The Crisis in Public Communication and the Pursuit of Authenticity: An Analysis of the Twitter Feeds of Scottish MPs 2008-2010

Margaretten, Mark Stuart; Gaber, Ivor

doi:10.1093/pa/gss043

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Studies have then stabilized and centralized around a homogeneous group of scholars. & Lilleker, 2009;Jackson & Lilleker, 2011;Baxter & Marcella, 2012Broersma & Graham, 2012;Adi et al, 2014;Graham et al, 2014;Margaretten & Gaber, 2014;Engesser et al, 2016;Lilleker et al, 2016;Shephard & Quinlan, 2016;Ampofo et al, 2011;Kim & Yoo, 2012;Anstead & O'Loughlin, 2015;Di Fatta et al, 2015;Gaber, 2016;Jensen, 2016;USA Lassen & Brown, 2010;Shogan, 2010;Chi & Yang, 2011;Hong & Nadler, 2011Livne et al, 2011;Mascaro et al, 2012;Parmelee, Bichard, 2012;Peterson, 2012;Adams & McCorkindale, 2013;Caplan, 2013;Christensen, 2013;Conway et al, 2013Conway et al, , 2015Goodnow, 2013;Hanna et al, 2013;Hemphill et al, 2013;Hong, 2013;LaMarre & Suzuki-Lambrecht, 2013;Mirer & Bode, 2013;Settle et Shamma et al, 2009;Diakopoulos & Shamma, 2010;…”

Section: Data Analysis (1): Who Where When?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It should be pointed out, however, that these are heuristic distinctions. Empirical studies show that generalizations are inappropriate and the use of Social Networks varies greatly among users (Small, 2010;Jackson & Lilleker, 2011;Macnamara, 2011;Aragón et al, 2013;Bruns & Highfield, 2013;Vaccari & Valeriani, 2013;Adi et al, 2014;Ahmed & Skoric, 2014;Margaretten & Gaber, 2014;Raynauld & Greenberg, 2014;Jaidka & Ahmed, 2015).…”

Section: The Communicative Stylementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Political communication in Social Networks Election campaigns and Digital Data Analysis: A Bibliographic Review

Corchia

2019

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The outcomes of a bibliographic review on political communication, in particular electoral communication in social networks, are presented here. The electoral campaigning are a crucial test to verify the transformations of the media system and of the forms and uses of the linguistic acts by dominant actors in public spherecandidates, parties, journalists and Gatekeepers. The aim is to reconstruct the first elements of an analytical model on the transformations of the political public sphere, with which to systematize the results of the main empirical research carried out in recent years, in particular those conducted with a promising methodology: Digital Trace Data Analysis.

show abstract

Section: Data Analysis (1): Who Where When?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Communicative Stylementioning

confidence: 99%

Political communication in Social Networks Election campaigns and Digital Data Analysis: A Bibliographic Review

Corchia

2019

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is not to say that they do not face unique challenges. Spin-fatigue and skepticism about their motives mean that politicians are met with "a wall of suspicion" when communicating with the public (Coleman & Wright, 2008; see also Bakir & Barlow, 2007;Margaretten & Gaber, 2012). In the United States, the public has never been less convinced of the authenticity of their politicians (Jones, 2016).…”

Section: Political Authenticity and Texts Of The Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research into political authenticity on social media has so far been focused upon the content of rather than the form of politicians' posts. Margaretten and Gaber (2012) have argued for the importance of self-disclosure, such as talking about a favorite TV program, as a way of cultivating an authentic persona (see also Grow & Ward, 2013). These kinds of personal details provide "symbolic indicators of their ordinariness" (Coleman & Wright, 2008, p. 2) and help to present politicians as down-to-earth.…”

Section: Political Authenticity and Texts Of The Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Semiotics of Authenticity: Indexicality in Donald Trump’s Tweets

Shane

2018

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do you produce an authentic self on social media? This question is increasingly critical for modern politicians, as authenticity plays an ever-more prominent role in Western elections. In the United Kingdom, the political environment has been characterized as "the battle for authenticity" (Moore, 2017), while the 2016 US presidential election was widely dubbed as "the authenticity election" (Richman, 2015; Sargent, 2015; Zimmer, 2015). Many voters now prize authenticity as more important than policies (Echelon Insights, 2015). As politicians turn to social media to create an authentic persona to appeal to voters, understanding how authenticity is produced on these platforms is increasingly urgent. As has been noted for some time, any self-presentation on social media comes down to the deployment of verbal and nonverbal cues (Marwick, 2005; Papacharissi, 2011). Using the right emoji, punctuation, cultural reference, or selfie can be the difference between constructing an authentic persona and being renounced as a fake. Social media is an environment where intense scrutiny is applied to minute presentational cues (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006; Salisbury & Pooley, 2017). This means that individuals, politicians included, must engage in sophisticated semiotic strategies to be viewed as authentic. However, research into political authenticity on social media is yet to address the semiotic components of politicians' self-presentation. Critical attention has so far focused on how perceived authenticity is influenced by messages' content (e.g., Dumitrica, 2014; Grow & Ward, 2013), but is yet to explore the formal architecture that these messages inhabit. With the role of authenticity cues being highlighted in other contexts, such as vloggers' use of amateurish features (e.g., Abidin, 2017), and researchers advocating a semiotic approach to political authenticity for some time (e.g., van Leeuwen, 2001), an account of the role of cues in political authenticity is overdue. To address this critical gap, I undertake a close reading of Donald Trump's tweets during the 2016 presidential election 800315S MSXXX10.

show abstract

“…However, it is because of this very embodiment that the social media in general and Twitter in particular has been much utilised by politicians to establish their own 'authenticity' (Margaretten and Gaber, 2014;Enli 2015aEnli , 2015b. Enli talks about politicians attempting to establish their own 'ordinariness' by allowing voters 'glimpses from the private sphere' (Enli 2015a: 137).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twitter

Gaber

2016

Convergence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 2015 General Election in the UK was the first to take place in the UK with Twitter as an important part of the social media landscape. This pilot project looked at 16 constituencies along England's South Coast in order to investigate what impact, if any, Twitter had had on the campaign and the result and to investigate the efficacy, or otherwise, of using Twitter as a tool for studying election campaigns in terms of candidate and local party activism. On the basis of an analysis of almost half a million tweets the analysis concluded that there appeared to be a correlation between the rate at which parties and/or candidates responded to incoming tweets and their relative electoral performance but this was not demonstrable for all parties (it applied in particular to Labour and UKIP candidates). In addition, high rates of reply also appeared to have a positive impact on constituency turnout figures. The findings are not yet conclusive but suggest that Twitter could be a good indicator of general levels of local party activism. The research also sought to understand how candidates used Twitter differently and established a number of candidate 'classifiers'. It also investigated the issues agenda that was dominating Twitter conversations during the campaign and found that Twitter's agenda was closer to the public's than was that of the national media. The research also monitored the regional and local media in the 16 constituencies and discovered that their issues agenda was closer still to the public's. Overall it is difficult to conclude that Twitter had a major impact on the election campaign.

show abstract

The Crisis in Public Communication and the Pursuit of Authenticity: An Analysis of the Twitter Feeds of Scottish MPs 2008-2010

Cited by 24 publications

References 12 publications

Political communication in Social Networks Election campaigns and Digital Data Analysis: A Bibliographic Review

Political communication in Social Networks Election campaigns and Digital Data Analysis: A Bibliographic Review

The Semiotics of Authenticity: Indexicality in Donald Trump’s Tweets

Twitter

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About