Politics as Usual? When and Why Traditional Actors Often Dominate YouTube Campaigning

This research explores the extent to which YouTube helps democratize campaigns by allowing nontraditional political actors to be heard. We examine political advertisements posted on YouTube in races for the U.S. Senate in 2010. We find that ads posted by citizens and quasi-political organizations ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of information technology & politics Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 237 - 251
Main Authors Ridout, Travis N., Fowler, Erika Franklin, Branstetter, John, Borah, Porismita
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.07.2015
Subjects
Advertisements
Media coverage
News media
Online
online political advertising
Organizations
political campaigns
Politics
Television
YouTube
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Summary:This research explores the extent to which YouTube helps democratize campaigns by allowing nontraditional political actors to be heard. We examine political advertisements posted on YouTube in races for the U.S. Senate in 2010. We find that ads posted by citizens and quasi-political organizations are viewed just as often as ads sponsored by some traditional electoral actors, such as parties and interest groups, but that ads sponsored by candidates are most likely to be viewed. However, news media coverage of ads posted online by nontraditional actors is dwarfed by coverage of traditional television advertisements.
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ISSN:1933-1681
1933-169X
DOI:10.1080/19331681.2015.1050750