Running head: SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

Significance of the Social Networking Site Twitter

on U.S. Presidential Elections
Jennifer M. Oppenheim
Loyola Marymount University

Author Note
This paper was prepared for CMST 204-01, Introduction to Research, taught by Professor
Darrin Murray, Fall Semester, 2013

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

Abstract
Following Obamas 2008 victory, the use of social networking sites (SNS), by presidential
candidates dramatically increased. Internet media is different from traditional media in that it
allows for a nearly real time public exchange not subject to editorial delay allowing candidates to
directly engage citizens with the goal of influencing and mobilizing them into action. This study
examines the literature to determine whether the use of SNS, as exemplified by Twitter, impacted
voter turnout in recent presidential elections. Findings indicate that there was no evidence of a
causal relationship between the use of SNS and voter turnout. Findings did indicate that SNS are
important and should not be discounted as an increasingly important method of executing
presidential campaign strategies in the future.
Keywords: presidential elections, social networking sites, Twitter

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

Significance of the Social Networking Site Twitter

on U.S. Presidential Elections
Can mass media, and specifically Internet based social networking sites (SNS), influence
the outcome of presidential elections? Politicians must think so. Since the Obama presidential
election of 2008, in which a concerted effort was made to employ SNS in many unprecedented
ways, other candidates have rushed to duplicate his results (Gulati & Williams, 2013; Smith,
2009: Wei, 2001). Specifically, the Obama Internet media campaign deployed as many as 100
Internet savvy managers to target a younger demographic known to be active on the Internet as
well as Southern African Americans who previously had a poor record of voter turnout (Vargas,
2008). Although the efforts were widely publicized, and Obama emerged victorious, the actual
contributions of Internet based media have been much debated (Abroms & Lefebvre, 2009).
Although, this paper argues that there is little evidence that the use of SNS by candidates in the
last two presidential elections has influenced voter turnout or election results, this may change in
the future. Twitter is highlighted as an example of an emerging SNS with real time capability.
Research Problem
SNS have become such a recognized part of US culture that it is easy to forget that they
represent a new wave of media. Facebook was launched less than a decade ago in 2005 and
Twitter followed a year later. SNS are unique in that the media allows both politicians and
individuals to interact and engage in political discourse in a live, virtually real time format, not
subjected to editorial delay.
In this paper we examine evidence that both supports and refutes claims that Twitter can
influence presidential election results. The backdrop of this study is both the 2008 and 2012

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

presidential elections which were costly, required massive organization and, to be successful, and
which had to communicate to potential voters an agenda that captured the nation. Within that
context we look at (1) media influence, which is the ability of mass communication to reach and
influence people; and (2) public opinion which is the aggregate of individuals attitudes and
beliefs. SNS are potentially game-changing tools in presidential campaigns, though to date,
there is no consensus on the impact of this new media on the public, especially in terms of
presidential elections. To date there have been no reports on the specific impact of Twitter on
voting turnout in presidential elections. The expanding world of SNS has established new lines
of communication between candidate and citizen and future research is needed to measure the
impact of this new dynamic on voter behavior.
Literature Review
U.S. Presidential Elections and Political Campaigning
Every four years our nation comes together on the first Tuesday in November to select
the next President of the United States. Election Day marks the end of long and oftentimes
contentious political campaigns. Political campaigns are aimed at disseminating information
with the ultimate goal of creating, influencing, and altering public attitudes (Lemert, 1981).
Presidential campaigns are wide scale operations during which managers attempt to reach and
influence the greatest number of voters in the most expeditious manner. A review of the
evolution of the use of mass media in presidential campaigns is necessary to understand how
media influences can help shape and mold campaigns, and ultimately influence voters.
Traditional mass media. Presidential campaigns have been using mass media as a
vehicle to communicate with voters for decades. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to
use mass media as discussed by Richard Ellis (Ellis, 1998). He studied the U.S. Presidency over

