an examination of seÁn gallagher’s presidential … · sns allow lesser-known politicians to...

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IntroductionPolitical communications is an underdeveloped area of research in Ireland. There is noprecise definition of political communications as the topic has developed as an ‘inter-disciplinary endeavor, drawing on theoretical, philosophical, and practical foundationsof diverse disciplines of study, including communication, political science, history, psy-chology, and sociology, among others’ (Miller and McKerrow, 2010: 61–2). Nimmoand Sanders (1981: 12) describe political communications as ‘one of three interveningprocesses (political leadership, and group structures being the other two) by means ofwhich political influences are mobilized and transmitted between formal governmentalinstitutions, on the one hand, and citizens voting behavior, on the other’.

Web 2.0 possesses the potential for new kinds of interaction between political par-ties and voters. This is critical in light of Putnam’s (1995a, 1995b) argument that tra-ditional media reduces the amount of time people spend engaging with politics.Thus, political communications has never been more important, yet many politicalscientists have pointed to the falling levels of political interest, electoral turnout, par-ticipation and trust in the system (Dalton, 2007; Ward and Gibson, 2009). However,‘if political organizations can present politics in ways that are more relevant to voters,the current decline in their political interest levels may be slowed, stopped, or per-haps even reversed’ (Lupia and Philpot, 2005: 1123).

Here we examine the use of a specific aspect of the internet, social network sites(SNS), by the campaign of candidate Seán Gallagher in the Irish presidential elec-tion of 2011. Internationally there is a growing body of literature on the role playedby SNSs in election campaigns, from studies in the United States (US) by Williamsand Gulati (2007; 2008) and (Zhang et al., 2010), to studies in the United Kingdom(UK) by Chadwick (2011) and in Germany by Jungherr et al., (2012). As such, thisresearch aims to expand our understanding of the use of SNS in an Irish electoralcontext. The fact that we are examining the use of SNS in a presidential electioncampaign means that the perspective is focused on the national as opposed to theconstituency level.

Perspectives on the Internet and Political CommunicationAccording to Tolbert and McNeal (2003: 175) ‘there is evidence to suggest thatchanges in communication technology may play an important role in influencing elec-toral behavior’. In particular, the internet has been promoted as a channel through

AN EXAMINATION OF SEÁN GALLAGHER’S PRESIDENTIALCAMPAIGN IN A HYBRIDIZEDMEDIA ENVIRONMENTSiobhán Graham & John Hogan

AN EXAMINATION OF SEÁN GALLAGHER’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 31

which the young may become mobilized in politics (Baumgartner and Morris, 2009).In the context of Web 2.0, the growth of SNS has been one of the most notabletrends on the internet, as is their increasing utilisation by political parties. SNS offera world of opportunities to their users ‘to track what everybody is saying abouteverything’ (Savage, 2011: 18).

SNS such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, gives voters the ‘chanceof entering into a real online dialogue with representatives’ (Mackay, 2010: 23). Suchdialogical interactions allow for the possibility of relationship building (Briones et al.,2011). Dialogic communication refers to potential, active and quality dialogue thatcan take place between a candidate and the public (Kent and Taylor, 1998) that istwo-way and symmetrical (Zhang and Seltzer, 2010).

Along with Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, Twitter is generally regarded asan SNS, although Bruns and Burgess (2011) wonder to what extent any group ofparticipants in Twitter may be described as a community. A community suggests thesharing of specific interests and deliberate engagement as on Facebook, whereas indi-vidual messages in Twitter are not necessarily responding to each other. As such,Twitter could be regarded as a broadcasting (or micro blogging) tool wherein anyonecan say what they want and in the moment be deemed credible (Towner, 2012).Nevertheless, Twitter occupies an increasingly significant role in public communica-tion (Bruns et al., 2011).

Young people, in particular, rely on SNS for their political knowledge, with nearlyhalf using them for political interaction (Zhang et al., 2010). In 2004, Howard Deanemerged as a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in the USthrough the use of SNS (Hale, 2003). Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign’sutilization of SNS ‘changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters,defend against attacks and communicate with constituents’ (Miller, 2008). Zhang et al.(2010) argue that Facebook helped bring in new voters, the majority of whom sup-ported Obama. This success led to claims that SNS provided new opportunities foronline campaigning and electoral engagement (Smith, 2009).

