INFORMACIÓN GENERAL DEL BLOG

While evidence have been presented for the impact of volume and tone of news coverage on candidates’ electoral success, as well as volume and tone in general Twitter chatter about candidates, and the volume of their own social media activity, there are some caveats to these evidence and arguments that must be considered. These stem from to two major issues, the direct vs. indirect nature of these effects, and, relatedly, the causal nature of the relationship and the independence of media predictors. Both issues have been raised by different scholars in the context of both social media and news coverage (Beauchamp, 2017; Bélanger & Soroka, 2012).

Direct/indirect effect. Volume and tone in the news coverage of candidates have been argued to offer both a direct and an indirect effect on electoral success (Hopmann et al., 2010). Both relate to the relationship between voters’ perception of candidates and the volume or tone of coverage that the candidates receive in the media. However, the direct effect relates only to the tone and volume of the media that voters are exposed to. This effect follows the various explanations presented above, for example, regarding accessibility bias. In contrast, and based on theories related to the importance of interpersonal communication in mediating the impact of the media (Lazarsfeld et al., 1968; Mutz, 2006), Hoppmann et al. (2010) present an argument for indirect exposure, in which individuals can be affected by the general media environment, not only the media they consume personally.

The direct exposure perspective focuses on the ways in which features of news coverage can change the opinion of those who are exposed to it. For example, more exposure to a problem for which a candidate has high credibility will increase voters’

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support for that candidate. More favorable coverage of a candidate in the media content that a voter consumes will improve his or her opinion of that candidate. By contrast, being exposed to the inner workings and instrumental maneuvers of the campaign will influence voters’ cynicism toward the political system, and so on.

The indirect exposure perspective, by contrast, posits a mediated process between media content and some voters. This mediation can be social, with more news-attentive opinion leaders propagating messages to which they are exposed to other individuals who may be less attentive to the news. This premise has been explored in a rich body of research branching from the two-step flow theory (Brosius & Weimann, 1996; Katz, 1957). More recent studies offer similar hypotheses regarding the capacity of new

media—and especially social media—to re-transmit news content to voters who were not initially exposed to it directly (Choi, 2015; Park, 2013). Other indirect explanations discuss the impact of the information environment on candidates’ credibility, funding, and other electoral assets, all of which in turn contribute to electoral success (Bélanger & Soroka, 2012). Thus, even if a candidate is not prominent in the information that a specific voter consumes, or even if that voter refrains from consuming any political information at all, the prominence of the candidate in the general information

environment can still have an effect on one’s vote choice. Of course these two modes of exposure are not mutually exclusive; rather, they are best understood as complementary explanations, with direct exposure influencing certain voters at the same time that the general information environment affects others more subtly or indirectly.

The relationship between candidates’ coverage in the media environment and their electoral success can be accounted for with different explanations. To better understand

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these requires consideration of the causal ordering of this relationship, the independence of media predictors, and whether the media (both news and social) actually affects voter intentions or if it merely “captures and arranges in a readily quantifiable form the evolving mood of the campaign” (Soroka et al., 2009).

Independent vs non-independent effect. Much of the evidence supports a positive correlation between volume and tone of news coverage and electoral success. Simiilarly, the volume of a candidate’s coverage in social media activity and general Twitter chatter has been shown to correlate with electoral success. Nonetheless, there is no consensus over the direction, strength, or even the existence of the media’s impact on the political arena. Some scholars, utilizing what Bélanger & Soroka (2012) call the “historical model,” attribute much less power to the media, especially compared with other “real- world” indicators, such as the state of the economy or past election performance. Thus, the causal direction of the effect might actually be the opposite of these “real-world” indicators shaping coverage, e.g., when more successful and popular candidates receive more positive and a greater proportion of news coverage.

Considering the often cross-sectional nature of these studies (Bright et al., 2018), the relationship between electoral results and media coverage or social media activity, may indeed be spurious, with the media simply tapping general public opinion. Thus, instead of media leading public opinion, they would instead be seen as capturing trends in the general public (Soroka et al., 2009). In other words, non-media factors, such as

incumbency status, candidate experience in office, political leaning, or election timing, may be influencing the volume of media coverage that a candidate receives. Incumbents, for example, might receive more media coverage as their actions in office provide them

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with more credibility and provide the media more material to address in this coverage. Incumbents might have more resources, which allows them to engage with social media more rapidly and effectively. Incumbency also offers an advantage to candidates in terms of vote share as well (Ban, Llaudet, & Snyder, 2016; Greene, 2016; Hummel &

Rothschild, 2014). One could reasonably argue, then, that the impact of volume of coverage or of social media activity on electoral success is spurious, with non-media factors influencing the volume of coverage or activity and electoral success concurrently, or with media coverage mediating the effect of non-media factors.

To make this question even more complex, different non-media factors might have different relationships with electoral success and media coverage. For example, consider the case of states’ political leaning and candidate political experience. The political leaning of a state can have a large impact on a candidate’s predicted success, with more conservative states offering an advantage for Republican candidates. In addition, in those states, Republican candidates are more likely to have a higher volume of coverage and more positive coverage. Similarly, candidates with more political experience are more likely to receive a higher volume of coverage and more likely to be successful at the polls concurrently.

These two relationships are not equally independent from the media. Voters might not need the media to know what party a candidate belongs to (a detail often appearing on ballots) or the political leaning of the state they live in. However, in regard to political experience, one could ask, if a candidate does not mention their experience, or if his or her experience is never addressed by the media, can that experience have an independent effect on their electoral success? Thus, some non-media factors might have a spurious

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relationship with media predictors and electoral success, while others might have a mediated relationship.

In more practical terms, this debate highlights the importance of including non- media controls in models estimating the impact that volume of media coverage has on electoral success, a practice sometimes ignored by researchers (Beauchamp, 2017; Bélanger & Soroka, 2012). The lack of adequate controls, and the lack of attention paid to the possibility of the non-independent nature of media variables, is even more

excessive in recent work on the relationship between candidates’ social media activity and their electoral success. Thus, in the models presented in this study, I control for the timing of elections (midterm or not), the conservative leaning of the state, candidate funding, and candidate experience in office. These controls help the model measure not only the relationship between media and electoral success, but also the independent impact of media coverage, that is, independent of critical non-media factors’ effects. I elaborate more on these controls and the rationale for their selection in Chapter 4.