The Role of Twitter in Mobilizing Voter Turnout During Local Elections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37899/mjds.v1i2.44Keywords:
Voter Mobilization, Twitter Campaigns, Local Elections, Social Media Influence, Political EngagementAbstract
The purpose of this study is to conduct an investigation about how Twitter affected the mobilization of voters to vote when it comes to the local elections. Using a mixed-methods design we were able to provide both a quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative research was conducted through the analysis of the content of 3000 tweets located related to the election and the survey of 500 participants which aims to measure the use of Twitter as an information source in politics and the impact on the voting intentions. The interviews and the case study of the mayoral election in a large city in Indonesia were conducted among the politicians, the campaigns, and the voters who participated in the qualitative analysis complemented by the in-depth interviews. According to the results provided by the content analysis, the influencer endorsements had the highest engagement rates, as they were not as numerous but still very efficient, and direct calls to action were rather effective as well. The results of the survey showed that most of the people surveyed used Twitter as a source of political information frequently and were compelled to vote as a result of their engagement in Twitter. Interviews pointed to the value of the immediate interaction during the time and support of the influencers to raise the profile of a campaign and turnout among the voters. According to the case study, voter turnout increased significantly as the use of Twitter in the campaigning strategy was intensive. These results indicate that Twitter can effectively be relied on to drive voters out, with careful placement of content and use of interconnections as major determinants of successful campaigns. These experiences can be used to provide some recommendations to future political campaigns that can use Twitter to attract voters and to increase voter turnout.
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