Wallsten (2011) found that during election campaigns the traditional media turnsto new media to serve as sources for their reporting. In this context, an event canattract a myriad of online contributors, all of whom may capture the attention of thetraditional media and drive the ‘political information cycle’ (Chadwick, 2011).Consequently, these political information cycles involve the hybridization of the newonline media with the old broadcast and press media (Chadwick, 2011: 3).

SNS allow lesser-known politicians to have their policies heard in an affordablemanner (Gueorguieva, 2008). However, from the politicians’ perspective, the inter-active exchange of ideas offered by SNS can be burdensome, they risk losing controlof the conversation (Fernandes et al., 2010). Additionally, the threat for politicians ofbeing embarrassed through the greater transparency SNS provide has increased sub-stantially (Zavestoski et al., 2006).

Irish Political Parties and their Use of SNSAt the time of the 2011 general election, over 2 million citizens (45 per cent of thepopulation) were active on SNS, (Social Bakers, 2012). In all, 78 per cent of the pop-ulation had access to the internet (Kennedy, 2011). Consequently, most of the 566candidates had a profile on Twitter, Facebook, and sometimes both (Healy, 2011).

32 IRISH COMMUNICATIONS REVIEW VOL. 14 2014

Wall and Sudulich (2011) found that online campaigning had more than doubledsince 2007. Table 1 shows that the majority of candidates from the major parties hada Twitter or Facebook profile.

Table 1: Candidates’ Presence on Twitter and Facebook During the 2011 GeneralElection

Number of On Twitter On Facebook On Twitter No PresenceCandidates and Facebook

Fianna Fáil 72 26 44 19 21Fine Gael 103 73 90 69 9Labour 67 44 56 40 7

Source: http://candidate.ie/?page_id=213

According to Healy (2011) this was the final general election in which politicianswould have the choice of whether to engage with social media.

In 2004 there was no presidential election, as the only nominee was the incum-bent, Mary McAleese. The last presidential election was in 1997, prior to the adventof Web 2.0. Consequently, 2011 was the first presidential campaign to witness theuse of SNS. Table 2 shows that all candidates, in addition to having their own Webpages, employed a variety of SNS.

Research MethodologyThe starting point for this project is the fact that the internet and SNS, since theirinception, have come to play increasing prominent roles in elections. We wished todiscover what it was like for a political campaign to rely heavily upon the internetand SNS. What were the pros and cons of this approach? This research involved in-

Table 2: Candidates in Presidential Election and Their Use of Social Media

Name Party Personal Facebook Twitter YouTube FlickrAffiliation Webpage Channel

Michael D. Higgins Labour Party !! !! !! !! !!Seán Gallagher Independent !! !! !! !! !!Martin McGuinness Sinn Féin !! !! !! !! XGay Mitchell Fine Gael !! !! !! !! !!David Norris Independent !! !! !! !! !!Dana Rosemary Scallon Independent !! !! !! X XMary Davis Independent !! !! !! !! !!


depth interviews with the two senior officials in charge of media for the SeánGallagher campaign, with a focus on their use of SNS. These officials worked closelywith Gallagher, and oversaw all communications emanating from the campaign acrossa broad range of media. As such, they were the ideal interview candidates for thistopic. They also provided us with some of the SNS data the campaign collected andused. The interviews were conducted in the spring of 2012, four months after theelection. It was the interviewees’ wish to remain anonymous for this research.

The in-depth interview is a qualitative technique that gives researchers an oppor-tunity to gain an understanding of how others interpret the world. It is indispensiblefor probing behind the public-oriented statement (Yow, 2005). This approach seeks toprovide understanding of how an interviewee attributes meanings to experience (Yow,2005). As Lummis (1987: 75) points out, the ‘advantage of oral evidence is that it isinteractive and one is not left alone, as with documentary evidence, to divine its sig-nificance; the ‘source’ can reflect upon the content and offer interpretation as well asthe facts.’ However, it is necessary to recognize the problems associated with interviewfindings – such as interpreting interviewee perspectives in a favourable manner – andseek to avoid these through the triangulation of the interviewees’ accounts with othersources of evidence (Thies, 2002). By other sources of evidence we mean other con-temporary accounts, academic research and newspaper reports, so as to minimizeinconsistencies, inaccuracies, or biases, in any one individual source of information andultimately provide a more accurate overall account of events (McCullagh, 2000). As weare conducting interviews with two individuals, who were closely connected with thecampaign of a specific candidate, such triangulation will be invaluable.

