A Comparative Study of Campaign Blogs and Web Sites: The Case of Taiwan’s 2008 Legislative Election
(Accepted by Online Information Review, a SSCI journal, and is scheduled to publish in June ,2010)
Classifications: Research Paper
Purpose: The blogging phenomenon has become a primary mode of mainstream communication for the Web 2.0 era. While previous studies found that campaign Web sites did not realize two-way communication ideals, the current study investigates potential differences in communication patterns between campaign blogs and Web sites during Taiwan’s 2008 legislative elections, with an aim at exploring whether the blogging phenomenon can elicit hope to improve the process of online political communication .
Design/Methodology: This study used a content analysis approach, or more precisely, the webstyle analysis method, which was designed specifically for analyzing Web content, and applied it to an online campaign context in a different political culture, using Taiwan’s legislative election as a case study.
Findings: Results indicated that both the themes of campaign blogs and Web sites focused on “attacking opponents,” rather than focusing on political policies or substantial information concerning particular issues. However, campaign blogs and Web sites significantly differed in all other dimensions, including structural features, functions, interactivity, and appeal strategies. Overall, in terms of the online democratic ideal, campaign blogs appeared to allow more democratic, broader, deeper, and easier two-way communication models between candidates and voters or among voters.
Originality/Value: This study found a particular role taken by hyperlinks on campaign blogs. By providing a greater abundance of external links than campaign Web sites, campaign blogs allowed more voters, especially younger ones, to share political information in a manner that is quite different from the traditional one-way communication model. This study also argues that interactivity measures should be incorporated into webstyle analysis method.
Research Limitations: The current study focused on candidates’ blogs and Web sites and did not explore other vast parts of the online political sphere, particularly independent or citizen-based blogs, which play significant roles in the decentralized and participant-networked public spheres.
Key Words: blogs, campaign websites, computer-mediated political communication.
A Comparative Study of Campaign Blogs and Web Sites: The Case of Taiwan’s 2008 Legislative Election[1]
Research Background
The communication revolution represented by the Web 2.0 era lies in the sharing, interaction, and collective creation of Internet content. As Internet sharing platforms become increasingly commonplace, a democratic-oriented Internet environment has been created, which draws particular attention from the field of political communication. Scholars have suggested that the blog phenomenon may be the most significant media revolution since the birth of television (Sullivan, 2002). The popularization of blogs has greatly expanded the expression of personal opinions to challenges and reflections on public affairs, national policy, and national authority.
Another aspect of blogs that has gained attention lies in the popularization of video content sharing technology. Many recent arguments have centered around traditional campaign reporting in mainstream media and its emphasis on horse racing aspects and lack of substantial political information. With the advent of the Web 2.0 era and the rapid popularization of video sharing services, the potential impacts of video sharing media on the quality of political communication and the participation of citizens in politics gains much public and academic attention. For voters, the recent trend of video sharing not only provides a source for a more comprehensive understanding of candidate policy platforms and oversight of candidate behavior, but it also further increases citizen involvement in public affairs.
Since blogs have become more and more prominent campaigning communication media in the Web 2.0 era, this study intends to modify the webstyle analysis method developed in previous literature (Kaid and Davidson, 1986; Banwart, 2002; Bytrom, et al., 2004). Webstyle analysis is a type of content analysis method that systematically analyzes self-presented styles on Web sites or blogs (Trammell, 2006). It is grounded in Goffman’s (1959) self-presentation theory and particularly emphasizes the analysis of video images.
The current study suggests to make modifications to webstyle analysis, with an aim of building a more comprehensive framework to compare political Web sites and blogs. This paper argues that the original webstyle analysis could be improved by strenghening the conceptual and operational definitions of the interactive content of Web sites or blogs. For other dimensions of webstyle analysis, such as verbal content and nonverbal content of Web sites and blogs, this paper attempts to make modifications to several measurement items by incorporating other emipirical campaign research findings.
