The ‘status update’ of dialogic effort by Dutch political parties on Facebook.
An exploratory content analysis of the degree to which dialogic public relations management is applied on Facebook by Dutch political parties during the General
Elections of 2010 and 2012.
Student: Stefanie de Ruiter Student number: 10081763
Institution: Graduate School of Communication
Program: Master’s Programme Communication Science Name supervisor: Penny Sheets
Introduction
As any good campaign manager knows, personal contact has far greater effect on influencing a voter’s opinion than anything else. Proof of this goes back as far as the early days of
communication science. Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet’s (1944) study, focusing on decision-making during the presidential election campaign of 1940, shows that informal sources, rather than direct media messages, were indicated as the primary source of influence. Campaign efforts such as a phone call or a volunteer knocking on the door have therefore a firm basis in any campaign strategy to increase voting turnout and influence voting behavior (Richards, 2001). To take edge over the opponents, strategists try to concoct ‘what the next phone call is going to look like’ (Scherer, 2012, para. 7).
It came as a big shock in 2008 when Barack Obama’s campaign team learned that nearly half of their targeted swing-state voters up to the age of 28 were not listed in the phone registry (Scherer, 2012). They were no longer reachable through traditional get-out-the-vote efforts. This could have been a real problem for the Obama campaign that depended heavily on young voters, who traditionally already fall behind in voter turnout compared with other age groups (Levine & Lopez, 2002). Facebook turned out to be the solution to this problem and became a ‘game changer’ in the 2008 presidential campaign. Approximately 85% of the target audience that couldn’t be reached through the phone registry could be found on Facebook (Scherer, 2012). Facebook became ‘the next phone call’.
Obama’s campaign team was relieved when they saw the incoming results of early voters. It indicated that using Facebook as a public relations communication channel had been a success; there was a significant difference in the voting behavior of those who they
connected with through Facebook, in comparison with those they hadn’t had any contact with (Scherer, 2012).
When Election Day arrived, Obama had garnered in total the support of 3.2 million followers on Facebook, five times higher than John McCain (Jones, 2011). During the day
Facebook kept record of users who reported they had voted for Obama. Before 12 o’clock noon (Eastern time) the number reached nearly 4.9 million. In the end, Obama won with a popular vote tally of 66.8 million votes. This was not only a victory for Obama but ‘a victory for social media, too’ (Hesseldahl, MacMillan and Kharif, 2008, para 1).
While the number of studies on how political parties use Facebook as a public relations communication channel is growing, the majority of them derives from and focuses on the United States. This raises the question how political parties outside of the United States make use of Facebook. Therefore this study will explore the use of public relations
management on social networks by Dutch political parties. The aim is to assess how Dutch political parties incorporate public relations management into their Facebook pages during national election campaigns. The first focus of this study is how Dutch political parties differ from each other. Secondly, this paper will look at how the implementation of public relations management differs over time. Based on these analyses, a descriptive and theoretical account is given that holds both scientific as social relevance. In comparison with theoretical studies, there is a shortage of empirical studies on using social media in political public relations. This study can contribute to the demand for empirical research (Levenshus, 2010; Woolley,
Limperos & Oliver, 2010). As Effing, Van Hillegersberg and Huibers (2011) note: “Social media does not always [have to] result in a more effective political campaign. It heavily depends on how its use is designed, which emphasizes the need for further research” (p. 32). Furthermore, political public relations practitioners can use knowledge that derives from this study to reflect on past and present strategies.
The professionalization of political campaigns
The amplified professionalization of political communication that the Obama campaign brought to the table in 2008 seems to fit within what some scholars have termed the ‘new age’
of political communication. As Blumer and Kavanagh (1999) note, political communication in many Western democracies has gone through three phases after World War II. In the first two decades after World War II, political communication was subordinate to political parties, relatively strong in influencing the media agenda and political institutions and religious beliefs in society were stable. Politicians talked about topics that mattered to them and they enjoyed a fairly ready access to the mass media at that time. From 1960’s on, with a rapid increase of households owning a television, the electorate became more mobile. Political communication adapted to the new formatted medium and became more professional by rules, codes of behavior and relative permanence (Lilleker, 2006).
In the current third age, there is an abundance of media where voters can choose from (e.g. television, internet, radio, newspapers). As a result, it becomes harder to stand out from the other political parties. Thus, the professionalization intensified and competitive pressure increased to gain the attention of the electorate (Harding, 2008). The question ‘How will it play in the media?’ has become more salient in campaign strategy decisions (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). “The mediated reality becomes more important than the actual reality, in the sense that it is the mediated reality that people have access to and react to”, says
Strömbäck (2008, p. 238). The objective has become to get media to report your agenda on your own terms. This is similar to corporate public relations and advertising campaigns, whereby the strategy aims to control all campaign communication activities (Esser, Reinemann & Fan, 2000).