Thus, to write the narrative and build the chronology of events aroundGallagher’s online social media campaign, and the wider presidential election of 2011,we used both primary and secondary sources. Forty open-ended questions were askedand the interview transcripts coded, using a grounded key-word-in-context approach,where key terms are used to tease out themes (Ryan and Bernard, 2003). Book, jour-nal, newspaper and online accounts of the Gallagher campaign, and the widerPresidential election, were also employed here, to supplement the primary data fortriangulation purposes.

The Irish Presidential Election ContextThe Presidency is a non-executive office in which the office holder plays no part inthe day-to-day affairs of government. As such, the Irish political system is a parlia-mentary system with a popularly elected President, not a semi-presidential system(van Gerven, 2005). ‘The job is about being, rather than doing’ (van der Brug et al,2000: 632).

Presidential elections are conducted using the alternative vote (AV) system andnot proportional representation by the single transferrable vote (PR-STV) employedin the parliamentary elections (Sinnott, 2009). This is because the Presidential elec-tion, unlike the parliamentary elections, but akin to by-elections, constitutes compe-tition within a single seat constituency, with the whole country as the constituency.Consequently, the larger parties select only one candidate each. Thus, intrapartycompetition, a staple of Irish parliamentary elections (Gallagher, 2005), is absent frompresidential elections. That a candidate requires the support of 20 members of theOireachtas, or four city/county councils, tends to restrict candidacy to those backed


by a major political party (Gallagher, 2009). However, we can see from the below listof presidential candidates in 2011 that these requirements did not prevent MaryDavis, Sean Gallagher, David Norris and Dana Rosemary Scallon from getting theirnames on the ballot paper.

The 2011 Presidential election was contested by:

Mary Davis, entrepreneur and rights campaigner. Seán Gallagher, entrepreneur and television personality; Michael D. Higgins, academic and senior Labour Party politician; Martin McGuinness, senior Sinn Féin politician, deputy first minister ofNorthern Ireland Gay Mitchell, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and formerMinister of State.David Norris, senator, academic, and gay right activist; Dana Rosemary Scallon, a former MEP and singer.

The Use of the Internet and SNS by the Gallagher Campaign

www.seangallagher.comSeán Gallagher is known widely as an investor on the Irish version of the Japanese tel-evision show Man� no Tora (Dragons’ Den). In May 2011 Gallagher announced he wasgoing to run for President (Connolly, 2011). Although a former member of FiannaFáil, he distanced himself from that party throughout his campaign (Regan, 2011).Fianna Fáil’s poor showing in the 2011 general election, its mismanagement of theeconomy and accusations of corruption, damaged its brand (Murphy, 2011). Despitethis, Gallagher was dogged by questions about his relationship with Fianna Fáil.

The Gallagher campaign’s first move online came with the establishment of thecandidate’s website www.seangallagher.com. An interviewee told us that:

the idea of the website was to be more engaged with the audience, allowingthem to see videos and photos. From the website they could follow Seán onTwitter, follow Seán on Facebook, or subscribe to the newsletter, so we couldnever lose the visitor once they came to the page, which was pretty good.

According to the interviewees, this site proved a great initial success, with an aver-age of 18,000 unique visitors per week, peaking at nearly 23,000 just prior to theelection. The interviewees stated that www.seangallagher.com was a medium throughwhich Gallagher could ‘readily engage with the public’. One interviewee told us:

the defining moments for me was when search terms for the website changedfrom Seán Gallagher Dragons Den to Seán Gallagher presidential election, aspeople began to see him as a Presidential candidate. That was an eye opener.

The unmediated nature of the web permits politicians to use these resources aslargely broadcast media (Lynch and Hogan, 2012). The campaign team alsoemployed the bulk email tool Mail-Chimp to inform subscribers of where Gallagherwas going to be campaigning. This use of email represents a modification on the tra-ditional use of letters, flyers and candidate postcards (Karpf, 2010a). The intervie-


wees felt that a significant media moment came when the campaign announced thatit would not be using election posters:

I think this was a breakthrough moment. It was announced through email firstand the way we set up the newsletter, people could actually retweet thenewsletter, or put the link on Facebook, so it was quite a viral thing.

As Sudulich and Wall (2009: 472) point out:

Online campaigning offers candidates enhanced editorial control over theircampaign, first because site content can be straightforwardly amended andupdated in real-time, and secondly because candidate and party Web sitesallow politicians to communicate directly with their audience without recourseto external media actors.