Another significant aspect of the current study is its effort to apply webstyle analysis to a non-Western campaign context, using Taiwan’s legislative election as a case study. Taiwan’s 2008 legislative election had profound impacts on its democracy because this election was the first held under new electoral rules adopted in 2005 under an amendment to Taiwan’s constitution. Under the old electoral rules, voters had only one ballot to cast in multimember districts and candidates could be elected with as little as five percent of the vote in a given district. The new rules instituted a new single-member district system employing two ballots for voters – similar to systems used in Germany and Japan – one ballot to be cast for a candidate and one ballot to be cast for a political party. Taiwan’s ruling party of the time, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), suffered a landslide defeat in the election, while Kuomintang (KMT) gained a solid majority of seats and won the presidential election, which followed in March.
From the perspectives of political communication, this study is particularly concerned about whether the rise in popularity of blogs for campaigning media will bring any change or hope to the online political communication process. Previous studies either focused on campaign Web sites or blogs. Limited research is available to compare campaign Web sites and blogs in one election, particularly in a multi-constituency legislative election.
Previous studies also found that campaign candidates’ Web sites tended to avoid interaction between candidates and voters due to the possibility of loss of control and ambiguity of campaigning communication (Stromer-Galley, 2000). In the UK, political Web site studies of the three major parties during the 2001 general election revealed that party Web sites were used primarily for reengaging politically-alienated voters, but not for providing a fast-responding channel for electorates’ inquiries (Bowers-Brown and Gunter, 2002). A study conducted in Taiwan also pointed out that candidate’s Web sites tended to define Web interactivity towards candidates’ interests, not towards voters’ interests. Candidate Web sites were used as nothing more than an added political marketing tool (Wang, 2002).
The previous studies address the fact that candidate’s Web sites do not realize the ideal two-way or democratic communication model desired by the electorates in the Web 2.0 age. Therefore, the current study argues that Taiwan’s 2008 legislative election provides a timely opportunity to examine and compare the differences in online political communication patterns between campaigning Web sites and blogs in this era when the blogs may potentially change the way candidates deliver their campaigning messages or citizens consume campaigning messages.
Literature
Blogging Phenomenon and Trends
Research shows that the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 marked the turning point for the rise of blogs (Tremayne, 2007). Although blogs appeared at the end of the 1990s, the 9/11 attack caused blogs to become a widely-known broadcasting medium. The initiation of the Iraq War in 2002 made several war blogs famous overnight. One of the most well-known bloggers may have been a young Iraqi, Salam Pax, who was later hired by The Guardian. His blog was also published in print.
Thereafter, the 2004 tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia and the 2005 London terrorist attacks furthered the status of blogs as indispensable sources of information for Internet users. In the American 2004 presidential election, candidates from both political parties began taking advantage of the “private, genuine, and sincere” characteristics of blogs to fight for voter approval in an interactive manner (Williams et al., 2005). In 2005, both parties of the Senate as well as the White House began providing interview passes for bloggers, an event viewed as a milestone in the development of blogs as formal news media.
In terms of the political influence on citizens, studies have found that blogs are substantially different from typical types of Web sites. In the 2004 American presidential election, the interactivity and popularization of candidates’ blogs were greater than campaign Web sites. Campaigning blogs were found to provide an abundance of external hyperlinks and additional depth for political discussions (Williams et al., 2005). Therefore, the rise of the blog phenomenon actually shed light on an important reality: more and more citizens, especially younger age groups, get information in a manner that differs from how previous generations received information. Many people no longer rely on the perspectives of mainstream media, preferring to search for alternative information from prominent blogs and to interact directly with other bloggers.
In spite of the prominent blog phenomenon, previous studies put more emphasis on campaigning Web sites than blogs. As a result, the current study intends to investigate potential differences between campaigning Web sites and blogs. First of all, this paper attempts to explore how campaign Web sites and blogs differ in terms of the content during Taiwan’s 2008 legislative campaigning periods. Specifically, this study investigates how Taiwan’s 2008 legislative campaigning Web sites and blogs differ in topics, functions, and the portrait of candidates’ personality traits.