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

several decades and found that Roosevelts use of radio to communicate directly with the public
created a wholly new set of expectations within the mass public regarding presidential behavior
(Ellis, 1998).
The Kennedy-Nixon debates mark another landmark in political campaigning. For the
first time in history the presidential debates were nationally televised and were watched by over
70 million people. Surveys conducted immediately after the debates concluded that those
watching the debates on television considered Kennedy the winner, while those listening to the
radio considered Nixon the winner (Kraus, 2000). Some attributed the difference to Kennedys
handsome telegenic good looks and radiant charisma versus Nixons sickly, gaunt and gruff
appearance. For the first time audiences were able to judge a candidate not just on words, but on
image and non-verbal communication. Kraus (2000) in his study of the raw data supporting
those 1960 polls confirmed that the debates made all the difference to the Kennedy campaign and
highlighted the impact of the real time visual images afforded by television.
Politicians found the Kennedy victory so compelling that national political campaigns
came to depend almost entirely on television to promote presidential candidates, and televised
presidential debates became the Super Bowl of presidential elections. Since the mid- 1990s, as
electronic mass media advanced, the Internet has challenged the popularity of television as an
important means of political campaigning. Online news information sources have become an
indispensable part of the way in which Americans receive news.
Emergence of Internet based media. Ten years ago, the phrase social networking sites
was not a part of our vocabulary. Today, most are familiar with the concepts of blogs; micro
blogs (Twitter); social networks (Facebook); and media sharing sites (You Tube). Twitter and
Facebook were in their relative infancy and played no real part in political campaigning prior to

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

2008. The organized and widespread use of Internet based media by the 2008 Obama campaign
set the tone for what was to come. In his study of the 2008 presidential election, Tedesco (2011)
called 2008 the breakout year for the Internet with more than 75 million people using the web to
access political information (Tedesco, 2011). In a comprehensive survey of politicians use of
social networking sites, Hong and Nadler (2012) found that no technology has become part of
the mainstream of political campaigning with the rapidity that social media has between 2010
and 2012. In the 2006 Congressional elections less than 20% of candidates had Facebook pages,
but just 6 years later more than 90% had adopted the technology (Williams & Gulati, 2013).
Clearly online technologies and experiences have become more embedded in everyday
life. By 2011 almost 200 million people had Twitter accounts at the peak of Obamas 2008
campaign, which included his Twitter account (The Economist, 2010) to which many staffers
were dedicated. It is important to consider that social media sites such as Twitter are very unique
in that they allow direct communication without an intermediary, such as TV commentators and
moderators, or newspaper and magazine columnists. Such intermediaries are prone to
repackaging and perhaps reframing the messages for later consumption. In political campaign
context, micro blogging sites such as Twitter have become key sites of rapid response to live
political events and other time sensitive news stories. Unlike prior mass media, Facebook and
Twitter offer immediate feedback to campaigns and can potentially act as surrogate polls, often
taking on a life of their own and, at times, becoming the leading story in nightly television news.
Given the speed by which Twitter and Facebook have expanded over the last 5 years it is
easy to predict that social media will continue to evolve and that more of the population will be
using it. In 2008, the Pew Research Centers Internet and American Life Project (Pew Center)
directed a post-election survey of 2,254 adults based on telephone interviews conducted between

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

November 20, 2008, through December 4, 2008. The results of the survey showed that some
74% of internet users representing 55% of the entire adult population in the U.S. went online in
2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the presidential
election; and that 26% of all adults reported getting most of their election news from the Internet
(Smith, 2009). These are remarkable statistics and are consistent with the observation that these
new technologies are changing the way presidential campaigns are conducted.
Media Influence
Evolution of media influence. In an age where there is a high demand for information,
the media plays a crucial role in informing the public about politics, campaigns and elections.
The evolution of media influence can be characterized in terms of three main stages. The first
phase marked by the 1930s through the 1950s and was a period when media was believed to
exert considerable power exemplified by dissemination of communication and propaganda
during World War I. The second stage was shaped by the growth of mass communication and by
Professor Paul Lazarsfelds rejection of the notion that mass media has great influence. This
period was characterized by the minimal effects theory which argued that any competitive
advantage gained by politicians adoption of new media technology would be neutralized as their
competitors followed suit (Neuman & Guggenheim, 2011). The third phase presents the most
contemporary and popular view, which is that media does have a significant influence and can
actually shape the issues that the public views as important through priming, framing and agenda
setting (Entman, 1993).
Undoubtedly, there are times in which the media can and does frame the issues and the
agendas that the public views as important, and serves as the gatekeeper of the type, nature and
extent of information provided to the public How did the media come to have such influence?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