SNSAs social networks provide the fundamental building blocks for collective action wehave seen increasing attempts by politicians and political parties to foster these net-works through SNS (Pasek et al., 2009: 202). The Gallagher campaign used themajor SNS in communicating with the public. Gallagher already had a Facebookpage and a LinkedIn account prior to contesting the election. Once he initiated hiscampaign his number of followers in both of these SNS expanded rapidly (see Table3), while his campaign also sought to establish a presence for him in a range of otherSNS, including Twitter, Audio Boo and Instagram.

Table 3: Increase in the Candidates Facebook and Twitter Fans in the Moth Priorto the Election

Candidates September 28th October 23rd Percentage 2011 2011 Increase

Facebook Twitter Facebook Twitter Facebook Twitter

Michael D. Higgins 2,499 4,811 4,478 6,834 79 42Seán Gallagher 13,169 5,108 35,562 9,018 170 77Martin McGuinness 4,034 1,275 8,970 2,999 122 135David Norris 25,000 20,711 25,625 22,260 2.5 7Mary Davis 1,838 1,374 2,664 2,367 45 72Dana Rosemary Scallon 0 0 765 594 765 594Gay Mitchell 766 1,190 1,310 2,060 71 73

Source: Gallagher campaign data.

FacebookThe interviewees argued that Gallagher wanted to use Facebook, and SNS more gen-erally, ‘to build relationships with the public. The whole point of social media is to


engage with people, as opposed to sending them to the donate button. It’s better tobuild up a relationship.’ Gallagher’s number of Facebook followers grew by 170 percent in the last month of the election, to surpass 35,000 by 27 October (see Table 3).This was to Gallagher’s advantage as Pasek et al., (2009) found that Facebook users hadgreater political knowledge and were more civically engaged than their contemporaries.

The interviewees felt that Facebook was the most effective SNS they employed– as it provided the public with access to Gallagher’s whereabouts on a daily basis,as well as giving the public the opportunity to ask Gallagher questions. They told us‘another reason was that visitors and fans could volunteer to be part of the campaignand help spread Seán’s message of positivity.’ They also said that:

we spent quite a lot on Facebook advertising, so that’s why our likes were upa lot higher than on twitter. What we did was something called sponsored sto-ries. When one of your friends liked something, it would appear on your newsfeed and you’re more inclined to like something they’ve liked. Another thingwe did was … when it was someone’s birthday we’d wish them happy birth-day from Seán Gallagher and then people would click into his page. It’s thesmall things that make people say oh that’s so cool, and then when they clickthrough, they engage with Seán. It’s something positive straight away it makesyou react and is a good first impression.

They also posted on Facebook the links to other SNS, such as YouTube andTwitter, being employed by the campaign. One of the interviewees told us that:

I believe in terms of the campaign, the relationships formed though socialmedia were real. Relationships were built up on Facebook and many support-ers actually came because of the message Seán was spreading throughFacebook.

The media officials felt that a successful strategy was what they called ‘online canvasdays, as opposed to doing an offline canvas day, which we did through handing outleaflets’ on Facebook. ‘We did the online canvas days which no one else had doneand it was just basically telling people through Facebook that Seán had a video andgetting them to share the message.’ They told us ‘presidential broadcasts were postedonline before they actually went on TV and people who had already been followingSeán could see these first.’ This approach allowed the public to share Gallagher’s 13YouTube broadcasts, which acquired an average of 1,701 views each. This, accord-ing to Giliberti (2011), constituted a highly innovative use of SNS in the Irish con-text. Wallsten (2010: 164) points out that in the US online videos of the kind foundon YouTube, have become an important tool for candidates in their efforts to winelection. All seven candidates uploaded a total of 148 campaign videos, whichacquired 92,391 views. Although YouTube has proved useful for political campaigns,‘its influence is often overstated when commentators focus on the technology in theabsence of the organizations that use it’ (Karpf, 2010b: 144).