The similarities between corporate and political strategy aims derive from another aspect that shaped the professionalization of campaign communication which is the
employment of professional experts in corporate public relations, advertising, marketing and polling (Esser et al., 2000). Knowledge from the corporate world within these fields is
introduced and adjusted for the specific needs of political parties. McNair (2004) refers to this adjustment as political public relations, the attempt to influence the public opinion.
By building strategic relationships with the public and stakeholders, corporate as well as political public relations practitioners strive to maximize their support and meet their goal. According to the dialogic theory of public relations (Kent & Taylor, 2002) this goal can be achieved when public relations practitioners consciously commit to an ethical and qualitative dialogue with its audience. One way for public relations practitioners to communicate with the public on their own terms is to undercut the intervention of media, by creating exposure that’s unmediated by the press (Small, 2008). Social networks offer this direct form for dialogue to occur between political actors and the voters. The Obama campaign of 2008 during the so-called “Facebook election”, is the most well-known example of how social networks was used to incorporate dialogic public relations management.
Building relationships through dialogue
Communicative interaction between political parties and the public plays an important role within the democratic process. Political parties have a responsibility to explain policy decisions and to provide factual and accurate information to the public so they can form a correct worldview (Patterson, 2000), and make a well-informed and rational voting decision (Benoit & Hansen, 2004). Additionally, political parties can legitimize their decision-making process by listening to the public opinion and respond accordingly (Odugbemi, 2008).
For years scholars are looking for better ways to inform the public, and study how electoral information can be most effectively conveyed to the voters (Sweetser, Weaver & Lariscy, 2008) and consequently how voters can better participate in the democratic process. One tendency that has been embraced is the increasing role of dialogic communication in this process. The concept of dialogue is one that has been fashionable for a number of decades and
is used to enhance various communicative relationships (Tella & Mononen-Aaltonen, 1998). Technologic advances as the Internet and social media shed new light on dialogic
communication in the political arena. These new communication channels carry the potential to promote dialogue in the symbiotic relationship between political actors and the public. But before it’s argued why the Internet and in particular social networks as Facebook are effective vehicles for facilitating dialogue, the concept of dialogue should be defined first. This is then placed within the realm of political public relations to subsequently look how Facebook contributes to the promotion of dialogue as communication channel.
Although dialogic theory is rooted in a number of fields, such as rhetoric, psychology, relational communication and computer science, the concept of dialogue has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy. The first theoretical account of dialogue can be found in the Socratic Dialogues of Plato (Robinson, 1953). Dialogue is defined here as a type of
conversation (the process of communication where two people try to understand each other) where people enter with their own positions and pursue to understand the positions of others and how it’s attained in order to find common ground towards resolution. This is in contrast with debate, which is a clash of positions without resolution (Gadamer, 1994). From a
philosophical standpoint, dialogue is regarded as a mean to differentiate falsehood from truth. This was seen as the highest form of ethical communication. But with the emergence of deductive logic, where reasoning takes an obvious form by applying a general rule of thumb in specific situations and drawing conclusions from it, the conversational model of
argumentation fell into oblivion for a number of centuries (Walton, 2000).
The dialogue theory re-emerged in logic when Hablin (1971) developed a formal dialectical system to mathematically analyse ethical dialogue. Hablin inspired other logicians (Rescher, 1977; Hintikka, 1979; Barth & Krabbe, 1982; Mackenzie, 1990; Hintikka, 1992) to develop mathematical models for dialogue in an attempt to ameliorate critical thinking.
Around the same time other fields of research started noticing the potential of dialogic theory to objectively and systematically value and analyse dialogic relations. Grice positioned the dialogue theory in modern philosophy in his acclaimed publication, “Logic and Conversation” (1975). Grice states that conversation is based on a shared principle of cooperation between parties, where the value of collaboration to the conversation is the basis on which any speech act should be evaluated at the time the conversation occurs. Grice stipulates with his
conversational maxims to be informative, relevant, truthful and transparent as a set of rules for polite discourse. Walton (1998) argues that the framework that Grice offers doesn’t take into consideration the different types of conversations. Not all conversations are necessarily cooperative and so the goal of the participants has to be taken in consideration as well. But Walton (2000) finds that the application of the dialogue theory is useful in a number of real life situations where communication is fundamental, for example in the fields of sociology, education, business, advertising and public relations.
Within the field of public relations the emphasis on managing communication shifted towards relationship building through the use of communication (Kent & Taylor, 2002). Lendingham and Bruning (2000) argue that the concept of public relations by Grunig and White (1992) was instrumental for this shift. Grunig and White note “building relationships with publics [can] constrain or enhance the ability of the organization to meet its mission” (p.52). Introducing the idea to use dialogue as a tool for public relations strategy must
however be attributed to Pearson (1989) who stated in his doctoral dissertation: “It is morally right to establish and maintain communication relationships with all publics affected by organizational action and, by implication, morally wrong not to do so” (p. 329). But as Anderson, Cissna and Arnett (1994) rightfully argue, dialogue does not happen on its own. Organizations must consciously commit to an ethical and qualitative dialogue with their publics (Kent & Taylor, 1998; Kent et al., 2003; Cho & Huh, 2010) and make use of a public
centred approach where publics are viewed as valued and equal participants in the public relations process (Botan & Taylor, 2004).
