Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, 2012
This article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency betting markets in... more This article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency betting markets in each of the UK's 650 constituencies into national-level predictions of parties' seat shares for the 2010 House of Commons election. We argue that information from betting markets is highly disaggregated (offering candidate-level predictions), adjustable throughout the campaign, and free to access – meaning that such data should be a useful resource for electoral forecasters. However, we find that constituency-market gambling data from the site Betfair.com proved to be a relatively poor basis for predicting party seat shares, and we also find evidence suggesting that the data were systematically biased in several ways. Nonetheless, we argue that future research in this area should compensate for these biases to harness the potential of constituency prediction markets for electoral forecasting.
In this paper we seek to shed light on how Internet-based newsgathering affects voting behaviour ... more In this paper we seek to shed light on how Internet-based newsgathering affects voting behaviour in the context of EU referenda by analysing data from an original survey commissioned for the May 31st 2012 Fiscal Treaty referendum in the Republic of Ireland. We assess whether online newsgathering in the run-up to the vote impacts vote choice by disentangling the mechanism that connects online-based information consumption, knowledge of relevant political facts and voting behaviour. We then investigate whether different types of websites produce different effects and how these processes are conditioned by pre-existing attitudes towards Europe. We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, the content of websites matter in influencing voting behaviour. We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, our results suggest that at the aggregate level respondents who browsed the web to gather information on the referendum were more likely to vote ‘no’ than those who did not, ceteris paribus. Finally, our findings indicate that the content of a website matters in influencing voting behaviour.
"This paper examines whether voters‟ use of the Internet as a source of political news affects th... more "This paper examines whether voters‟ use of the Internet as a source of political news affects the extent to which they are certain of their vote choice in national-level elections. We employ data pertaining to the 2011 general election in Ireland, linking geographical information on broadband coverage with individual-level public opinion data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study. The resultant dataset allows us to
adopt a quasi-experimental approach in our examination of the effectsof online political newsgathering on voters‟ electoral uncertainty. Implementing instrumental variables, we find consistent evidence of a causal relationship between use of the Internet as a source of political information and increased levels of political uncertainty among voters, ceteris paribus.Our findings are robust to a range of model specifications and alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables."
We present a novel approach to the study of campaign effectiveness using disaggregated spending r... more We present a novel approach to the study of campaign effectiveness using disaggregated spending returns from the 2007 Irish general election. While previous studies have focused on overall levels of expenditure as a predictor of electoral success, we consider the types of activities on which candidates spent money and the overall diversification of candidates’ campaign expenditure as predictors of electoral success. We offer a replicable framework for the measurement of campaign diversification as well as for the evaluation of its effects on electoral performance. We examine how factors such as campaign expenditure and candidates’ incumbency status condition the effects of campaign diversification. It is shown that diversification is only related to electoral success when campaigns are well-financed.
This article focuses on the usefulness of a novel source of data for forecasting party seat share... more This article focuses on the usefulness of a novel source of data for forecasting party seat shares in the UK’s 2010 legislative elections. Forecasters of this property face what we call the ‘votes-to-seats’ problem, due to the operation of the Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral system. We review existing approaches to this problem and argue that a new data source – constituency-level estimates of each candidate’s likelihood of winning their seat available from online betting markets – could potentially allow forecasters to elide the votes-to-seats problem. The article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency-level betting markets in each of the UK’s 650 constituencies into aggregate, national-level predictions of parties’ seat shares. The accuracy and volatility of forecasts produced from constituency-market gambling data from the site Betfair.com proved to be a poor source for predicting the elections, and were systematically biased in several ways. Nonetheless, we argue that future research in this area should compensate for these biases to harness the potential of constituency prediction markets for electoral forecasting.