In her research, Stuckey (2000) studied the rise and fall of mainstream political parties in the
United States over the last 30 years. She found that political party machines have lost power over
this period leading to the rise of candidate-centered as opposed to party-centered campaigns.
Her evidence leads to the conclusion that in the absence of strong partisan leaders, journalists
and pundits have become the voice of political authority (Stuckey, 2000).
As an example, she points to the Sunday morning talk shows as excellent case studies.
Although these broadcasts devote a considerable amount of airtime to interviews and discussions
with political figures; significant time is also allotted to analysis by commentators and journalists
who often either interview one another, or engage in roundtables on issues they consider the
political hot topics of the day. Journalistic pundits have now become part of the political arena
and she concludes that the media exerts a powerful influence on the national agenda and on how
issues are understood and framed (Stuckey, 2000). The media can give a platform to little known
political candidates they choose to cover, or they can marginalize a candidate by providing little
media coverage. In any event, until recently the media had been the exclusive gatekeeper of the
coverage of presidential campaigns and issues.
Social networking sites the game-changer. The concept of media influence shifted in
2004 with presidential hopeful Howard Deans successful use of the Internet to fuel his campaign
thus cementing the Internets role as a future political force. Since that time SNS have exploded
and have altered the way campaign politics are understood and embraced by politicians and
citizens. One of the most important concepts is that on the SNS highway there is no gatekeeper
monitoring the content or flow of information. Additionally, in an in depth survey of the SNS
used by presidential candidates in the 2012 election Conway, Kenski and Wang (2013) concluded
that the primary benefits of SNS as a presidential campaign tool were the low costs associated

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE TWITTER

with the technology, the ability to readily recruit volunteers and raise funds, and an opportunity
for lesser known candidates to gain visibility.
In 2008, Obamas use of SNS was truly groundbreaking. In researching the Obama
campaigns impressive ability to engage and inspire supporters, Abroms and Lefebvre (2009)
looked at the scope of SNS employed by the campaign. They recorded evidence of a wellorchestrated Internet campaign highlighting the fact that the campaigns BarackTV website was
linked to the campaigns YouTube site thereby maximizing the number of users. The campaign
also embraced Facebook and MySpace; and launched Obama Mobile (for cell phones and
tablets) encouraging text messages and the use of Twitter. The actual official campaign messages,
carefully crafted by media experts, encouraged the audience to provide their own opinion on
campaign issues.

Users of this media were also rewarded with insider information throughout

the campaign, making them feel like they had a personal relationship with Obama. Of particular
historic significance was the fact that in lieu of holding a traditional press conference, Obamas
Vice Presidential pick was selectively announced in advance by text to 2.9 million subscribers
(Abroms & Lefebvre, 2009; Vargas, 2008).
Obamas team also did an excellent job of exploiting the growth of SNS among both
younger and older adults. The Pew Center has been studying online adult social networking site
use since 2005. In 2013, they again conducted telephone interviews of over 2,200 and the results
show that 72% of online adults now use SNS. Although younger adults continue to be the most
likely social media users, one of the more striking outcomes of the survey has been the
documentation that those ages 65 and older have roughly tripled their presence on social
networking sites in the last four yearsfrom 13% in the spring of 2009 to 43% in 2013. Pew
also specifically studied online adults use of Twitter and found that the percentage of Internet