Due to the fact that dialogue is a term often used in different disciplines, it is not easy to operationalize as a concept. For the dialogic theory of public relations, Kent and Taylor (2002) did an extensive study in the fields of philosophy, psychology, communications and public relations and noticed that there are five overarching doctrines of dialogism. They summarized them as follows:
Mutuality, or the recognition of organization-public relations; propinquity, or the temporality and spontaneity of interaction with publics; empathy, or the
supportiveness and confirmation of public goals and interests; risk, or the willingness to interact with individuals and publics on their own terms; and finally, commitment, or the extent to which an organization gives itself over to dialogue, interpretation, and understanding in its interactions with publics (pp. 24-25).
These doctrines of dialogism form the bases for almost all studies that followed. The operationalization differs however, because the implementation cannot be translated in all real life cases. This is particular the case with propinquity and commitment. Operationalizing and measuring the latter is found to be difficult because this behavior is not always visible and identifiable (McAlliser-Spooner, 2009). Besides, from the field of corporate communication, there are well-founded arguments to annex transparency to the mix (Olsson & Andersson, 2007; Unerman & Bennett, 2004). Organization should explain their intention, and give effort to substantial information with integrity and in all openness (Rawlins, 2009).
All things considered, the dialogic doctrines of mutuality, risk and transparency stand out as salient dimensions. When applied, public relations practitioners will strengthen the dialogic relationship with the public.
Internet as mediated dialogue channel
Of all the mediated communication channels that are at the disposal of public relations practitioners, the Internet is by far the most effective media channel for dialogue (Jo & Kim; 2003). Newsom, Turk and Kruckeberg (2013) even go as far to state “it is virtually impossible to practice effective public relations today without the use of the Internet” (p. 399). The Internet separates itself not only by the possibility to incorporate image, movement, sound and text, but also to implement real-team interaction (Kent & Taylor, 2002). The online relationship-building potential only increased with the arrival of social media. Social media, also known as Web 2.0, are the next step in online communication. With web-based utilities (Web 1.0) users are considered passive consumers of online web content. Social media however, distinguish themselves by their participating nature. Their content isn’t set in stone but rather is a fluctuant collaboration between users-generated content (Waters et al., 2009). Social media facilitate an easy access for users to participate in online dialogic
communication. Public relations practitioners were quick to follow this transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. In politics, Obama’s 2008 campaign shows this understanding.
Political use of social media
The political use of social media got its notability during the US presidential campaign of 2008. It was referred as ‘the first Internet election’ (Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2008, p. 1). Up to then it was unheard of to place social media at the center of the campaign. (Cogburn & Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011). It was David Alexrod, chief campaign strategist of Barack Obama, who developed the idea that social networks can be considered as an important grassroots-organizing tool for reaching voters (Levenhus, 2010). Building mutual beneficial relationships was thereby always in the back of their mind, says Joe Rospar - the social media director of Barack Obama’s campaign team. The social
media staff was actively participating in conversations on Facebook. And by listening and monitoring all local Facebook pages they could adapt quickly to the responds they received from the users.
Due to the online domination of Obama in terms of using Facebook to build online relations with voters and garner their support, his success was quickly deemed as the ‘Facebook effect’ (Small, 2008). So, where previous elections showed that the use of the Internet provides an up-to-date information stream unfiltered by the press beneficial for fundraising and directly communicating to voters (Small, 2008), the 2008 Obama campaign showed how social networking sites such as Facebook are a ‘viable tool for political
communication’ (Woolley, Limperos & Oliver, 2010) and how popular they are for political participation (Quily 2008; Smith, 2009; Vitak et al., 2009).
Social media use in Dutch context
The United States is in most cases a front-runner in the area of communication developments. European countries, including the Netherlands, follow over time. This was the case at the time of the introduction of television as mass medium and is now also the case with social media use in the Netherlands (Walter & Van Praag, 2012).
When looking at the Dutch political campaigns of the past decade, it's noticeable that in the past decade national elections have undergone a digital transformation. At the
beginning of the millennium when party websites were introduced, it remained to be nothing more than a ‘digital leaflet’ (Van Santen, 2009). Mid-2000’s they became involved in online conversations.
But despite the hype surrounding social media that had emerged, according to Gibson, Nixon and Ward (2003) it's not surprising that radical changes did not materialize overnight in politics. They state that political parties "are traditionally resilient organization(s) and will
adopt and adapt to new technologies gradually as they have with radio, telephone, television and other computer software" (p. 32). And just as they predicted using social media gradually became a central part of political communication. During the last election of 2012 political parties and candidates were tweeting frequently, daily social media analyses were discussed by the press and political public relations practitioners tried to steer the debate that was taking place online (Aalberts & Kreijveld, 2011).
