This book aims to further the research in the fields of social media and political communication by moving beyond the hype and avoiding the most eye-catching and spectacular cases. It looks at stable democracies without current political turmoil, small countries as well as large continents, and minor political parties as well as major ones. Investigating emerging practices in the United States, Europe, and Australia, both on national and local levels, enables us to grasp contemporary tendencies across different regions and countries. The book provides empirical insights into the diverse uses of different social media for political communication in different societies. Contributors look at the ways in which novel arenas connect with other channels for political communication, and how politicians as well as citizens in general use social media services. Presenting state-of-the-art methodological approaches, drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, the book brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers in order to address emerging practices of the mediation of politics, campaign communication, and issues of citizenship and democracy as expressed on social media platforms. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Broken down into sections that examine new media strategy from the highest echelons of campaign management all the way down to passive citizen engagement with campaign issues in places like online comment forums, the book ultimately reveals that political messaging in today's diverse new media landscape is a fragile, unpredictable, and sometimes futile process. The result is a collection that both interprets important historical data from a watershed campaign season and also explains myriad approaches to political campaign media scholarship.

Examining political campaigns and political advertising through the analytical lens of media literacy, this well-illustrated and timely handbook guides readers through the maze of blandishments and spin that is the hallmark of the modern political campaign. It dissects the persuasive strategies embedded in the political messages we encounter every day in the media and demonstrates the importance of critical thinking in evaluating media stories. Key concepts of media literacy are applied to political advertising in traditional media (newspapers, television, radio) and on the Internet, the new frontier of the political advertising wars. Dealing with blogs, social networking, user-generated Web sites, and other electronic formats familiar to young voters, this lively introduction to the new world of political messaging appeals to readers' affinity for visual learning as well as their ability to discern messages in text. Unique in applying media literacy concepts to the political context while directly addressing students and general readers, this book not only explains but graphically demonstrates both established techniques of political framing and the new avenues of persuasion being pioneered in digital media. It will also interest viewers who like their political news in traditional media but unconventional formats.

Political Rhetoric, Social Media, and American Presidential Campaigns explores how social media influenced presidential campaign rhetoric. The author discusses media use in American presidential campaigns as well as social media campaigns for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. This book addresses how presidential candidates adapted their rhetorical performances for newspapers, radios, television, and the Internet. Scholars of rhetoric and political communication will find this book particularly useful.

Political advertising is as important as ever, ad spending records are broken each election cycle, and the volume of ads aired continues to increase. Political Advertising in the United States is a comprehensive survey of the political advertising landscape and its influence on voters. The authors, co-directors of the Wesleyan Media Project, draw from the latest data to analyze how campaign finance laws have affected the sponsorship and content of political advertising, how 'big data' has allowed for more sophisticated targeting, and how the Internet and social media has changed the distribution of ads. With detailed analysis of presidential and congressional campaign ads and discussion questions in each chapter, this accessibly written book is a must-read for students, scholars and practitioners who want to understand the ins and outs of political advertising.

Madia provides the new toolkit for success--from pitfalls to avoid to practical baseline tactics--that every campaign communicator must understand in order to affect a winning election.

In his book, Social Media and Political Campaigns in Kenya, Dr. Ndavula explores the relationship between digital networking and contemproary Kenyan politics. He addresses the following questions: Is the Kenyan political campaign being affected by social media usage? What are the theoretical underpinnings of social media adoption for the political campaign? What power do social media exercise in the political campaign process? What are the implications for social media use for democracy? What are the early lessons to be learned and prospects for the adoption of social media for political campaigns? His conclusion is that social media play a transformative role in political campaigns in Kenya, and understanding usages might help Kenyans to build more stable democratic structures.