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users who are on Twitter has more than doubled since November 2010, currently standing at
18% (Brenner & Smith, 2013).
Not all social media sites are equal in terms of media influence and the 2008 and 2012
presidential elections afforded researchers an excellent opportunity to study the differences. In
particular, Groshek and Al-Rawi (2013) sought to study popular and active social media sites for
the 2012 presidential election . An analysis was done of Facebook, the #election2012 hashtag,
and all other Tweets. The authors used programs such as Discover Text to scrape these sites for
key phrases and words. They also utilized the program GNIP Power Track which sweeps all
available Tweets, including historical posts back to 2006 when the site was established. The
evidence collected showed that the impact of Twitter was totally different from that of Facebook
and YouTube. This may be because Twitter is a live, real time communication with each Tweet
limited to a maximum of 140 characters, or because these Tweets reach a very large audience in
real time. In any event, the research found that the tone of communication on Twitter was more
evenly balanced towards both candidates than any other SNS. Of significance they found that
during the last 24 hours before the election, the framing that took place on the official Twitter
election channel seemed to imitate that which one would expect to see from traditional network
news (Groshek & Al-Rawi, 2013).
It appears that Twitter is representative of a type of Internet journalism that is permeating
mass media coverage, and interfacing with traditional media by augmenting coverage on many
agenda topics initiated by traditional media. The use of #hashtags and @mentions help to form
issue clusters making it easier for users to follow discussions. This was confirmed by
Ausserhofer and Maireder (2013) through their study of Twitter use in Austrias national
election. They studied 374 specific Twitter users and gathered data from Twitter trackers. They

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found Twitter to be dominated by politicians and journalists but also concluded that Twitter
facilitates links between politicians and citizens and gives ordinary citizens more opportunities to
engage in the political discourse (Ausserhofer & Maireder, 2013).
The popularity and growth of SNS has been nothing less than astounding and scholarly
research is doing its best to analyze the large amount of data that is being amassed. The
comprehensiveness of some of the data gathering techniques appears to be limited by the search
terms used to scrape Internet data. Errors to date do not seem significant, but data gathering
techniques are being scrutinized and improved on a regular basis as these technologies advance.
What is clear is that scholars recognize the importance of studying framing in the world of SNS,
especially Twitter, because it affords ordinary everyday citizens the opportunity to easily and
regularly produce online media and become part of the discourse and campaign message, unlike
traditional media with hierarchical gatekeepers.
The Framing of Public Opinion and Effects on Voting Behavior.
The predictable campaign. Over the years many scholars have studied the impact of
political campaigning on voter behavior. James Campbell, a noted political scientist, conducted
a comprehensive review of raw data, including voting habits, gathered on presidential elections
up through the 2008 campaign. From his work, Campbell (2008) developed the theory of the
Predictable Campaign. He found that over two-thirds of voters make up their minds on who to
support for president early on, and that they do not change their position through the campaign
process unless some type of unforeseen, unpredictable factor intervenes. Campbells work has
been verified by the comprehensive study of 2012 election data by Sides and Vavreck (2013)
who found that a majority of people who actually did vote knew who they would vote for a year
before the election and were not persuaded to change their votes.

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From these studies it would appear that political campaigns are aimed at targeting those
one-third of voters who are up for grabs with the hope of somehow changing the minds of some
of the early deciders. Presidential political campaigns have been using mass media in these
efforts for decades. In close elections, political campaigns can make a difference. For example,
the polls leading up to the 1960 election showed a dead heat. Public perception at that time was
that Kennedy won the televised debate that left the public with the impression that presidential
debates influence actual voting behavior. However, follow up studies with the voting public
through interviews and surveys consistently find that while people believe that presidential
debates are important, they do not significantly change which candidates the public favors
(McKinney &Warner, 2013).
Traditional media versus social media. The question thus becomes whether the new
SNS will have any greater impact on changing voting behavior than television debates,
traditional press coverage of campaigns, or TV campaign advertising. A review of the literature
suggests that scholars have engaged in vigorous debate over what effects use of SNS had on both
the 2008 and 2012 elections. Through his studies Vergeer (2012) finds no evidence to suggest
that online campaigning has had any impact in political participation. His study further found
that even though the Internet is gaining in popularity most people still get their news from
television.
Another study was conducted by Vaccari (2013) who interviewed 31 consultants and
operatives involved in the 2008 presidential race to determine the effect of Internet campaigning
on potential voters. The results indicated that online campaigning was most effective in
reinforcement and mobilization, but not necessarily voter persuasion. However, the author
acknowledged the future potential for actual persuasion as mass media and the Internet converge