TwitterSimilar to Facebook, the Gallagher campaign frequently updated its Twitter account,allowing subscribers to closely follow the candidate. Twitter in particular ‘has become


a legitimate and frequently used communication channel in the political arena as aresult of the 2008 [US presidential] campaign’ (Tumasjan et al., 2011: 402). The ben-efit of Twitter is that it provides an immediate and direct link between a politician andvoters, but carries a risk in that it is unfiltered (Peterson, 2012). Gallagher’s Twitterfollowing increased throughout the campaign, rising by 77 per cent in the last month,to reach over 9,000 (see Table 3). The interviews told us that ‘we also had a Twibbon,where people would put say “Vote Seán Number 1” on their profile picture. So it wasjust small little things like that to help spread the message.’ The Gallagher campaignused the social media tracking tool Radian 6, from Salesforce.com, in conjunction withits Twitter account. This tool permitted the media officials to follow what the publicand wider media were tweeting about Gallagher. Of relevance here is the finding byTumasjan et al. (2011) that Twitter is a valid indicator of the political landscape off-line. The officials also told us that they utilized Google alerts,

so that any time Seán’s name was mentioned I got an alert, I could see whatpeople were saying. It’s good to kinda notice these things, just so if there’sanything negative it gets highlighted straight away.

LinkedIn and other SNSThe Gallagher campaign found LinkedIn, a popular platform for business profession-als, very useful. LinkedIn assisted Gallagher in connecting with potential donors andgained him over 2,000 additional connections. The interviewees told us that ‘LinkedInwas really successful in converting people into actually getting involved and was wherewe saw the greatest donations to the campaign.’ This is an interesting point, as it sug-gests a distinction between the passive ‘like’ or ‘follow’ associated with Facebook andTwitter and a more committed form of support for the campaign. The fact thatLinkedIn is a professional networking site, and unlike the other SNS is made upalmost exclusively of users who are over the voting age (Kemp, 2012: 168), mayaccount for this high level of commitment to the campaign. With a reputation as a suc-cessful businessman and TV personality, Gallagher was viewed by many as a pro-busi-ness candidate, who would use the presidency to assist job creation.

In addition to the main online resources mention above, the campaign alsoemployed Audio Boo and Instagram. The interviewees said that using Audio Boo, asite that permits users upload and share audio files, meant that ‘Seán could just bethere talking away, upload it straight away and it gets sent out to all our subscribers.’The campaign also made use of Instagram, which is a photo sharing network. Themedia officials regarded Instagram as:

a great tool for on the road, to take photos and upload them and go straightacross the top of our website. It was really good for people to see theseinstantly. We also had a photographer out on the road with Seán, which allwent up on Facebook also.

Interestingly, there was no suggestion from these media officials that the campaignever saw SNS as a means of specifically attracting young voters. ‘We never solely tar-geted the under 30 age group, but social media was a key driver in attracting votersof all ages.’


As we saw in Table 3, Gallagher had almost 45,000 followers between Facebookand Twitter. This, along with the decision to eschew posters, was regarded as highlyinnovative (Reilly, 2011). Towner (2012) argues that Web 2.0, and the accompany-ing SNS, has allowed candidates to more effectively accomplish their campaign goals,particularly in targeting and connecting with voters. In this respect, one of the inter-viewees told us:

I think that in order to reach a wider audience and engage with them, the useof internet is paramount in spreading your message. Using the internet, it ispossible to do things differently. The capabilities of videos, tweets, posts, etc.going viral are what make the internet remarkable. The more times you pushyour message in someone’s face, the more chance you’ll get a reaction. If youpost a message ten times it will click with the person eventually.

The Absence of Dialogue Despite the above, none of the candidates used the SNS to their full dialogical poten-tial. Browne (2011a) pointed out that ‘while each candidate has a presence on Twitterand Facebook, none has truly engaged with people online’. Although Gallagher mayhave had many more people ‘talking about’ his Facebook page than those of his rivals,he was no different to his rivals in using SNS as a means of promoting his electionbid. All of the candidates sought to communicate to, as opposed to communicatingwith, the public. ‘Gallagher is no different to the other candidates in using the toolprimarily as a “push” mechanism to market their campaign’; there was no real dialogueto glean insights from the electorate (Browne, 2011a). This is something that Bortreeand Seltzer (2009) also discovered with advocacy campaigns in the US. While the can-didates did respond to messages of support, they did not engage in conversions withtheir followers (Browne, 2011b). As Fernandes et al., (2010) point out, SNS are appre-ciated by political parties for the depth of information presented and ease of accessi-bility offered, as opposed to interactivity. Brown (2011b) points out that part of theproblem is also down to the fact that most of the messages were sent by the candi-dates’ campaign teams, not the candidates themselves, and thus lacked the personaltouch and failed to provide insight into the candidate.