ABSTRACT This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in ... more ABSTRACT This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the Republic of Ireland and seeks to evaluate whether parties' organizational structures influence the manner in which they present themselves online. Ireland has been chosen as a research environment because there is significant variation among political parties in the political system in terms of size, age, ideological coherence and organizational structure. Ireland is also an interesting test case for the evolution of politicized internet usage due to the large increase that has taken place in Information and Communications Technology availability and usage in the country over the past decade. We argue that features of internal party organization affect the nature of internet usage across political parties. Specifically, we hypothesize that parties with highly centralized and hierarchical organizational structures will be less likely to have interactive features on their websites than parties with less centralized organizational structures. The dependent variable in this study is the extent of interactive content on parties' websites and is constructed through an empirical analysis of parties' sites using a widely used coding scheme. We then measure Irish political parties' internal organizations employing Janda's (1980) scale of centralization of power, and we use this measure as an independent variable. We test for the hypothesized relationship between the dependent and independent variables, employing non-parametric statistical techniques.
This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the ... more This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the Republic of Ireland and seeks to evaluate whether parties' organizational structures influence the manner in which they present themselves online. Ireland has been chosen as a research environment because there is significant variation among political parties in the political system in terms of size, age, ideological coherence and organizational structure. Ireland is also an interesting test case for the evolution of politicized internet usage due to the large ...
This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes towards the European U... more This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes towards the European Union. It does so in a context of protracted economic crisis, where citizens may apportion blame to a variety of actors and institutions. Using data from the 2011
Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specic information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable (IV) models. We find
that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. This effect is strong among those with negative predispositions towards the EU, whereas it is not signicant among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. Results from
this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although we nd suggestive evidence of a pro-EU effect among voters
who only browsed the website of the Irish Referendum Commission. We suggest that the
observed anti-EU effect of online news-gathering is attributable to ultra-negative content that is uniquely available online. Our paper contributes to literature on public opinion,
the EU and political attitudes in times of crisis.
The internet, has been expected to modify the very nature of the political discourse by deliverin... more The internet, has been expected to modify the very nature of the political discourse by delivering a democratic surplus. It has frequently been regarded as the medium though which the right balance between participation and representation can be achieved. The vary nature of the medium has generated great levels of interest and debate on what type of political activity could be performed online. This paper studies the heuristics of online participation in Ireland and, by addressing the issue of who participates online, it investigates the type of scenario that can be expected to develop in the near future. Using survey data from the Irish National Election Study 2007, this article offers an insight on the process of gathering politically relevant information online and on whether such an activity may lead to further political engagement. Evidence of quite limited but possibly escalating forms of online engagement is found.
In this study, we seek to provide an analysis of candidates’ online campaigning in the 2010
Briti... more In this study, we seek to provide an analysis of candidates’ online campaigning in the 2010 British general election. Previous characterizations of online campaigns have tended to focus on the presence of candidates' campaign websites, and, more recently, on their use of various web 2.0 campaigning instruments. In this research, we provide continuity with past investigations by comparing the patterns that have helped to explain the uptake of campaign websites by candidates with patterns of uptake of a web 2.0 campaign platform, namely Facebook. We find some overlaps, partisan patterns and marginality appear to play relatively similar roles in explaining both types of activity; however the pre‐campaign ‘favorite’ status of candidates appears to explain candidates launching a website, but not a Facebook page, whereas incumbency and the web activities of opponents in a candidate’s constituency both help to explain Facebook usage but not launching a website. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the evolution of cybercampaigning.
… E-Government in Europe: Issues and …, Jan 1, 2009
14 Challengers to traditional E-Government (non-governmental actors) Paul G. Nixon, Antje Grebner... more 14 Challengers to traditional E-Government (non-governmental actors) Paul G. Nixon, Antje Grebner and Laura Sudulich Summary As the Internet started becoming more and more of a mass medium, its political implications emerged, and they have been debated ever since. ...
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, 2012
This article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency betting markets in... more This article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency betting markets in each of the UK's 650 constituencies into national-level predictions of parties' seat shares for the 2010 House of Commons election. We argue that information from betting markets is highly disaggregated (offering candidate-level predictions), adjustable throughout the campaign, and free to access – meaning that such data should be a useful resource for electoral forecasters. However, we find that constituency-market gambling data from the site Betfair.com proved to be a relatively poor basis for predicting party seat shares, and we also find evidence suggesting that the data were systematically biased in several ways. Nonetheless, we argue that future research in this area should compensate for these biases to harness the potential of constituency prediction markets for electoral forecasting.
