Personalization, social media, and voting: Effects of candidate self-personalization on vote intention. (March 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McGregor, Shannon C
• Is Part Of: New media & society. Volume 20:Number 3(2018)
• Page Start: 1139
• Page End: 1160
• Publication Date: 2018-03
• Subjects: Candidate communication -- electoral studies -- experimental methods -- parasocial interaction -- personalization -- social media -- social presence; Mass media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Mass media and culture -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Internet -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.2305
• DOI: 10.1177/1461444816686103
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-4448

Abstract

Scholars have documented growth in media coverage and popular discourse focusing on politicians' personal lives— personalization . Candidates use social media and personalization to circumvent mainstream news media, disrupting conventional processes. This personalization arguably increases voters' reliance on personal characteristics as voting heuristics. An online experiment exposed more than a thousand US adults to personalized or policy/campaigning tweets from a male or female US Senator running for re-election. Candidates who personalized elicited higher evaluations of social presence and parasocial interaction. For female candidates who shared a supported party with a respondent, personalization leads to feelings of perceived presence and parasocial interaction. Ultimately, the feelings of intimacy created by personalized tweets led respondents to express support for personalizing candidates, but this effect is contingent upon the gender and in-party status of the candidate.