All students of politics know that the level of voter turnout is a crucial — often deciding — feature in a general election. In this article, Rachel Gibson and Marta Cantijoch look at the impact of using online methods to contact prospective voters.
The authors highlight the huge potential of the internet and social media for fostering democracy through enabling people to more easily become active citizens. They point out that in the USA contacting voters directly online is widespread, which is not the case in the UK. Using research that looked at those who received the more traditional offline contact and those who were contacted by online methods, they show that in its present state the online contact produces no significant effect in persuading people to vote. You should note carefully the reasons for this, and also the methods used in the research.
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