Appeal Strategies of Web Sites and Blogs
Appeal strategies are usually significant perspectives in Web site of blog studies, particularly when applying the webstyle analysis method. Williams et al. (2005) determined that during the American 2004 presidential campaign, Web sites and blogs only differed in their appeal strategies. Web sites appealed to policy-stance- related topics or “harder” content, while blogs were geared towards “softer” content, which provided “warmth and friendliness” to their users. The former demonstrated gate keeping mechanisms to select material suitable for marketing candidates, while the latter was used as a channel for more personal communication purposes. In other words, blogs may share some characteristics of Web sites in terms of content, while differ in communication strategies, which may create a certain degree of “cyber-convergence” (Williams, et al. 2005).
Bichard (2006) analyzed election Web sites and blogs from the perspective of “frames” during the 2004 American presidential election. The study developed a framing device that dealt with candidates’ appeal strategies. Bicard (2006) classified the appealing strategies candidates used in Web sites or blogs as appeals for action (e.g., appealing for voter participation, such as donation requests, volunteering, online interaction, or voting) and appeals for opponent strategies (e.g., criticisms of an opponents’ flaws, inappropriateness, or weaknesses).
Besides appealing for voters’ actions and attacking opponents, another study found more candidates’ appeal strategies, including “calling for change,” “invitation for participating in elections or democratic processes,” emphasizing future hope,” “yearning for the past,” or “appealing to traditional values” (Trammell, 2005).
Appeal strategies also involve how to present a candidate’s images. Bystrom et al. (2004) looked at appeal strategies used by different candidates of different genders and categorized several personality traits that were constantly emphasized, inluding ability, toughness, persistence, experiences/education, amiability, moral values, stylistic qualities, political philosophy, professionalism, as well as youthfulness or appearances.
Due to the limited research pertaining to online campaigning appeal strategies in a non-Western political context, this paper will examine how Taiwan’s 2008 legislative campaigning Web sites and blogs differ in their appeal strategies.
Webstyle Analysis of Structural Characteristics and Functions of Campaign Web Sites and Blogs
Recently, the blogging phenomenon has garnered special attention along with the development and its cultural influence of online video sharing technology such as YouTube. A study on YouTube showed that there are five genres of politics-related content on the video sharing Web site: originally televised political messages, new political Web messages, citizen-produced alternative political content, ambushes and unscripted candidate scenes, and mass media-produced content (Dustin and Tremayne, 2007). Though the trend of online video sharing is on the rise, how ad researchers analyze the newly-developed Web content stimulates more and more discussions.
Some scholars have developed “webstyle analysis” based on the research framework of “videostyle” in political video commercials. The concept of videostyle stemmed from the works of Kaid and Davidson (Kaid and Johnston, 2001; Kaid and Davidson, 1986). Videostyle is constructed from Goffman’s concept of “self-presentation” (Goffman’s, 1959), which provides an organized method to analyze the verbal content, nonverbal content, and production techniques used in TV spot ads. Researchers argued that the video styles of candidates were made up of verbal content, nonverbal content, and video production techniques used in political commercials (Kaid and Johnston, 2001). With the rise of online media, videostyle analysis approaches were expanded and evolved into webstyle analysis methods for analyzing the content of Web sites, blogs, or video blogs.
In summary, webstyle analysis is a type of content analysis method, which systematically analyzes self-presentation styles on Web sites or blogs (Trammell, 2006). This method particularly emphasizes the analysis of video images. Because this analytical method emphasizes video images and self-presentation style, it is viewed as particularly applicable for use in analyzing blog content, especially the interactivity and presentation of personal style associated with blogs.
In terms of conceptual and operational definitions, webstyle analysis was originally divided into verbal content and nonverbal content. The verbal content includes issues, character traits, attack sppeals, and group and sectional appeals. The nonverbal content includes production content and interactive content (Bytrom et al., 2004).
The current study suggests to make modifications to webstyle analysis for the following reasons. First of all, for the verbal content, considering simplifying the operationalization process, attacking appeals could be included into the sections of issues or topics. However, functions of campaigning Web sites or blogs should be considered independent observing items, seperated from issues or topics. The original analysis divides appeal strategies into attack appeals and sectional appeals. The research purpose of the current study focuses more on the potential disparities in general appeals existing between campaign Web sites and blogs. According to the relevant literature (Williams, et al. 2005; Eveland and Dylko, 2007), the current study defines appeal strategies as logical reasoning appeals, emotional or soft appeals, and entertaining or kuso appeals.