In this paper we seek to shed light on how Internet-based newsgathering affects voting behaviour ... more In this paper we seek to shed light on how Internet-based newsgathering affects voting behaviour in the context of EU referenda by analysing data from an original survey commissioned for the May 31st 2012 Fiscal Treaty referendum in the Republic of Ireland. We assess whether online newsgathering in the run-up to the vote impacts vote choice by disentangling the mechanism that connects online-based information consumption, knowledge of relevant political facts and voting behaviour. We then investigate whether different types of websites produce different effects and how these processes are conditioned by pre-existing attitudes towards Europe. We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, the content of websites matter in influencing voting behaviour. We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, our results suggest that at the aggregate level respondents who browsed the web to gather information on the referendum were more likely to vote ‘no’ than those who did not, ceteris paribus. Finally, our findings indicate that the content of a website matters in influencing voting behaviour.
"This paper examines whether voters‟ use of the Internet as a source of political news affects th... more "This paper examines whether voters‟ use of the Internet as a source of political news affects the extent to which they are certain of their vote choice in national-level elections. We employ data pertaining to the 2011 general election in Ireland, linking geographical information on broadband coverage with individual-level public opinion data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study. The resultant dataset allows us to
adopt a quasi-experimental approach in our examination of the effectsof online political newsgathering on voters‟ electoral uncertainty. Implementing instrumental variables, we find consistent evidence of a causal relationship between use of the Internet as a source of political information and increased levels of political uncertainty among voters, ceteris paribus.Our findings are robust to a range of model specifications and alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables."
We present a novel approach to the study of campaign effectiveness using disaggregated spending r... more We present a novel approach to the study of campaign effectiveness using disaggregated spending returns from the 2007 Irish general election. While previous studies have focused on overall levels of expenditure as a predictor of electoral success, we consider the types of activities on which candidates spent money and the overall diversification of candidates’ campaign expenditure as predictors of electoral success. We offer a replicable framework for the measurement of campaign diversification as well as for the evaluation of its effects on electoral performance. We examine how factors such as campaign expenditure and candidates’ incumbency status condition the effects of campaign diversification. It is shown that diversification is only related to electoral success when campaigns are well-financed.
This article focuses on the usefulness of a novel source of data for forecasting party seat share... more This article focuses on the usefulness of a novel source of data for forecasting party seat shares in the UK’s 2010 legislative elections. Forecasters of this property face what we call the ‘votes-to-seats’ problem, due to the operation of the Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral system. We review existing approaches to this problem and argue that a new data source – constituency-level estimates of each candidate’s likelihood of winning their seat available from online betting markets – could potentially allow forecasters to elide the votes-to-seats problem. The article investigates methodologies for translating data from constituency-level betting markets in each of the UK’s 650 constituencies into aggregate, national-level predictions of parties’ seat shares. The accuracy and volatility of forecasts produced from constituency-market gambling data from the site Betfair.com proved to be a poor source for predicting the elections, and were systematically biased in several ways. Nonetheless, we argue that future research in this area should compensate for these biases to harness the potential of constituency prediction markets for electoral forecasting.
ABSTRACT This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in ... more ABSTRACT This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the Republic of Ireland and seeks to evaluate whether parties' organizational structures influence the manner in which they present themselves online. Ireland has been chosen as a research environment because there is significant variation among political parties in the political system in terms of size, age, ideological coherence and organizational structure. Ireland is also an interesting test case for the evolution of politicized internet usage due to the large increase that has taken place in Information and Communications Technology availability and usage in the country over the past decade. We argue that features of internal party organization affect the nature of internet usage across political parties. Specifically, we hypothesize that parties with highly centralized and hierarchical organizational structures will be less likely to have interactive features on their websites than parties with less centralized organizational structures. The dependent variable in this study is the extent of interactive content on parties' websites and is constructed through an empirical analysis of parties' sites using a widely used coding scheme. We then measure Irish political parties' internal organizations employing Janda's (1980) scale of centralization of power, and we use this measure as an independent variable. We test for the hypothesized relationship between the dependent and independent variables, employing non-parametric statistical techniques.
