An ever-more unequal playing field? Campaign communications across digital, “earned”, and paid media

Cristian Vaccari and I will be presenting a first slice of our 2012 data on campaign communications in competitive U.S. congressional districts across digital media, “earned media” (news coverage) and paid media (campaign expenditures on advertising, canvassing, direct mail, online marketing, etc) at the American Political Science Association 2013 annual meeting in Chicago.

We show that most of these forms of campaign communication are highly unevenly distributed. A minority of candidates draw far more supporters, more news coverage, and raise more money than the rest, even when one is looking only at major party candidates (Democrats and Republicans) running in similarly competitive districts.

Contrary to the view that the internet may help “level the playing field”, we find that popularity on digital media like Facebook is in fact far more concentrated than both visibility in mainstream news media and money raised and spent during the campaign. (This is in line with Matt Hindman’s earlier work on the winner-take-all tendencies of much political communication online.)

Three key empirical take-aways from the paper—

1. Most candidates draw limited news coverage and few supporters on social media like Facebook and Twitter, and hence remain highly dependent on paid media to reach voters, despite the fact that almost all of them use almost all the digital media at their disposal (websites, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc).
2. In both 2010 and 2012, paid media is unevenly distributed, earned media/news coverage is more unevenly distributed, and digital media/social media followings the most unevenly distributed. (Social media in 2010 discussed in greater detail here.)
3. The general (uneven) pattern is the same in 2010 and 2012. If anything the inequality increases, especially in the case of digital media. Hence the notion of an ever-more unequal playing field as digital media—the most unevenly distributed form of campaign communication we examine—becomes relatively more important.

Abstract below, full paper here. We’d be interested in comments as this is work-in-progress and we are very interested in how to best compare the apples and oranges of digital media, earned media, and paid media in a meaningful way.

 An Ever-More Unequal Playing Field? Comparing Congressional Candidates Across Digital Media, Earned Media, and Paid Media

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (Roskilde and Oxford)

and

Cristian Vaccari (Royal Holloway and Bologna)

 Abstract

 In this study, we analyze patterns of digital media, earned media, and paid media performance among major-party candidates in competitive U.S. Congressional districts in the 2010 (N=112) and 2012 (N=120) election cycles. Based on standard concentration indices, we analyze the distribution of (1) interest from internet users (“digital media”), (2) visibility in news coverage (“earned media”), and (3) campaign expenditures (as an indicator of “paid media” like direct mail, television advertising, and online marketing) across a strategic sample of 464 candidates engaged in competitive races for the House of Representatives. We show that most of these forms of campaign communication are highly concentrated. A minority of candidates draw far more supporters, more news coverage, and raise more money than the rest. Contrary to the view that the internet may help “level the playing field”, we find that popularity on digital media like Facebook is in fact far more concentrated than both visibility in mainstream news media and money raised and spent during the campaign. By 2012, the most popular candidate in a district drew on average almost nine times as many social media supporters as her direct rival, compared to three and a half times as many local news stories and about four times as many dollars spent. The differences in terms of digital media and paid media had both increased since 2010, while the differences in terms of earned media had decreased. Thus, while success on the internet might occasionally benefit challengers and outsiders in US major-party politics, the overall competitive environment on the web is far from a level playing field and may in some ways exacerbate inequalities between resource-rich and resource-poor candidates. As digital media become more important parts of the overall communication environment, we may thus be moving towards a more uneven playing field.