دانلود رایگان مقاله اثر منبع و تعامل در مبارزات انتخاباتی ریاست جمهوری

abstract

This experimental investigation (N = 476) parses the influence of information source and interactivity on the effects of the 2012 United States presidential candidates’ online campaign communications on citizen-campaign political organization–public relations and political trust. The results indicate Facebook is differentially more effective than campaign websites at building both citizens’ relationships with the campaigns and trust in government, especially among users who engage in expressive behaviors triggering higher levels of elaboration and self-awareness. These findings support the direction of the exposure effects in the political organization–public relations model and extend two-way communication models by testing the influence of interactivity and specifying the online platform on which political expression exerts the greatest effects on relational outcomes and political trust.

6. Discussion

Overall, these results suggest exposure to the 2012 presidential campaigns’ strategic online communications not only positively influenced citizen-campaign POPRs and politicaltrust, but also that Facebook is a powerfultoolfor building citizencampaign relationships and trust in the political system, especially when users engaged in political expression. Although the simple effects of exposure to the campaigns’ strategic online communications were not the focus of this investigation, it is important to note that significantly greater levels of citizen-campaign POPRs and political trust were reported across conditions. This result not only supports the theoretical basis for this study’s focus on the differential effects of online information source and interactivity level, but also verifies the direction of the effects in the POPR model.