This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the ... more This article investigates the characteristics of political parties' websites in the Republic of Ireland and seeks to evaluate whether parties' organizational structures influence the manner in which they present themselves online. Ireland has been chosen as a research environment because there is significant variation among political parties in the political system in terms of size, age, ideological coherence and organizational structure. Ireland is also an interesting test case for the evolution of politicized internet usage due to the large ...
This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes towards the European U... more This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes towards the European Union. It does so in a context of protracted economic crisis, where citizens may apportion blame to a variety of actors and institutions. Using data from the 2011
Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specic information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable (IV) models. We find
that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. This effect is strong among those with negative predispositions towards the EU, whereas it is not signicant among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. Results from
this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although we nd suggestive evidence of a pro-EU effect among voters
who only browsed the website of the Irish Referendum Commission. We suggest that the
observed anti-EU effect of online news-gathering is attributable to ultra-negative content that is uniquely available online. Our paper contributes to literature on public opinion,
the EU and political attitudes in times of crisis.
The internet, has been expected to modify the very nature of the political discourse by deliverin... more The internet, has been expected to modify the very nature of the political discourse by delivering a democratic surplus. It has frequently been regarded as the medium though which the right balance between participation and representation can be achieved. The vary nature of the medium has generated great levels of interest and debate on what type of political activity could be performed online. This paper studies the heuristics of online participation in Ireland and, by addressing the issue of who participates online, it investigates the type of scenario that can be expected to develop in the near future. Using survey data from the Irish National Election Study 2007, this article offers an insight on the process of gathering politically relevant information online and on whether such an activity may lead to further political engagement. Evidence of quite limited but possibly escalating forms of online engagement is found.
In this study, we seek to provide an analysis of candidates’ online campaigning in the 2010
Briti... more In this study, we seek to provide an analysis of candidates’ online campaigning in the 2010 British general election. Previous characterizations of online campaigns have tended to focus on the presence of candidates' campaign websites, and, more recently, on their use of various web 2.0 campaigning instruments. In this research, we provide continuity with past investigations by comparing the patterns that have helped to explain the uptake of campaign websites by candidates with patterns of uptake of a web 2.0 campaign platform, namely Facebook. We find some overlaps, partisan patterns and marginality appear to play relatively similar roles in explaining both types of activity; however the pre‐campaign ‘favorite’ status of candidates appears to explain candidates launching a website, but not a Facebook page, whereas incumbency and the web activities of opponents in a candidate’s constituency both help to explain Facebook usage but not launching a website. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the evolution of cybercampaigning.
… E-Government in Europe: Issues and …, Jan 1, 2009
14 Challengers to traditional E-Government (non-governmental actors) Paul G. Nixon, Antje Grebner... more 14 Challengers to traditional E-Government (non-governmental actors) Paul G. Nixon, Antje Grebner and Laura Sudulich Summary As the Internet started becoming more and more of a mass medium, its political implications emerged, and they have been debated ever since. ...
