Political Parties and Elections Modern Media Strategies – Data Collection and Gamification

Success Criteria – I can… What you will learn… Success Criteria – I can… Describe different methods used by political parties during election campaigns. Explain why modern media strategies are both effective and ineffective About modern media strategies employed by political parties How effective such methods are at helping a political party succeed in an election

Collecting Data on Voters In recent elections parties have increasingly used technology to create databases of information on voters – the idea is that voters can be profiled into 3 categories – the ones who are definitely voting for you, the possible swing voters, and the definite “no chance” they will vote for you. The most important group to identify for any party are the possible swing voters. If a party gathers data about them, then they might be able to send them specific messages that make them more likely to vote for you. By sending them targeted campaign materials to do with health or immigration or other specific issues a party can also find out that they are most interested in. There are a variety of different software programmes available for this – the SNP use Activate for example. The Conservatives used to use Merlin – but it was disastrous, so they changed to Votesource in 2015.

The Conservatives and Data Collection For a year prior to the 2015 election, the Conservatives’ election strategist, Jim Messina, had put warehouses full of telephone pollsters to work, calling voters in key marginal seats, carrying out detailed surveys and building a picture of who might be persuaded to vote Conservative. This massive database allowed the Conservatives to effectively tailor their message. With this unprecedented level of detail, the Conservative Party could produce leaflets and letters that directly targeted these key swing voters. Voters were put into 40 different categories, with a slightly different message for each. The party was able to send its most dedicated followers to key seats, in which data identified specific voters whose turnout could swing the contest. Thus, technology was used to make the ground game more effective. Jim Messina: strategist who ran Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign

Sometimes technology fails… In 2015 activists out on the street found that their computers were crashing when they tried to input data about the households they were visiting. However, despite this the Conservatives still managed to win the campaign in England and Wales using the 40/40 strategy in 2015 – because the Labour Party were so disorganised – but the SNP’s use of Activate in Scotland was so much more effective, and they won 56 out of the 59 possible Scottish seats. In 2017, the computers didn’t crash on the Conservatives – this time there were different problems. Data that was going into Votesource and coming out of it was not reliable – campaigners were being sent to the homes of people who definitely would not vote Conservative – so their time was being wasted – or they were targeting the same voters repeatedly – both annoying them and wasting time.

And sometimes parties don’t use it properly Read the summary of Cambridge Analytica and it’s purpose/use to political parties during campaigning. Similar techniques as used in America in relation to gun rights were supposed to allow the Conservative Party to speak to even smaller segments of the electorate . However, the evidence suggests that actually the Conservatives were fairly ineffective at using this technology in 2017 The Conservatives spent more than £1 million on negative Facebook ads attacking Jeremy Corbyn – however the Labour group Momentum only spent £2000 advertising content on Facebook, and were far more effective. They got their followers to share – and evidence suggests that people are more likely to trust content that has been shared by a friend rather than targeted at them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84gTofMPz1k

Gamification Gamification: to apply aspects of gaming to enhance relationships with web visitors. In 2017, The Conservatives put in place the “Share the Facts” platform which allowed users to gain points from interacting with their campaign. The scheme encouraged users to share points – those who signed up would get points when they shared posts if others click on or others react to the posts. Every fortnight the top twenty point scorers would win a prize Turning the campaign into a game with a competition and rewards is designed to convert their supporters into online active campaigners.

Questions How is the collection of data and the use of data collection technology essential in modern elections? How did the Conservatives do this in 2015 and 2017? How did the Conservative fail in its use of technology in 2017? How has social media technology allowed the Conservative Party to collect more voter data? How does this allow parties to tailor messages to voters? Why would this be effective in terms of campaigning? What is meant by gamification of the campaign? How did this help the Conservative Party in 2017?