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and people integrate the two into their everyday lives (Vaccari, 2013). This is consistent with the
study of Groshek and Al-Rawi (2013) who found that in many ways Twitter is starting to imitate
traditional mass media.
Zhang, Seltzer, and Bichard (2013) conducted a controlled nationwide study of adults by
using a nationwide marketing firm to investigate the effects of SNS use in the 2012 presidential
election. The study found that reliance on SNS use is positively related to both offline and
online political participation by the voting public, but may have little impact on voter turnout
(Zhang et al., 2013).
Another study was conducted by Towner (2013) who did both an online and in the field
survey of college students during the months leading up to and including the 2012 presidential
election to determine whether online usage resulted in increased political participation and
increased voter turnout. The study did find that attention to on line media led to increased
political participation among adults and was one of the first studies to determine that use of
specific SNS resulted in different levels of political engagement. For example, Twitter use was
associated with higher levels of increased participation than the use of Facebook and YouTube
(Towner, 2013). As to voter turnout the study concludes that there is virtually no evidence to
suggest that general online media use increases voter turnout (Towner, 2013).
The race is always on to influence undecided voters and sway those early deciders to
change their minds. It is still not known whether Twitter, Facebook, cell phone texting, or any of
the new media really made any difference in 2008 and 2012, as many of these voters may have
already made up their minds, or perhaps voted for Obama because he represented the first viable
African American candidate. Yet no one discounts the potential power of SNS to sway voters in
future elections.

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Critical Analysis
It is clear that scholars do not dispute the power of the media to set political agendas and
frame national issues for the public. The media has been engaging in this process for decades
and has evolved from the position of passive reporters to actual participants in framing the public
discourse. The political campaign process in America is roughly one year of increasing media
intensity until Election Day. Traditional media such as television, radio and print have been the
main lines of communication between the campaign and the electorate. Traditional media acts as
the filter or the gatekeeper of the news. If the cable stations and networks dont consider the
story newsworthy the public will never hear about it.
However, that dynamic has been turned upside down with the increasing popularity of
SNS. The statistics show that by 2008, 75% of online Americans used SNS for politics (Smith,
2013). The studies to date have focused on whether the use of SNS is tied to increases in political
involvement, mobilization, and voter turnout. In other words does the new media effect greater
influence on potential voters than traditional media.
The studies are lacking in various respects. First, most of the studies lump all SNS into
one category but not all SNS are equal as was evident from several studies that found that
individuals react differently depending upon the specific social networking site used As was
seen in the literature review, sites such as Facebook and YouTube are not good predictors of
voter involvement or sustained interest. However, Twitter, although thus far accounting for a
small portion of SNS users correlates well to increased voter participation. Possibly this is
because of Twitters unique interactive and participatory characteristics. Tweets allow for direct
contact with the candidate and the campaign managers which is not available on other such sites.

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Future research should be conducted to determine whether the personal contact afforded through
Twitter positively impacts voter turnout due to the individual nature of the communication.
Many articles reviewed here attempted to correlate usage with outcome. But correlations
are not proof of causality. For example, Obama targeted and won the Southern African American
vote easily. But he was the first viable African American to run for President, and it is quite
likely that even in the absence of an Internet, he would have done well with this group.
Another limitation in researching SNS concerns the method of data collection. As noted
above, it may be difficult to assess the reliability of these data gathering methods. For example,
with respect to Twitter and other vertical micro blogs the researchers used programs to filter out
relevant Tweets. This is done by choosing key words and employing a Boolean search
technique. Those conversant with Boolean searches opine that the choice of the key words to
search is critical to the recovery of pertinent information. It is unclear how comprehensive a
search resulted from this method of collection.
Most of our studies also failed to address the well-known fact that between one-half to
two-thirds of the voting public have already decided on a candidate well before presidential
campaigns are in full swing (Campbell, 2008). Future research should examine whether these
early deciders can be persuaded to change their minds and, if so, what type of media is most
persuasive. Many have pointed out that the SSN attract like-minded people and thus tend to
reinforce why they participated in the first place. If we wish to know whether this technology
has the potential to impact the actual results of an election process, we will need to focus on the
only group that really counts, the undecided voters, rather than those whose minds are resistant
to persuasion.