Empirical research on how dialogic public relations management is used through social media in The Netherlands remains limited, and the ones that exist primarily look at Twitter (Vergeer & Hermans, 2013; Jacobs & Spierings, 2014). Up to now no data is available to what extent political parties incorporate dialogue on Facebook. Hence, the first research question of this paper is as following:
RQ1: To what extent do Dutch political parties differ from each other in their dialogic activities on Facebook?
Social media are still in their infancy. In a span of just eight years, the usage of the Internet as a mediated dialogue tool in the American elections made a growth spurt. Obama’s political usage of dialogic public relations on Facebook was first implemented during the presidential elections of 2008. Facebook however first took stage during the Dutch national election in 2010. If the Netherlands underwent the same developments in using the Internet as a mediated dialogue tool and adapted it rapidly to its Dutch context - in the line of thinking of Walter and Van Praag (2012) -, will the 2010 elections already show elements of dialogic public relations management? Or is the adjustment time longer, and can it be seen later on during the national election of 2012? This leads to the second research question of this paper:
RQ2: To what extent do Dutch political parties differ in their dialogic activities on Facebook in the national election campaigns of 2010 and 2012?
Method
In order to answer the posed research questions a quantitative content analysis was executed. This was done to determine to what extent dialogic public relations strategies are used in online communication on Facebook, between Dutch political parties and their audiences during the national election campaign of 2010 and 2012. A quantitative content analysis is the most appropriate method for this study because it systematically examines specific
dimensions in communication content for the purpose of identifying patterns (Berelson, 1952; De Boer & Van Groningen, 2010).
Data
In total, the Facebook content of eleven Dutch political parties (currently housed in the Second Chamber of parliament) were coded in 2012: Volkspartij voor de Vrijdheid en Democratie (VVD), Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV), Socialistische Partij (SP), Christen Democratisch Appel (CDA), Democraten 66 (D66), GroenLinks (GL), ChristenUnie (CU), Partij voor de Dieren (PvdA), Staatkundig
Gereformeerde Partij (SGP), 50Plus (50+). For the time period of 2010 only the content of six parties (VVD, PvdA, SP, CDA, D66 and GroenLinks) were analysed because the other parties didn’t have a Facebook page. To get a good picture of the dialogic personal relations
dimensions, the units of analysis stemming from three weeks prior to the national elections of June 9, 2010 and September 12, 2012 were included. These periods were selected because the Dutch public broadcaster NOS traditionally organizes three weeks before Election Day the first national debate, which is generally viewed as the (media) kick-off of the campaign.
In addition to the Facebook profiles, the total population of wallpost messages placed on their ‘(home)page’ were included in the sample. Among the comments that are placed by visitors underneath the wallposts, reactions of the political parties themselves can also be found. These reactions were included into the analysis. In total there were 11 Facebook profiles, 365 wallposts and 332 reactions included in the analysis (see table 1) The data was collected from the ‘timelines’ of the Facebook pages on November 6 and 7, 2013. Because the Facebook pages are actively used, screenshots of the profiles, wallposts and reactions were made to ensure that the units wouldn’t be altered during coding.
Party Wallposts Comments Reactions
2010 2012 2010 2012 2010 2012 VVD 18 26.5% 24 8.3% 71 8.6% 13781 61.9% 0 0.0% 6 1.8% PvdA 5 7.4% 23 7,9% 7 0.9% 2326 10.5% 0 0.0% 51 15.5% PVV * 15 5.2% * 262 1.2% * 2 0.6% SP 10 14.7% 15 5.2% 275 33.3% 939 4.2% 0 0.0% 0 0.0% CDA 6 8.8% 31 10.7% 1 0.1% 345 1.6% 0 0.0% 6 1.8% D66 17 19.1% 37 12.8% 217 26.2% 2028 9.1% 4 100% 74 22.6% GL 16 23.5% 26 9.0% 256 31.0% 1215 5.5% 0 0.0% 137 41.8% CU * 40 13.8% * 143 0.6% * 27 8.2% PvdD * 22 7.6% * 656 3.0% * 15 4.6% SGP * 34 11.7% * 459 2.1% * 7 2.1% 50+ * 23 7.9% * 89 0.4% * 3 0.9% Total 72 100% 290 100% 1654 100% 22243 100% 4 100% 32 100%
Variables and operationalization
Drawn from Kent and Taylor’s (2002) summary of doctrines of dialogism, there were three elements that were considered applicable: transparency, mutuality and risk. To measure these three remaining dimensions of dialogic public relations strategies, the coding scheme of Kent and Taylor (2002), Sweetser and Lariscy (2008), Waters et al. (2009) was used, with
supplements and modifications by myself to incorporate the technical opportunities and disadvantages that Facebook has. For example, by creating a dummy page it was possible to see what kind of information categories could be filled out. Those who were not incorporated in the coding schemes before were added for the purpose of this study.
