Social Media Battles: their Impact during the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections

Lappas, G., Triantafillidou, A., Yannas, P., Kavada, A., Kleftodimos, A. and Vasileiadou, O. 2016. Social Media Battles: their Impact during the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections . Journal of Universal Computer Science. 22 (3), pp. 375-393. https://doi.org/10.3217/jucs-022-03-0375

TitleSocial Media Battles: their Impact during the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections
AuthorsLappas, G., Triantafillidou, A., Yannas, P., Kavada, A., Kleftodimos, A. and Vasileiadou, O.
Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by candidates running for the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections by addressing the following questions: (1) which factors affect social media adoption by municipal candidates?, and (2) whether social media usage along with the popularity of candidates' social media pages influence candidates' vote share. Results indicate that social media are not very popular campaigning tools among municipal candidates in Greece. This implies that Greek candidates still rely on traditional ways to lure their voters. Furthermore, findings reveal that candidates running in large municipalities are more likely to utilize social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) as means of political marketing. In addition, challengers seem to prefer Facebook and Twitter as campaign tools while males tend to focus on YouTube to attract voters. Despite the low adoption rate, results suggest that candidates who made use of social media won more votes compared to candidates who were not social media users. Moreover, it was found that a candidate's Facebook page and YouTube channel popularity are good indicators of the candidate's vote share.

KeywordsFacebook, Greek municipal elections, Twitter, YouTube, political marketing strategy, quantitative analysis, social media, social media popularity, vote share
JournalJournal of Universal Computer Science
Journal citation22 (3), pp. 375-393
ISSN0948-695X
Year2016
PublisherGraz University of Technology, Institut für Informationssysteme und Computer Medien
Publisher's version
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.3217/jucs-022-03-0375
Web address (URL)http://www.jucs.org/jucs_22_3/social_media_battles_their/jucs_22_03_0375_0393_lappas.pdf
Publication dates
Published01 Mar 2016

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