The Incident that Transformed the CampaignThe polls were predicting that Gallagher would win the election on 27 October(Collins, 2011). On 24 October, the last primetime debate between the candidatestook place on the national broadcaster’s (Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)) news/cur-rent affairs programme The Frontline. In a free flowing context, all seven candidatesanswered questions from the studio audience, the public via SNS, the show’s hostand each other. Chadwick (2011: 4) has pointed to the increasingly hybridized natureof news systems highlighted by this programme’s format, where ‘personnel, practices,genres, technologies, and temporalities of supposedly “new” online media arehybridized with those of supposedly “old” broadcast and press media.’

During this debate Martin McGuinness accused Gallagher of collecting a €5,000donation for Fianna Fáil (McGee, 2011). Fianna Fáil was considered a damagedbrand at the time, due to its mismanagement of the economy and its cronyism withdevelopers, bankers and other businessmen (Allen, 2011: 67). There was also the


problem that Fianna Fáil, until then ‘one of the most successful parties in post-warWestern Europe’ (Weeks, 2010: 148), had been ‘trounced’ (losing 72 per cent of itsseats) in the parliamentary election the previous February (McDonald, 2011). Theimplication was that Gallagher was much more closely linked to Fianna Fáil than headmitted. Gallagher initially denied this claim. However, later in the debate, ‘anunchecked tweet purporting to be from the Sinn Féin party was unwittingly read outby the host Pat Kenny’ (Hannon, 2013: 57). This stated that Sinn Féin was going toproduce the businessman who gave Gallagher the cheque at a press conference thefollowing morning. It later transpired that this Twitter account was not officiallyassociated with Sinn Féin or the McGuinness campaign (Mehta, 2013: 102).

Following the introduction of this tweet Gallagher softened his denials: ‘well, I’veno recollection of getting a cheque from this guy’ (McGee, 2011). Before concedinghe ‘may have collected an envelope’ (McGee, 2011). Gallagher’s inability to providea definitive answer raised questions to his truthfulness. Additionally, the idea of anenvelope full of money has in recent years become associated in the public’s mindwith political corruption in Ireland (Collins and O’Shea, 2000). Suddenly, Gallagherwas linked in the public consciousness with Fianna Fáil, political cronyism and cor-ruption (The Irish Times 2011a). The studio audience turned against Gallagher, high-lighting public perception of the credibility of information on SNS, somethingJohnson and Kaye (2004) pointed to almost a decade ago.

The example shows how traditional news media have increasingly come to relyupon information generated by the public through social media (Sutton et al., 2008).In this case, the broadcaster selectively integrated one online source, Twitter, into itsprogramme. Twitter, in particular, has carved out a separate niche in the culturalzeitgeist – often being referred to in traditional media sources and by national broad-casters (Miller, 2009; Peterson, 2012). Chadwick (2011) suggests that broadcasters dothis in order to outperform their rivals in both the traditional and new media envi-ronments. However, the Frontline incident raises questions as to why the pro-gramme’s producers felt this particular tweet, the provenance of which wasquestionable, should be introduced (Mehta, 2013).

There was a failure on the part of RTÉ to adhere to what Munger (2008) regardsas the professional norms of balance and objectivity, by not taking into considerationthe details of the Twitter account that this tweet came from. In the spring of 2012the board of RTÉ had to apologize to Gallagher after the Broadcasting Authority ofIreland (BAI) found that The Frontline had been unfair in failing to clarify the prove-nance of the tweet wrongly attributed to the campaign of Sinn Féin candidate MartinMcGuinness (Cullen 2012a).

Nevertheless, on the 24 October, almost 800,000 citizens watched what accordingto Mehta (2013: 102) was the moment that ‘many believe caused the frontrunner inthe polls to lose the election three days later’. However, Cullen (2012b) points outthat ‘it is impossible to say with certainty whether the false tweet sank Gallagher. Hewas already on the ropes thanks to McGuinness’s attack, which highlighted an aspectof his Fianna Fáil past he was reluctant to talk about.’ However, ‘were it not for thatanonymous, erroneous tweet we might not have been alerted to the scale ofGallagher’s involvement with Fianna Fáil’ (Browne, 2012). According to McGee(2011) the debate on traditional media and the tweet via social media – hybridizedmedia – transformed the election.


