Diploma thesis focuses on parliamentary election campaign of Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) in 2002, 2006 and 2010. The hypothesis is that ČSSD maintains relatively stable core of voters, manages to call on them through their political campaign and to keep their support. Yet ČSSD is unable to catch new voters, especially young people and university educated voters. The goal is to prove or disprove this hypothesis and to give a reason why it is so. This paper outlines the influence of political marketing and presents a critical analysis of political marketing. It examines trends in Czech parliamentary election campaigns of 2002, 2006 and 2010 and the shifts in voters preferences. The paper analyses election materials in order to determine the profile of ČSSD voters and to explain why ČSSD has this profile of voters.

The goal of this diploma thesis is to map the possible uses of social media in election campaign. The theoretical part includes basic concepts of political marketing; brief characterization of social media and its most important sociocultural aspects; it also describes the specifics of election campaign in social media environment and few policies for its success. The practical part consists of case studies of campaigns of the parties Strana zelených and TOP 09 for czech parliamentary election in 2010. It examines the way in which both parties used social media in their campaigns and how their strategies complied with the policies described in theoretical chapters, with emphasis on addressing youngest voters.

In 1972, the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) began in the states. Many states quickly ratified the amendment but the ERA stalled fifteen states short of the necessary three-fourths to become part of the United States Constitution. Virginia was one of the states who did not ratify the amendment and this study examines the reasons why. Much like other southern states, conservative Virginia legislators wanted to maintain traditional gender roles. STOP ERA and other anti-ERA organizations mobilized before the proponents developed a unified campaign. Legislators were able to use the rules of the General Assembly to block serious consideration and ratification of the ERA. Proponents of the amendment started with an educational campaign but faced the problem of not being in a position to challenge the powerful conservative leaders in the General Assembly. They then shifted to a campaign based on electoral politics. However, the transition occurred too late to effect the outcome of ERA ratification in Virginia.

Political actors and parties have, during the parliamentary elections 2018, marketed themselves in a different way than before. Many influential people on social media who have a younger audience have been involved in the electoral movement and tried to make the "most important" issues easier to understand. While changes in politics take place, young people do not have confidence in party politics. Interest in politics has increased, but the reduced confidence in established political actors has decreased. We wanted to investigate whether the young voters themselves noticed the political change. The purpose of this study was to investigate how first-time voters, who are members of youth unions, talk about political confidence and Influencer marketing in politics. The research questions that have been phrased based on the purpose are: How do political active first-time voters perceive collaborations between influencers and political parties? And how does politically active first-time voters talk about their confidence in Swedish politics? In addition to previous research, we have used qualitative interview method to be able to get opinions and perceptions from the intended selection of informants. The study is based on theories of trust, advocacy, influencers, E-Word of Mouth (e-WOM) and the Two-step hypothesis. The result of the study shows that first-time voters who are politically active in youth unions have shared views on influencer marketing. First-time voters also have high confidence in Swedish politics, but have the understanding that people who are not familiar with politics do not have the same confidence. Especially given the ongoing government crisis. The result also distinguishes some important points that the respondents believe are of great importance. This is, among other things, that the cooperation must be with all parties and that the cooperation must be in accordance with the party's ideologies. The final conclusions we can draw from this study is that the respondents believe that it is good that the politics is addressed in rooms where it is given the opportunity to spread. But the respondents also believe that politicians should adhere to politics and that the significant role of the political issues falls into the background of the party leader's personal conformation on social media. / Politiska aktörer och partier har under riksdagsvalet 2018 marknadsfört sig på ett annorlunda sätt än tidigare. Många inflytelserika människor på sociala medier som har en yngre målgrupp har engagerat sig i valrörelsen och försökt göra valfrågorna mer lättbegripliga. Samtidigt som förändringar i politiken sker saknar unga förtroende till partipolitiken. Intresset för politiken har ökat men den minskade tilltron till etablerade politiska aktörer har minskat. Vi ville därför undersöka ifall unga väljare själva märkt av den politiska förändringen. Syftet med denna studie blev att undersöka hur förstagångsväljare, som är medlemmar i ungdomsförbund, pratar om politiskt förtroende och Influencer marketing inom politiken. De frågeställningar som utformats utifrån syftet är: Hur uppfattar politiskt aktiva förstagångsväljare samarbeten mellan influencers och politiska partier? Och hur pratar politiskt aktiva förstagångsväljare om sitt förtroende för svensk politik? Förutom tidigare forskning har vi använt oss av kvalitativ intervjumetod för att kunna analysera åsikter och uppfattningar från det tilltänkta urvalet. Studien bygger på teorier om förtroende, opinionsbildning, influencers, E-Word of Mouth (e-WOM) och Tvåstegshypotesen. Resultatet av studien visar på att förstagångsväljare som är politiskt aktiva i ungdomsförbund har delade åsikter angående influencer marketing. Förstagångsväljarna har dessutom högt förtroende för svensk politik, men har förståelse för att människor som inte är insatta i politiken inte har lika högt förtroende. Speciellt med tanke på den pågående riksdagskrisen. Resultatet urskiljer också några viktiga punkter som respondenterna menar är av stor vikt. Detta är bland annat att samarbetet måste ske med samtliga politiska partier och att samarbetet måste vara i enlighet med partiets ideologier. De slutslatser vi kan dra av denna studie är att respondenterna anser att det är bra att politiken tas upp i rum där den får möjlighet att spridas. Men att respondenter menar att politiker ska hålla sig till politik och att sakfrågornas betydande roll hamnar i bakgrunden för partiledarens personliga gestaltning på sociala medier.

