Success of political communication on social networking sites

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 8,3 (von 10), University of Amsterdam (Graduate School of Communication), language: English, abstract: This master's thesis aims to determine the causes of success of the leading German, Dutch and British social-democratic parties' pages on SNS in order to establish a political communications strategy efficiently bypassing the journalists' gate and attracting new voters. It combines an explorative content-analysis with a web-based survey among the pages' users (n=448). The opportunities and drawbacks of politics on SNS are evaluated based on general political communication goals, politicians' intentions and in light of normative societal expectation. Findings reveal that the pages are primarily populated by party followers; party preference accounts for a large share of success. Results from multiple regression analyses are line with impressions from content-analysis showing that next to non-page related determinants the pages interactivity and authenticity significantly predict success on SNS. A final outlook elaborates on two possible scenarios proposing either rededicating parties' pages to tools of internal communication or significant improvements in order to make better use of SNS' potentials for political communication.