To incorporate dialogic public relations through Facebook, political parties need to be transparent about their intentions of entering the dialogue with the visitors, provide relevant information as well as offer ways for feedback. Transparency is determined on the basis of the information that is available about the political parties on their Facebook profiles. Transparency was measured by posing 11 questions. These 11 items examined the presents of date of foundation, date of joining, mission statement, category, rules of engagement, visiting address, telephone number, email, website, public access and administrator. All items were polar questions, where the answer categories were either no (0) or yes (1). These items were computed into a standardised average on a scale of 0-1, where 0 stands for is the absence of transparency and 1 is the presence of transparency. The average score of transparency of the Facebook profiles was 0.61 (SD =0.07).
The dimension of mutuality was measured by posing eight questions: "Does the type of wallpost go beyond sending?", "Does the wallpost call for feedback?", "Are visitors able to place a wallpost on the Facebook page themselves?", "Did the party place a reaction on visitors' comments?", "Was the tone of voice of the reaction positive?", “Was the
closeness classification friendly?”, “Was the depth of the comment well-developed?”, “and "Did the party reward comments with like(s)?". These eight items that make out the extent to which Dutch political parties apply mutuality on Facebook, were included in the content analysis as polar items. A scale from zero to one was constructed on the basis of the eight items. These items constitute the variable mutuality. The higher the score is on the scale, the more mutuality was applied on Facebook. The average overall score of mutuality was 0.39 (SD = 0.25), with an average score in 2010 of 1.16 (SD = 0.13) and in 2012 of 0.44 (SD = 0.13).
Subsequently, to measure the degree of risk, there was looked at the total number of comments, and the number of visible public comments. A lesser degree of risk, points to a lower degree of dialogic public relations activities on Facebook. The average overall score of risk was 0.90. (SD = 0.18) The level of risk taken by the political parties was less in 2010 (M = 0.88, SD = 0.05) ten in 2012 (M = 0.90, SD = 0.24).
In order to answer the RQ2 the data of comments and reactions was compared between the two different time periods. Beyond these three dimensions, three additional continuous variables (number of likes, shares and comments per wallpost) were included to serve as control variables to see if these participation efforts by visitors has influence on the dimensions.
Analysis
The following coding procedure was applied. After drawing up the codebook (see appendix), a reliability test was carried out to ensure that the examination of the data is reliable. Ten percent of the data was selected with the help of ‘Research Randomizer’ and coded once more. Thus, the intra-coder reliability could be determined. The reliability test is executed by means of a cross-table analysis and calculating Cohen’s Kappa, which lies between 87% and
100% (κ = > .87) for each variable. Hence, there is sufficient consensus in the way that the coding was done and the codebook was reliable to use.
Results
Before looking at the dialogic public relations effort on Facebook by the Dutch political parties, in is interesting to take a closer look at the data. The number of utterances on Facebook can possibly shed some extra light on the dialogic effort.
When we look at the frequency of the wallposts, we see that in 2010 most messages were posted by VVD (n = 18) and GroenLinks (n = 16). They placed a wallpost three times more than CDA and PvdA did. Together they published half of the wallposts. When we look at 2012, we see a change of image, thanks to the arrival of five additional parties on
Facebook. ChristenUnie puts with 13.8% the most number of wallposts, closely followed by D66 with 12,8%. While VVD increased in small quantities they only achieved 8.3% of the number of wallpost in 2012 in compared to 26.5% in 2010. PVV and SP were least active (see table 1).
The number of comments generated by visitors is almost shared for 90% by SP, D66 and GroenLinks. Two years later a shift took place where VVD received 61.9% of the comments. That’s five times as much as PvdA, who then received the highest number of comments. Of all comments 1.4 % percent were reactions placed by the political parties themselves. Of the 332 reactions placed only four came from 2010, all by D66. GroenLinks was the most active in responding the visitors’ comments (n = 137; 41.3%) whereas SP was the only party who didn’t respond at all. Interestingly the VVD barely responded although they received the most comments and likes overall.
To incorporate dialogic public relations through Facebook, political parties need to be transparent about their intentions of entering the dialogue with the visitors (i.e. rules and regulations), provide relevant information (i.e. mission statement) as well as offer ways for feedback (i.e. contact information). A standardized measuring scale of 0-1 was constructed and an analysis of variance was executed to measure the difference between the means of political parties and the use of transparency on Facebook. The Levene’s Test shows homogeneity of variance (p > .05) between the independent groups, however there is no significant difference between political parties in their level of transparency (F (8, 10) = 0.34, ns). In other words, the homogeneity of the items affect the dimension the same for all the Facebook profiles, but there is no significant indication that this due to change alone. On average the dimension of transparency of the Facebook profiles was 0.61 (SD =0.07). As table 2 shows, the political parties are divided in three different scores. Whereby PvdA, PVV, CDA, SGP and 50+ have score of 0.55 on the scale of transparency. They implemented just over half of the Profile features. VVD D66 and GroenLinks do better with an average score of 0.64. But with a score of 0.73, the parties who have implemented the most transparency on their Facebook profile are SP, ChristenUnie and PvdD.
