Exploring the Social Media Impact of Voting Advice Apps: A Case Study on the Representation of the Wahl-O-Mat on Twitter

Fischer, Moritz; Tschochohei, Philipp; Anders, Laura; Breuer, Kimberly Dana; Carrillo, Alejandro Hermida; Diefenbach, Sarah

doi:10.1515/icom-2017-0028

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Completing a VAA could potentially have effects beyond an increase in citizens' level of political knowledge or their likelihood to turn out to vote; it may also affect their propensity to consume or produce political information (Mahéo, 2017). Being more familiar with the structure of political competition could boost interest in the election, leading to an increase in visits to news websites; or it may even encourage the sharing of political positions on social media (Fischer et al, 2017).…”

Section: Information Search and Social Media Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data

Munzert¹,

Guess²,

Barberá³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which provide citizens with information on the party that best represents their political preferences, are often cited as evidence of the empowering capabilities of digital tools. Aside from the informational benefits of these voter guides, observational studies have suggested a strong effect on political participation and vote choice. However, existing impact evaluations have been limited by a reliance on convenience samples, lack of random assignment, or both. This raises questions about self-selection and the precise mechanisms underlying how voters learn about politics. Here, we provide evidence from a field experiment with survey outcomes conducted with a sample of over 1,000 German citizens in the 2017 federal election campaign. Using linked panel survey and digital trace data combined with a randomized encouragement to complete a VAA, we are able to assess respondents’ compliance with treatment as well as to observe how the use of this tool affects political behavior, attitudes, media consumption, political knowledge, and even social media activity. Our findings reveal that the overwhelming consensus in favor of positive effects on turnout and vote choice should be treated with caution, as we find no such effects. Rather, we show that the actual virtue of VAAs in a complex online information environment is in increasing knowledge about parties’ positions on issues - exactly the kind of information these tools were designed to provide.

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Section: Information Search and Social Media Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data

Munzert¹,

Guess²,

Barberá³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Their designs share a common feature of a set of important policy issues, questions for users to identify their attitude on these issues, party positions and matching information for a user with political parties (Liao et al, 2016;Marschall and Garzia, 2014;Mendez, 2012;Wall et al, 2012). The recent rapid developments in information communication technologies strengthen VAAs to be convenient, interactive and progressive (Fischer, 2017;Garzia et al, 2017;Hirzalla et al, 2011). Given that the VAAs fill the informational gap, voters are expected to be better engaged in political affairs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strengthening voter competence through voting advice applications: an experimental study of the iVoter in Taiwan

Liao

Chiou

Jang

et al. 2020

AEDS

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PurposeDrawing on cognitive theories of information and democracy, this paper argues that carefully designed voting advice applications (VAAs) strengthen voter competence by matching voters’ preferences on important policy issues with parties' relevant positions on those issues.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the causal effect of information acquisition on voting willingness, we employed a lab experiment on the pioneering VAA program in Taiwan: iVoter. Our participants consisted of 120 undergraduates who were randomly assigned to be treated (two groups) or controlled (one group). Each participant of the respective treatment groups was provided with full or partial information. The purpose was to identify the ideological distance between the participant and the respective political parties. Individuals in the control group did not receive the respective information prior to their decision on whether to vote or not.FindingsThose who received full relevant information were most willing to vote in the forthcoming elections. We furthermore found VAA utilization to be positively associated with other aspects of democracy, such as political enthusiasm, civic duty and political efficacy.Originality/valueThis paper aims to contribute to the development of VAAs and to democracy as a whole by confirming a causal link between receiving relevant information and voting willingness.

show abstract

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens?

Munzert

Barberá

Guess

et al. 2020

Public Opinion Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), which provide citizens with information on the party that best represents their political preferences, are often cited as evidence of the empowering capabilities of digital tools. Aside from the informational benefits of these voter guides, observational studies have suggested a strong effect on political participation and vote choice. However, existing impact evaluations have been limited by a reliance on convenience samples, lack of random assignment, or both. This raises questions about self-selection and the precise mechanisms underlying how voters learn about politics. Here, we provide evidence from a field experiment with survey outcomes conducted with a sample of over 1,000 German citizens in the 2017 federal election campaign. Using linked panel survey and digital trace data combined with a randomized encouragement to complete a VAA, we assess respondents’ compliance with treatment and observe how the use of this tool affects political behavior, attitudes, media consumption, political knowledge, and even social media activity. Our findings reveal that the overwhelming consensus in favor of positive effects on turnout and vote choice should be treated with caution, as we find no such effects. Rather, the actual virtue of VAAs in a complex online information environment lies in increasing knowledge about parties’ positions on issues—exactly the kind of information these tools were designed to provide.

show abstract

Exploring the Social Media Impact of Voting Advice Apps: A Case Study on the Representation of the Wahl-O-Mat on Twitter

Cited by 3 publications

References 8 publications

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens? Evidence from a Field Experiment with Digital Trace Data

Strengthening voter competence through voting advice applications: an experimental study of the iVoter in Taiwan

Do Online Voter Guides Empower Citizens?

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