The European Parliament elections of 22-25 May 2014 had already been anticipated, before the vote... more The European Parliament elections of 22-25 May 2014 had already been anticipated, before the vote, as potentially so relevant to become the first “true” European elections. Not only because of the economic crisis – which in recent years has seen the emergence of EU (and international) institutions as key players of economic policy for Euro member states, with relevant effects for the everyday life of citizens – but also due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which has reinforced the link between the popular vote and the election of the President of the EU Commission. In this context, several commentators had anticipated a potential inadequacy of the consolidated theoretical framework that conceptualizes EP elections as second-order elections. In particular, European issues could be expected to gain a substantial importance in electoral campaigns, with a potential success of Eurosceptic parties due to their ability to politicize – in a negative direction – issues related to Europe and the Euro. A further question is then related to Italy: the third Eurozone economy, on the eve of assuming the Presidency of the EU, and with a government led by a young and energetic Matteo Renzi, but lacking an electoral legitimation. Also, a country that in 2013 saw the largest success of an anti-establishment party ever recorded in Europe. This leads to the main questions behind this book. What were electoral outcomes across Europe? Are we observing the first true first-order European elections? What factors might explain the heterogeneous electoral fortunes of Eurosceptic parties? And how should we interpret the success of the Renzi government in Italy? This book addresses these questions by presenting analyses performed by a large, international research group: for the first time, the CISE has expanded beyond its core group of Italian researchers, by assembling an additional research group of 26 young, brilliant electoral scholars from all across Europe. This allowed us to publish on the CISE website – few days after the elections – concise electoral reports about all 28 EU countries, which are now collected in this book, together with other analyses by the CISE core group. The result is a unique effort, providing – few weeks after the vote – fresh and detailed data, along with first interpretations of electoral results in all EU countries, in order to help practitioners, citizens and scholars develop a first impression – and overall interpretation – of these crucial European elections.
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Papers by Laura Sudulich
adopt a quasi-experimental approach in our examination of the effectsof online political newsgathering on voters‟ electoral uncertainty. Implementing instrumental variables, we find consistent evidence of a causal relationship between use of the Internet as a source of political information and increased levels of political uncertainty among voters, ceteris paribus.Our findings are robust to a range of model specifications and alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables."
Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specic information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable (IV) models. We find
that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. This effect is strong among those with negative predispositions towards the EU, whereas it is not signicant among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. Results from
this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although we nd suggestive evidence of a pro-EU effect among voters
who only browsed the website of the Irish Referendum Commission. We suggest that the
observed anti-EU effect of online news-gathering is attributable to ultra-negative content that is uniquely available online. Our paper contributes to literature on public opinion,
the EU and political attitudes in times of crisis.
British general election. Previous characterizations of online campaigns have tended to focus
on the presence of candidates' campaign websites, and, more recently, on their use of
various web 2.0 campaigning instruments. In this research, we provide continuity with past
investigations by comparing the patterns that have helped to explain the uptake of
campaign websites by candidates with patterns of uptake of a web 2.0 campaign platform,
namely Facebook. We find some overlaps, partisan patterns and marginality appear to play
relatively similar roles in explaining both types of activity; however the pre‐campaign
‘favorite’ status of candidates appears to explain candidates launching a website, but not a
Facebook page, whereas incumbency and the web activities of opponents in a candidate’s
constituency both help to explain Facebook usage but not launching a website. We discuss
the implications of these findings for our understanding of the evolution of cybercampaigning.
adopt a quasi-experimental approach in our examination of the effectsof online political newsgathering on voters‟ electoral uncertainty. Implementing instrumental variables, we find consistent evidence of a causal relationship between use of the Internet as a source of political information and increased levels of political uncertainty among voters, ceteris paribus.Our findings are robust to a range of model specifications and alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables."
Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specic information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable (IV) models. We find
that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. This effect is strong among those with negative predispositions towards the EU, whereas it is not signicant among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. Results from
this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although we nd suggestive evidence of a pro-EU effect among voters
who only browsed the website of the Irish Referendum Commission. We suggest that the
observed anti-EU effect of online news-gathering is attributable to ultra-negative content that is uniquely available online. Our paper contributes to literature on public opinion,
the EU and political attitudes in times of crisis.
British general election. Previous characterizations of online campaigns have tended to focus
on the presence of candidates' campaign websites, and, more recently, on their use of
various web 2.0 campaigning instruments. In this research, we provide continuity with past
investigations by comparing the patterns that have helped to explain the uptake of
campaign websites by candidates with patterns of uptake of a web 2.0 campaign platform,
namely Facebook. We find some overlaps, partisan patterns and marginality appear to play
relatively similar roles in explaining both types of activity; however the pre‐campaign
‘favorite’ status of candidates appears to explain candidates launching a website, but not a
Facebook page, whereas incumbency and the web activities of opponents in a candidate’s
constituency both help to explain Facebook usage but not launching a website. We discuss
the implications of these findings for our understanding of the evolution of cybercampaigning.