Social Media and Political Accountability : Bridging the Gap Between Citizens and Politicians

"This book illustrates how social media platforms enable us to understand everyday politics and evaluates the extent to which they can foster accountability, transparency and responsiveness. The first part focuses on accountability and tests whether the offline behavior of politicians is consistent with their online declarations, showing that textual analysis of politicians' messages is useful to explain phenomena such as endorsements, party splits and appointments to cabinet. The second part concerns responsiveness. By means of sentiment analysis, it investigates the shape of the interaction between citizens and politicians determining whether politicians' behavior is influenced by the pressure exerted on social media both on policy and non-policy issues. Finally, the book evaluates whether a responsive behavior is successful in restoring online political trust, narrowing the gap between voters and political elites. The book will be of use to students, scholars and practitioners interested in party organization, intra-party politics, legislative politics, social media analysis and political communication, as well as politicians themselves"-- Provided by publisher Social Media and Political Accountability 3 Acknowledgments 5 Contents 7 Abbreviations 9 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 1 Social Media, Political Institutions and the Principal–Agent Dilemma 13 Introduction 13 The Rise of (Research on) Social Media 17 Social Media and Political Accountability: A Theoretical Framework 23 Plan of the Book 33 Notes 35 2 Research Design and Methods 36 Research Design and Case Studies 39 Strengths and Weaknesses of Social Media Analysis 43 The Four Principles of Text Analysis 46 Automated Text Analysis: Wordfish 47 Supervised Aggregated Sentiment Analysis 50 Notes 55 3 Endorsements in Primary Elections 56 Estimating Policy Positions from Social Media 57 Social Media in the Run-up to the 2012 Center-Left Primary Election 61 Factionalism within the Democratic Party 62 Text Analysis of Party Factions 64 Endorsements and Criticism of Party Leaders 66 Endorsements: Literature and Hypotheses 67 Attacks against Primary Candidates: Literature and Hypotheses 68 Endorsements: Analysis and Results 70 Attacks against Primary Candidates: Analysis and Results 72 Discussion 74 Notes 74 4 Ministerial Selection: Twitter as a Signal? 76 The Letta Cabinet 77 The Renzi Cabinet 80 Literature on Recruitment Pools and Politicians’ Careers 81 Ministerial Selection: Theory and Hypotheses 83 Text Analysis of Party in Central Office 87 Analysis of Letta Cabinet 91 Analysis of the Renzi Cabinet 94 Discussion 96 Notes 98 5 Parliamentary Behavior: Rebels and Switchers 99 Text Analysis of Italian Politicians’ and MPs’ Comments 100 Literature on Switching and Fissions 102 Factions, Fission and Switch in the Aftermath of 2013 Elections 103 Literature on Unity in Parliamentary Votes 105 Rebels Online, Rebels in Parliament: Dissent in RCVs 109 Discussion 112 Notes 113 6 “Competing Principals” 2.0? The Pressure of SNS Users 114 Facebook and the Selection of the Italian Head of State in 2013 114 The Failure of Franco Marini: All Because of Facebook? 117 SNS Pressure and Dissent on Marini’s Candidacy 119 The (Partial) Irrelevance of Facebook 123 Voting on the Civil Unions Bill: Do Politicians Follow their Followers? 126 To Resign or Not to Resign? The “Fertility Day” Crisis 133 Notes 139 7 Social Media, Collective Action and Public Policy 142 Online Participation and Public Policy 143 Online Collective Action and Public Policy 145 Sentiment Analysis and Public Policies across the Policy Cycle 147 Three Applications of Sentiment Analysis to Public Policies 149 Rating Policy Alternatives: The Online Debate on the “Jobs Act” 151 Discussion 160 Notes 163 8 Restoring Online Political Trust 166 Online Political Trust and the Public Funding of Political Parties 166 Restoring Online Trust in Politics 172 Online Trust: Hypothesis 175 Online Trust: Analysis and Results 179 Discussion 185 Notes 187 9 Social TV and Political Talk Shows: Empowering the Audience? 188 Pluralism and Anti-political Attitudes in Political Talk Shows 189 Pluralism: Results and Findings 193 Editors, Anchormen and “Videomalaise” 198 Notes 203 10 Conclusion: A Sentiment Democracy? 205 A Virtual Public Sphere? 205 Governing with Sentiment 206 Accountability, Responsiveness, Transparency 210 Party Politics and SNS: Directions for Future Research 214 Notes 218 References 219 Index 240 This text illustrates how social media platforms enable us to understand everyday politics and evaluates the extent to which they can foster accountability, transparency and responsiveness. The first part focuses on accountability and tests whether the offline behaviour of politicians is consistent with their online declarations, showing that textual analysis of politicians' messages is useful to explain phenomena such as endorsements, party splits and appointments to cabinet. The second part concerns responsiveness. By means of sentiment analysis, it investigates the shape of the interaction between citizens and politicians determining whether politicians' behaviour is influenced by the pressure exerted on social media both on policy and non-policy issues. Finally, the book evaluates whether a responsive behaviour is successful in restoring online political trust Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Social Media, Political Institutions and the Principal–Agent Dilemma....Pages 1-23 Research Design and Methods....Pages 25-44 Endorsements in Primary Elections....Pages 45-64 Ministerial Selection: Twitter as a Signal?....Pages 65-87 Parliamentary Behavior: Rebels and Switchers....Pages 89-103 “Competing Principals” 2.0? The Pressure of SNS Users....Pages 105-132 Social Media, Collective Action and Public Policy....Pages 133-156 Restoring Online Political Trust....Pages 157-178 Social TV and Political Talk Shows: Empowering the Audience?....Pages 179-195 Conclusion: A Sentiment Democracy?....Pages 197-210 Back Matter....Pages 211-236 Social Media, Political Institutions, And The Principal-agent Model -- Research Design And Methods -- Endorsements In Primary Elections -- Ministerial Selection : Twitter As Signal? -- Parliamentary Behavior : Rebels And Switchers -- Competing Principals 2.0? : The Pressure Of Sns Users -- Social Media, Collective Action, And Public Policy -- Restoring Online Political Trust -- Social Tv And Political Talk Shows : Empowering The Audience? -- A Sentiment Democracy?. Andrea Ceron. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.