The last poll, conducted by Red C market research prior to the Frontline broad-cast, showed Gallagher far in the lead at about 39 per cent support, followed byMichael D. Higgins at 27 per cent (RTÉ, 2011). However, after the first count ofelection ballots on 28 October, it was clear that these positions had been reversed,with Higgins collecting 39.6 per cent of the first preference votes to Gallagher’s 28.5per cent (Reddy, 2012). From Table 4 we can see that by the fourth and final countof the election Higgins emerged as the clear winner (The Irish Times, 2011b)

This election shows how online social media is being increasingly integrated into tradi-tional media, forming a new hybridized media environment. Thus, in the context of theincreasingly hybridized nature of the media, the integration of non-elites into the con-struction of news is an important characteristic of the political information cycle(Chadwick, 2010). This is a very different approach from how the traditional media con-structed political news – which involved a small elite of politicians and their staff on theone hand and the professional journalists on the other (Callaghan and Schnell 2001;Gans 1979). It is clear that the internet and its many SNS do indeed have the potentialto shape the flow and diffusion of information in the political domain (Nahon et al.,2012: 6). In this environment, journalists act as intermediaries between the political eliteand the social media world by focusing the attention of political actors on importantonline information (Farrell and Drezner, 2008; Nahon et al., 2012; Wallsten, 2007). TheFrontline incident, drawing traditional and online media together in a hybrid media envi-ronment as per Chadwick (2011), along with the subsequent and saturated traditionaland online media coverage of the indecent, transformed the election (Mehta, 2012).

Social Media Following and its Relationship with Electoral SupportThe relationship between the media, voter behaviour, and electoral success has alwaysbeen a fascinating and contentious topic. The Lazarsfeld et al. (1948) Erie County Studyfound that, contrary to popular belief, the media rarely influenced a voter’s decisionduring an election, with the voting public seldom changing their minds. However, more

Table 4: Presidential Election Results

Party Candidate % 1st Pref Count 1 Count 2 Count 3 Count 4

Labour Party Michael D. Higgins 39.6 701,101 730,480 793,128 1,007,104Independent Seán Gallagher 28.5 504,964 529,401 548,373 628,114Sinn Féin Martin McGuinness 13.7 243,030 252,611 265,196Fine Gael Gay Mitchell 6.4 113,321 127,357 136,309Independent David Norris 6.2 109,469 116,526Independent Dana Rosemary Scallon 2.9 51,220Independent Mary Davis 2.7 48,657

Electorate: 3,191,157 Valid: 1,771,762 Spoilt: 18,676 (1.0%) Quota: 885,882 Turnout: 1,790,438(56.1%)

recently Williams and Gulati (2008) found that, in the US, the number of Facebook sup-porters can be considered a valid indicator of electoral success, while in Germany,Tumasjan et al, (2011) discovered that Twitter reflected the political landscape offline.In an Irish context, McMahon (2011) discovered that in the 2011 general electionFacebook support was a fairly good indicator of voter support, while Twitter was not.

However, during the presidential election Norris, who had the highest combinednumber of Facebook and Twitter followers, only managed to finish fifth, being elim-inated after the second count. Interestingly, but possibly due to sheer coincidence,Gallagher’s level of Facebook and Twitter support equated with his electoral per-formance. But, as can be seen in Figure 1 below, the overall percentage of followersGallagher had across the various SNS did not translate into a similar percentage ofvotes cast. Higgins, the ultimate winner, was only fourth in terms of combinedFacebook and Twitter followers, suggesting that a reliance on traditional campaign-ing methods is still the most effective.

In contrast to the above literature that indicates the predictive powers of SNS inelections, Metaxas et al (2011: 171) point out that ‘just because a candidate is scor-ing high in some social media metrics (e.g., number of Facebook friends or Twitterfollowers), this performance does not guarantees electoral success.’ Other studies havealso found that predictions using social media have relatively low accuracy, as SNSdo not reflect societal demographics, biasing random sampling (Jungherr et al., 2012;Yu and Kak, 2012). Yet, contrary to the contention byLazarsfeld et al. (1948), thepower of both the traditional and social media, in what is becoming a hybridizedmedia environment, can be seen in the derailment of Gallagher’s campaign by asingle tweet delivered in a live television debate (Mehta, 2013).


Figure 1: Share of Social Media Following v Share of 1st Preference Votes

Share of social media following Share of 1st preference votes

Source: RTÉ, 2011; Gallagher campaign data 2011.

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We are witnessing ‘the emergence of a hybrid form of political participation thatcombines the virtual and real world realms of political engagement and action – anew digital democracy’ (de Zúñiga et al., 2010: 45). Thus, the advent of Web 2.0 andSNS is creating, in Ireland, what Chadwick (2011) sees as a hybridized media tocoincide with this hybridized form of political participation. However, in the contextof SNS, there is room for improvement in terms of developing a real dialoguebetween candidates and voters.

