DigiWorld is a scientific collaboration network that builts upon the work of DigiDeMo and CamforS and aims at international comparisons of election campaign strategies in digital communication channels. The long-term goals of DigiWorld include building a continuous research network dealing with digital campaigning, user engagement, and factors influencing it. Building upon the experiences of CamforS, the project further develops innovative tools for analyzing digital campaigns.
Over the last four weeks of the 2020 New Zealand general election campaign, the New Zealand subteam of the DigiWorld project („New Zealand Social Media Study (NZSMS)”), led by Dr Mona Krewel and Professor Jack Vowles, has live coded the Facebook campaigns of the parties and candidates in the New Zealand election and published their preliminary results in weekly blog posts and a podcast to inform New Zealand’s voters about what has been going on the social media campaigns of the parties and the candidates. Their blogposts among many other aspects of the campaign covered the political issues thematized in the New Zealand election, the use of dirty campaign techniques such as negative campaigning, fake news and half-truth by the parties and candidates, their use of populist language, voter mobilization attempts by the parties, the informational value of the campaigns for voters, and many other topics.
See links to their blog posts and the podcast below.
Krewel, M. (2020). “#nzvotes: The dynamics of campaign communication on Facebook in the 2020 New Zealand election”. New Zealand Political Science Association (NZPSA), Political Communication Network Workshop, Nov 26-27, 2020).
Krewel, M. (2020). “#nzvotes: The dynamics of campaign communication on Facebook in the 2020 New Zealand election” (Invited Talk, Free University of Berlin, Dec 10, 2020)
