mediating role of viral communication in the effect of political marketing on political consent: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Political communication is one of the important areas affected by technological developments today. As a matter of fact, it is observed that political parties commonly use viral marketing, a type of word-of-mouth marketing, in their campaigns conducted within the scope of political marketing. This study aims to investigate the impact of political marketing on both viral communication and political consent. Additionally, it seeks to analyze the relationship between viral communication and political consent to determine if there is a noteworthy influence. Generation Z constitutes the universe of the research in this study. In the context of this study, an examination of the data gathered from 511 participants through online research was undertaken to explore and analyze the interconnections between various variables. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed, utilizing statistical package programs for data analysis. The findings revealed that there was no statistically significant impact of political marketing on both viral communication and political consent. Conversely, it was established that there exists a statistically significant and extremely strong influence of viral communication on political consent. Based on these results, it can be said that viral communication activities can make a significant contribution to the implementation of marketing strategies.