That said, there is significant room for improvement in our understanding of howSNS support, and traditional media campaigning, combine to influence election out-comes. Thus, in the 2011 presidential election we can see the increasing influence ofonline social media on traditional media and on political campaigning – raising ques-tions as to the validity of earlier research that studied traditional and social media asseparate entities in isolation from each other. The findings also raise questions as tothe contention that SNS support reflects real world political support. This highlightsthe need for more studies that look specifically at hybridized media environments.

ConclusionSocial media is just one communication channel amongst many and will not replacetraditional media, but it has, with the evolution of Web 2.0, become an increasinglyimportant feature in political communication. SNS figured prominently during theIrish parliamentary elections in February 2011. Social media proved even more sig-nificant during the presidential election later that year. All of the presidential candi-dates had an active presence across multiple SNS, with Seán Gallagher’s campaignthe most active. Gallagher successfully utilized social media as a political communi-cation tool while placing less emphasis upon the traditional media. The Gallaghercampaign was subsequently nominated for the best use of social media in an electionin 2011 (Social Media Awards, 2012).

The interviewees admitted that, in addition to the positives that came with cam-paigning through social media, there were significant drawbacks. It proved difficult,throughout the campaign, to commit the resources necessary to manage this fast-changing medium. ‘Social media never sleeps’ was how they described it. Theyfound that they lacked the resources necessary to deal with the challenges presentedby, and the consequences of, the tweet on The Frontline. If they had possessed theseresources then they might have been able to swiftly question the origin of the tweetand verify the actual owner of the Martin McGuinness for President Twitter account.Thus, it is vital that candidates have the skills, as well the support staff, to deal withunexpected events that can be thrown up by social media.

In this respect it is important for candidates to appreciate that social media,unlike traditional media, involves two way unmediated communication with thepublic – a dialogue. However, studies, such as Fernandes et al., (2010), have foundthis potential for interactive engagement is not being fully realized, as from the politi-cians’ perspective it risks their losing control of the discussion. In the Presidentialelection there was a failure on the part of the candidates to engage with voters online– to converse with them. SNS was used for promotional purposes primarily, almostas if traditional media methods were being applied to the social media environment.Campaign managers seems to have a different perception as to the effectiveness ofSNS than those looking at the use of social media in elections from an impartial


standpoint – Bortree and Seltzer (2009) and Fernandes et al., (2010) and in the USor Brown (2011a and 2011b) in Ireland.

Nevertheless, as SNS continue to evolve, and social media becomes an ever moreimportant part of our lives, political communication’s use of social media willincrease. Thus, the growth of social media presents new challenges to politicians inmanaging their communications. Although candidates might wish to continue engag-ing in unidirectional communications with the public through social media, this maynot be an option in future, as the absence of a dialogue, and a failure to engage,becomes more of an issue. Social media played a significant part in making Gallagherthe front-runner for President and in his subsequent reversal of fortune.

The impact of the combination of traditional and social media on Gallagher’scampaign raises questions as to the continuing validity of media research findingsfrom the 20th century in the 21st century. The election result also raises questionsas to the validity of research that contends that Facebook and Twitter supportreflects real world political support. This, in particular, is an area for future research,as the influence of Web 2.0 and SNS, in hybridizing the media environment, as wellas hybridizing political participation, is challenging us to revisit the validity of ourearlier understanding of the media, as well as the findings from more recent researchon SNS. What we are arguing for here is an integrative approach to research thatseeks to understand the on going assimilation of traditional with social media andhow this is impacting upon politics and political participation. A limitation of thisstudy is that it focuses exclusively on one election campaign in one country. Futurecomparative studies of elections in a number of jurisdictions, or at different times inthe one jurisdiction, may offer the possibility of conceptual breakthroughs in ourunderstanding of the influence of this new hybridized media on elections, adding sig-nificantly to the extant literature which is largely made up of single-country exami-nations and has been found wanting.

AUTHORSSiobhán Graham received her BSc in Business & Management in DIT. She cur-rently works in the marketing department of a leading Dublin real estate agent.

John Hogan is a lecturer in Irish politics and international political economy in theCollege of Business, DIT. His research interests centre on comparative public policyand global lobbying regulations. Visit his website at www.johnhogan.net; e-mail: [email protected]

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