Of the transparent elements that were taken into consideration, all parties applied public accessibility, a website address and category to their profile (see appendix; table 2). Publicly naming the Facebook administrator was only done by GroenLinks and publishing rules of engagement were administered the least, only PvdA and PVV.
Interestingly, none of the political parties stated all elements of contact information. By doing so, parties would increase their level of transparency with ease.
Figure 1: Transparency in Facebook profiles of Dutch political parties
Mutuality
The second aspect of dialogic public relations that is argued to hold effect on the relationship between political parties and the public on Facebook is mutuality. Both parties need to contribute to the dialogue. Once more a one-way ANOVA was executed. The incorporation of mutuality was statistically significant different among the political parties (F (10, 347) = 12.71, p < 0.01). However, the assumption of homogeneity of variances was this time violated, as assessed by Levene’s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (p = > .001). Instead the Kruskal-Wallis, a non-parametric alternative to the one-way ANOVA, was conducted to evaluate difference among the eleven political parties on median change in mutuality.
Pairwise comparisons were made using Dunn's procedure (1964) with a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The mutuality score was statistically significantly different between political parties (χ2
= 98.21, p = < .001). Therefore, it was grounded to continue with the results, although the interpretation will be taken with caution.
0,64 0,55 0,55 0,73 0,55 0,64 0,64 0,73 0,73 0,55 0,55 0,62 0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8
VVD PvdA PVV SP CDA D66 GL CU PvdD SGP 50+ Total
Leve l o f t ra n spa ren cy
Figure 2: Mutuality in Facebook pages of Dutch political parties
The level of mutuality (M = 0.39, SD = 0.25) differs among the political parties more than it was the case with transparency (figure 2). There are two parties that are showing more effort for mutuality than the rest, namely PvdA and PvdA. PVV and SP seem to have put the least amount of effort in applying mutuality on Facebook. Whereas D66, ChristenUnion and 50+ are just below half way of the scale of mutuality, they do score above the average score.
A Mann-Whitney U test was run to determine if there were differences in mutuality score between 2010 and 2012. Distributions of mutuality for 2010 and 2012 were similar, as assessed by visual inspection. Median mutuality score was statistically higher in 2012 (Mdn = 0.38), then in 2010 (Mdn = 0.13) (U = 2083, z = -10,45, p = < .001) In addition, a linear regression established that the time periods statistically significantly predict mutuality (F (1, 356) = 90,26, p = < .001), and the time period account for 20.0% of the explained variability in mutuality. Overall the level of mutuality increased by all parties (M = +0.28) that were
0,26 0,58 0,22 0,22 0,34 0,50 0,37 0,44 0,61 0,24 0,46 0,39 0,00 0,10 0,20 0,30 0,40 0,50 0,60 0,70
the highest increase in mutuality, followed CDA (+0.24) by where SP (+0.15) and VVD (+0.1) increased their score level on mutually the least.
Figure 3: Mutuality of Dutch political parties on Facebook.
Risk
Incorporating risk on Facebook was statistically significant different among the 11 Dutch political parties (F (10,347) = 7.71, p < .001). Just as mutuality, the Levene’s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (p = > .001), significant. In similar fashion a Kruskal-Wallis test was executed (χ2 (10,255) = 67.87, p = < .001) and with significant differences between groups preceded.
The level of Risk that the political parties incorporated was very high with an average score of 0.9 on a scale of 0 to 1(figure 4). PVV had the highest score of 0.99, and nearly takes all risk possible on Facebook. PVV is closely followed by, GroenLinks, 50+ and VVD, all well above the average score. SGP and CDA are restrained then the others when it comes to applying risk on Facebook. Where as PvdA shows the biggest difference with the other
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7
VVD PvdA PVV SP CDA D66 GL CU PvdD SGP 50+ Total
2010 2012 Total
political parties by scoring 0.69, which is 10% lower than CDA, who has the second lowest score on risk.
Figure 4: Average level of risk incorporated by Dutch political parties on Facebook compared in two time periods.
Distributions of risk for 2010 and 2012 were similar. The median risk score was statistically higher in 2012 (Mdn = 97.2) then in 2010 (Mdn = 97.0) (U = 6920, z = -591, p = < .001). A linear regression established that the time periods statistically significantly predict risk (F (1, 356) = 106,30, p = < .001). The two different time periods of national elections account for 22,8% of the explained variability in risk. Overall the level of risk slightly increased by parties that were active 2010 (M = +0.02). CDA increased the most (+0.84), this is due to the fact that in 2010 only one comment was placed under a wallpost, which they removed. Inherently scoring 0.0 for risk. On the other end VVD was the only party that slightly
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
VVD PvdA PVV SP CDA D66 GL CU PvdD SGP 50+ Total
Level
of
r
isk
Dutch political parties
Risk incorporated by Dutch political
parties on Facebook
2010 2012 Total
decreased (-0.02). In between are D66 (+0.09), PvdA (+0.08), GroenLinks (+0.03) and SP (+0.01).
