Abstract
This case study analyzes the use of social media in the campaign for the historically first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic in January 2013. Following a brief outline of the political context and outcomes of the elections, this study explores and compares the strategies of campaign communication of the nine presidential candidates on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Apart from mapping the dynamics of the campaign and the responsiveness of Facebook and Twitter users, we have used content analysis to examine basic formal characteristics of over 1,000 messages posted on Facebook in the course of the campaign by the candidates and their teams. Additionally, this chapter also examines more closely the place of social media in the campaign of Karel Schwarzenberg, the eventual runner-up of the presidential race, whose team distanced all other candidates in both the extent as the level of sophistication of communication carried via the social networking sites. Overall, the presidential elections have revealed both the potential as well as limits of electoral mobilization through social networks, while at the same time it has demonstrated the continuing importance of more traditional means of campaign communication in the Czech Republic.
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Notes
- 1.
According to http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/czech-republic, retrieved 20 August 2013.
- 2.
According to Klaboseni.cz (http://www.klaboseni.cz), retrieved 12 March 2013.
- 3.
The formal characteristics of the posts on Facebook were coded by two coders; the intercoder reliability, calculated on a pilot sample of 100 posts, was between 0.89 and 0.97 (Cohen’s kappa).
- 4.
The Facebook data for the first round of the elections come from the period between 23 November 2012 (official announcement of the candidates) and 12 January 2013 (the second day of the first round). For the second round, the data cover the period between 13 January 2013 and 26 January 2013. In both cases, the data were collected after midnight of the second election day.
- 5.
The beginning of the data collection on Twitter was delayed by 3 days due to the ambiguity in the official accounts of the candidates (from 27 November 2012 to 12 January 2013, the second round from 13 to 26 January 2013).
- 6.
The direct election of the President was officially legislated by the Constitution act no. 71/2012. Additionally the procedural regulation no. 275/2102 was adopted, about the election of the president of the republic, which among other things defined the details of the proposal of candidates. Both acts became effective in October 2012, when the date of first round of the election (January 2013) was proclaimed by the chairman of the Senate.
- 7.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/09/vladimir-franz-tattooed-czech-elections, retrieved 02 June 2013.
- 8.
Zuzana Roithová did not use Twitter in her election campaign.
- 9.
For example, Táňa Fischerová had these two channels interlinked, which explains the fact that she was nominally the most “active” candidate on Twitter, generating 304 tweets during the campaign period (more than 50 % of all of the candidates’ tweets). The second highest number of tweets (which was however the highest number of original tweets) was posted by Karel Schwarzenberg (165), with the third place belonging to Jana Bobošíková (88). The fourth-highest number was 22 (Dienstbier), indicating the remaining six candidates did not really take Twitter seriously as a platform for mobilization of voters.
- 10.
This fake account was followed by more than 20,000 users (http://www.socialbakers.com/twitter/schwarzenbergk, retrieved 15 June 2013).
- 11.
In one case, when commenting upon a television discussion of the candidates, Schwarzenberg’s team went so far in the assessment of the political opponents that after many aggravated responses by other users, the contributions were erased and the team was forced to apologise for them.
- 12.
Although the team of Fischerová was most active on this network, the mobilisation was lower than in case of the second civic candidate, Vladimír Franz (Table 13.1).
- 13.
“Talking about” is the number of people on Facebook who have engaged with certain FB page during the last 7 days. It measures all activities connected to the particular profile (sharing, mentions, comments, etc.), not just the number of “fans”.
- 14.
A wave of criticism, displaying features of a negative campaign, focused on the issue of Schwarzenberg’s wife being allegedly “unsuitable” for the post of the First Lady because of her poor Czech and the Nazi past of her father, as well as on Schwarzenberg’s opinions regarding the violent expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945, which he was heavily critical of, alluding it to war crimes. Zeman, on the other hand, endorsed this act, much in line with the still-dominant, nationalistic interpretation of the Czech post-war history.
- 15.
See http://www.median.cz/docs/Median_PREZIDENT_II_KOLO_determinanty_vysledku.pdf, retrieved 14 June 2013.
- 16.
More often than other candidates, Franz shared pictures on Facebook. They made up a quarter of all his contributions (as opposed to the average of 17 % in case of the rest of other candidates), and the vast majority of them depicted his face and body.
- 17.
See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/09/vladimir-franz-tattooed-czech-elections, retrieved 12 January 2013.
- 18.
See http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/world/this-is-the-most-interesting-presidential-candidate-ever-517478350, retrieved 14 January 2013.
- 19.
For more information about the style of his campaign which caught an eye of international media see an article in The New York Times of 24 Jan. 2013: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/europe/czech-prince-schwarzenberg-runs-a-punk-campaign.html?_r=2& last accessed 26 August 2013.
- 20.
The consistent use of Karel Schwarzenberg’s first name only was yet another strategy in the campaign that aimed at bringing him closer to the young people, sending a message that despite of his aristocratic family origin he is a very informal and youth-spirited man.
- 21.
And yet Karel Schwarzenberg managed to turn this criticism in his favour. He entered the 2010 parliamentary elections with the slogan “When they talk rubbish, I sleep”. He used the same strategy in the 2013 presidential elections, when his outdoor campaign used the slogan “From time to time you may not understand what I say but my opinions are clear.
- 22.
This phenomenon—the rise of homogeneous opinion groups that can easily become radicalized—is often seen as a possible weak spot of the new media (see e.g. Stromer-Galley 2003).
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Acknowledgment
Research for this chapter was conducted as part of the project VITOVIN (CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0184), which is financed by the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.
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Štětka, V., Macková, A., Fialová, M. (2014). A Winding Road from “Likes” to Votes. In: Pătruţ, B., Pătruţ, M. (eds) Social Media in Politics. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04666-2_13
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