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Finally, SNS inject an unknown quantity into traditional campaigning which may be
viewed with much apprehension. Consider the example of South Korea where the National
Election Commission in South Korea banned the use of Twitter and other methods of promotion
starting 180 days prior to Election Day. Though the ban was lifted by the Constitutional Court, it
demonstrates that not everyone is comfortable with the technology at this time, regardless of
whether there is in fact any impact on election results (Vergeer, 2012).

Qualitative Research Proposal

After reviewing the literature on this topic, I propose that the following research question
should be explored:

RQ 1: Of the number of undecided voters who use social networking sites for politics
which of those sites were considered most persuasive in determining who to vote for and
why.
In order to answer this question I propose an ethnographic approach involving a survey of
diverse college students from no less than 4 colleges or universities located across the U.S. with
representatives from the West and East coasts as well as the Mid-West and South. The students
would be administered a questionnaire 3 times before the presidential election the first in
January, the second in June and the third just prior to the November election.
The first questionnaire would ask whether or not the respondent had decided who to vote
for in the presidential election. Those individuals responding in the affirmative would be asked to
identify their candidate and indicate which one of the following sources was most influential in
making the decision: friends and family, newspapers and magazines, talk radio, television

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17

(including debates); specific websites such as Facebook, political blogs, YouTube and Twitter.
There would also be an option to write in any other source. If more than one source was
identified the respondent would be asked to rank the selections by giving the most influential site
a 1 and so forth.
If the respondent indicated he/she were undecided, they would then be asked to identify
all online media sources used for politics and the frequency of the contacts. Subsequent surveys
would use virtually the same questionnaires but those respondents who had indicated that they
were undecided in the prior questionnaire would be asked if they remained decided and whether
they had, at any time since the last survey, considered switching or crystalizing candidate
support. If the individual responded in the affirmative he or she would be asked to identify the
sources that had contributed to such decision. If the decided voters had changed candidates they
would be asked to identify which of the sources identified above contributed to their change of
mind and why. It is anticipated that as the year progressed more and more undecided voters
would change to decided. Those participants changing candidate allegiance would be asked to
explain the reasons for their decision. The goal is to determine how many early deciders either
switched support from one candidate to another, or considered such a switch and, if so, which
media sources influenced the decision making process and why.

Quantitative Research Proposal

Based on the evaluation of the literature on this topic, the following hypothesis is
proposed:

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H1: When potential voters use Twitter for political discourse their likelihood of voting in
the presidential election is greater than those potential voters who use Facebook.
The independent variable, media effect, is operationally defined as Twitter and Facebook.
The dependent variable in this study is public opinion and is operationally defined as voter
turnout. In order to test this hypothesis, an online survey of potential voters would be distributed
by an independent survey company. The survey will ask the respondents whether they use either
Facebook, Twitter or both. They will then be asked to indicate their frequency of use of each
website and if they used both sites would be asked to select a preference between the two. The
respondents will also be asked if they intend to vote in the presidential election, and a follow-up
survey after the election will ask each respondent to confirm that they actually did vote.
It is anticipated that the survey results will be instrumental in determining whether
Twitter actually has more impact on voter turnout than other types of social media.

Conclusion
There is agreement that the utilization of SNS technology, including Twitter, is becoming
more prevalent with time. However, the current consensus seems to be that it has not yet
actually impacted an election outcome. This may be because there are not yet enough users who
are undecided voters willing to accept new ideas and act on it. Or it may be that we have not yet
developed the analytical tools to detect a significant effect on voters. As Vaccari (2013) pointed
out, the absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence. Because the technology is evolving
and will be fine tuned by future campaigns, and because the population is becoming more
Internet able, we will have many future opportunities to study the possibilities and to better
define the more subtle effects of SNS on political participation.

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