Control variables
The control variables for the dimensions mutuality and risk used were: the number of comments per wallpost (M = 64.44 SD = 189.16), times that the visitors shared the wallpost with their friends (M = 61.92, SD = 171.71), as well as the amount of likes (M = 436.58, SD = 1490.45). All control variables show that they cannot explain variability in mutuality. The number of reactions per wallpost was the only one among the dimension risk to have a significant statistically significantly predict risk (F(1,356) = 5.51, p = .001). Visitors sharing wallposts to their friends account for 1.5% of the explained variability in risk, which is so small that it can be neglected. From the control variables we can conclude that the
interactivities displayed by visitors have no effect on incorporating mutuality and risk.
Conclusion and discussion
This study attempted to assess how Dutch political parties incorporate dialogic public relations management into their Facebook profiles and activities during national election campaigns in 2010 and 2012. Three dimensions for each political party were analyzed, namely transparency of information, mutuality of dialogue and risk to enter into dialogue on someone else’s terms.
From previous studies (Waters et al., 2009; Men & Tsai, 2012) it is indicated that transparency is important part to implement ethical dialogue. Organizations must be open about where they stand for, how they act and be accessible for any questions and/or
comments. The Facebook profile was examined, which serves as a business card, to find out to what extent Dutch political parties incorporate transparency. The data show that the degree
to which the political parties (M = 0.62) act transparent does not differ greatly from each other. They apply just over half of the transparency features that the default format of Facebook provide
The variance among political parties that incorporate these transparency features is significant. An unequivocal strategy in applying certain features cannot be observed. For example, out of the four contact information features, there is not one party that displays all of them. This is rather odd, for this is one of the easiest ways to apply transparency. PvdA and PVV the only two parties who state before hand what are their intentions and approach in which they want to enter dialogue. However, the same parties don’t provide a mission
statement as background information. The assumption that this is already known by visitors or not necessary, is in conflict with communicating transparently.
Mutuality between parties and visitors is also lower (M = 0.39) than the level of transparency. PvdA and PvdD are the exception to the rule. They incorporate more than one and a half time more mutuality then other parties. These differences between high scoring parties (PvdA, D66, GroenLinks, PvdD) and low scoring parties are significant. Interactive utterances by visitors, such as placing comments, have no effect on the level that mutuality is incorporated. For example, while the majority of comments and ‘likes’ are given to wallposts by VVD, the party sporadically replied with a reaction. PvdA, GroenLinks and D66 cover three quarters of all reactions. This might seem a lot, but taking in consideration that only 1.4% of all comments of the sample are reactions by political parties, this leads to wonder whether there is actually a dialogue going on between the two groups instead of using Facebook as a digital leaflet (Van Santen, 2003) with dialogic public relations strategy features. In other words, it seem as if Facebook is used to send information in a persuasive matter, where certain features of dialogue are used to deliver the message.
The level of risk that is applied by the parties is verily high, with the exception of PvdA that differs significantly with other parties. They remove the most number of comments of visitors from their Facebook page. Whether this level is a result of applied dialogic public relations strategies or rather the result of the absence of dialogue moderation may arise. But the difference in time periods suggests that the latter is not the case. The levels of mutuality and risk have increased significantly across the six parties that had a Facebook page since 2010 over the two time periods, with a minor decrease of risk for VVD. The utterances by political parties as well as visitors increased extensively overtime. In addition five political parties created a Facebook page to interact with the public as of 2012. There are no indicators that suggest that these newcomers to Facebook were lagging behind from those parties who were already active in 2010.
All in all, the conclusion can be drawn that the use of dialogic public relations both dimensions of mutuality and risk has increased between 2010 and 2012. But unequivocal dialogic public relations strategy is missing across the line. The dimension of transparency is reasonable, but can be easily be increased by using all features that the default format of Facebook provides. Political public relations practitioners of the Dutch parties should however be more consistent in their implementation of mutuality. They need to commit to upholding and stimulating dialogue. When placing wallposts encouraging visitors to interact, they must bare in mind that dialogue is a continuous loop of sending and receiving in a bilateral relation.
The low levels in mutuality support the findings of other recent dialogic public relations studies (Lee, 2012; Hays, Page & Buhalis, 2012) that organizations don’t take advantage of the full potential that Facebook offers. A possible explanation why the Dutch political parties didn’t fully incorporate dialogic public relations management into Facebook is that the sample was drawn for a period of three weeks prior to the national election of 2010
and 2012. It might be that during election time parties are more focused on sending
information rather then taking part in dialogue, which is more intensive and time consuming. It is advisable that future dialogic research on political Facebook pages sample a from a non-election year. Building dialogic public relationships does not necessarily occur during
elections. On the conterary it might be more fruitful do build on it outside campaign time, so that when elections arrive political public relation practitioners can reap the benefits from it.
