0o is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Filip Palda & Kristian Palda, 1998. "The impact of campaign expenditures on political competition in the French legislative elections of 1993," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 157-174, January.
    9. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel Wilner, 2022. "The petit effect of campaign spending on votes: using political financing reforms to measure spending impacts in multiparty elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 29-57, July.
    10. Thomas Stratmann, 2006. "Contribution limits and the effectiveness of campaign spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 461-474, December.
    11. Abel François & Michael Visser & Lionel WILNER, 2016. "Campaign spending and legislative election outcomes: Exploiting the French political financing reforms of the mid-1990s," Working Papers 2016-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    12. Kenneth Benoit & Michael Marsh, 2008. "The Campaign Value of Incumbency: A New Solution to the Puzzle of Less Effective Incumbent Spending," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 874-890, October.
    13. Stuart Nagel, 1981. "Optimally allocating campaign expenditures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 159-164, January.
    14. Christopher Magee, 2000. "Why Do Political Action Committees Give Money to Candidates? Campaign Contributions, Policy Choices, and Election Outcomes," Macroeconomics 0004038, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    16. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.
    17. Cagé, Julia & Bekkouche, Yasmine, 2018. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," CEPR Discussion Papers 12614, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Yogesh Uppal, 2010. "Estimating Incumbency Effects In U.S. State Legislatures: A Quasi‐Experimental Study," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 180-199, July.
    19. Bombardini, Matilde & Trebbi, Francesco, 2011. "Votes or money? Theory and evidence from the US Congress," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 587-611, August.
    20. Eric Dunaway & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2020. "Campaign contributions and policy convergence: asymmetric agents and donations constraints," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 429-461, September.
    21. Sung-Kyu Lee, 2013. "The Effects of Election Advertising Spending and Incumbency on the General Election Results in Great Britain," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 3, pages 97-118, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:5997-:d:389887. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.