Furthermore, methodological research might be necessary to develop a better measuring tool for dialogic public relationship strategies. The different fields of
communications, public relations, psychology, and computer science make use of the dialogic theory, but can’t come to a consensus on which measuring tool is best to use. By not applying same measurements studies can’t be compared with each other on a mutual statistical level (Waters et al., 2011). And with digital technologies developing at the rate that they do, this measuring tool needs to be able to hold up with future technical abilities.
As for the political public relations practitioners they need to evaluate what their goal is for using social media and if the strategy that they currently employ is consistent and serves that goal. The inconsistency measured among dimensions in this study points to the fact that one of latter two is not the case. Which is a shame because the results also seem to shows that there is an increase in online political activity. Obama’s success of implementing social media as a grassroots tool in 2008 can be copied as longs as the willingness and effort to do so is present.
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Appendix
Presence of transparency features in Facebooks profiles Background information Date of foundation N = 6 54,5% Date of joining N = 5 45,5% Mission statement N = 6 54,5% Categorized N= 11 100% Rules of engagement N = 2 18,2% Contact information Visiting address N = 7 63,6% Phone number N = 9 81,8% Email address N = 6 54,5% Website N = 11 100% Use of transparent techniques
Publicly accessible N = 11 100% Public administrator N = 1 9,0%
Codebook
Part 0
General information
Variable Name Variable Categories
Code Nr. Com. Sequential number
Source Political Party 1 = VVD
2 = PvdA 3 = PVV 4 = SP 5 = CDA 6 = D66 7 = GL 8 = CU 9 = PVDD 10 = SGP 11 = 50+ 99 = Other Facebook wall post
identification code
FB post ID code I.e. PvdA_2010_001 (Party_year_#) Facebook comment
response party identification code
FB Rep. ID code I.e. PvdA_2010_001_1 (Party_Year_FB post ID code_FB rep ID code).
Month Month 1 = January 2 = February 3 = March 4 = April 5 = May 6 = June 7 = July 8 = Augustus 9 = September 10 = October 11 = November 12 = December
Year Election year 1 = 2010
2 = 2012
Page likes 2010 Page likes 2010 What is the number of page likes in 2010?
Tally digits (0-75.000) Page likes 2012 Page likes 2012 What is the number of page
likes in 2012?
Tally digits (0-75.000)
Part I
Transparency
Variable Name Variable Categories
T1 Date of foundation Is the founding date of the party given?
0 = No 1 = Yes
T2 Date of joining Is the date when they joined
Facebook known? 0 = No 1 = Yes
T3 Mission statement It there a political mission statement present consisting out of min. 3 sentences?
0 = No 1 = Yes
T4 Categorized Is a category provided to the
Facebook profile? 0 = No
1 = Yes
T5 Rules of engagement Is there a code of conduct presented?
0 = No 1 = Yes
T6 Visiting address Is there a visiting address
published? 0 = No 1 = Yes
T7 Phone number Is there a phone number published?
0 = No 1 = Yes
T8 Email address Is there an email address
published? 0 = No 1 = Yes
T9 Website Is there link to the official
website published? 0 = No
1 = Yes
T10 Public accessible Is the Facebook page public
accessible? 0 = No 1 = Yes
T11 Public administrator Is the Facebook administrator known?
Part II Mutuality
Variable Name Variable Categories
M1 Sending Does the type of wallpost go beyond sending? 0 = No 1 = Yes M2 Asking/support feedback
Does the wall post ask or support feedback from audiences?
0 = No 1 = Yes
M3 Visits wallpost Are visitors able to place a
wallpost on the Facebook page themselves?
0 = No 1 = Yes
M4 Reaction Did the party place a reaction
on visitors’ comments?
M5 Tone response Was the tone of voice of the
reaction positive? 0 = No
1 = Yes
M6 Closeness Was the closeness classification
friendly? 0 = No 1 = Yes
M7 Depth comment Was the depth of the comment well-developed?
0 = No 1 = Yes
M8 Reward likes Did the party reward comments
with likes?
Part III Risk
Variable Name Variable Categories
Code Nr. Com. Sequential number
R1 Nr. comments How many reactions did the
wall post receive? Tally digits (0-75.000)
R2 Nr. observed
comments
How many reactions are there visible?
R3 Nr. Removed How many posts did the
administrator remove?
Part III Controle
Code Nr. Com. Sequential number
R1 Nr. Likes wallpost How many likes did the
wallpost receive? Tally digits (0-75.000)
R2 Nr. Shares How many times was the
wallpost shared Tally digits (0-75.000)