This master's thesis named The influence of communication channels on decision making of first-time voters shown on the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in 2017 focuses on the influence and use of the consumption of communication channels on the decision making of first-time voters. This thesis also portrays the phenomenon of contemporary opinion leaders, such as YouTubers, bloggers, and other Internet celebrities. The theoretical section of the thesis describes the organization of elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, defines the first-time voter in terms of psychological and sociological, discusses the impact of socialization within family, school, and media, presents the concept of political efficacy, and describes the electoral participation of adolescents. In addition, this thesis focuses on current trends in the consumption of communication channels by young people and opinion leaders. This section draws upon particular international studies and other relevant literature. The analytical section presents the methodology of the research, defines the research sample and its selection, and describes the results of the research. The established hypotheses are based on the results of international studies and for...

University of Växjö School of Social Sciences Bachelor Thesis in Political Science Title: “Sverigedemokraternas valframgångar 2006 – En ulv i fårakläder?” Author: Emma Haraldsson and Åsa Neuschütz Tutor: Emil Uddhammar The aim of this study is to explain Sverigedemokraterna’s electoral success in 2006 and the essay assumes that some form of change has occurred. To study this change two hypotheses have been constructed. The first hypothesis concerns the change within Sverigedemokraterna and the second hypothesis concerns the change of the Swedish voters attitudes. Kirchheimers catch-all theory is used to explain the change in Sverigedemokraterna. The catch-all theory states that parties have to change their structure to maximise the number of votes. Lipset and Rokkan’s theory about the party system is also used along with Inglehart’s value studies to explain why parties change. The tests of the hypotheses are carried out through a text analysis and a statistical survey. The essay concludes that Sverigedemokraterna has not changed very much and that it is mainly an esthetical and not an ideological change. Therefore the first hypothesis has to be falsified. The second hypothesis can be neither falsified nor verified, because the material is too diverse. Further studies are necessary to explain the electoral success of Sverigedemokraterna.

This thesis treats of the usage of online voting advice applications, VAA, by Swedish students at the Linnaeus university. Four questions are investigated: 1) to what extent do the students use VAA? 2) do they follow the results? 3) are there any differences between groups? and finally 4) how do they reflect upon the VAA? The thesis is based on a theory of electoral democracy where the elections and the voters are the focal point. The voters’ volatility is also theorised and put in connection with VAA. A survey is used to answer questions 1–3 and semi-structured interviews to answer question 4. The main findings are that a remarkable part of the Linnaeus students, 62 %, use VAA and the applications are mainly used by the young. A substantial part also seems to follow the results presented by the application, above all the students that took the VAA seriously. 14 % of the students based their vote exclusively on VAA results. The students find positive and negative aspects to the use of VAA. They can be used for fun or be developing for the users. They should however only be used as a complement; the students point out that more information is needed to base the vote on. By informing the voters, the Linnaeus students think that VAA can mobilise voters and change their preferences.

The main objective of my diploma thesis is to analyze and evaluate the Political Movement ANO positioning within the political parties system of the Czech Republic by using a methodological framework approach. The thesis provides an analysis of electorate shifting and selected political parties manifestos as well as their comparison with the Political Movement ANO. Timewise, my focus is on the period prior to the election to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in 2017. As for analytical purposes, the Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling has been used. This statistical model helps to get the respective values and to show the electoral vote changes between the last two parliament elections (to Chamber of Deputies). The author uses quantitative and qualitative research for comparison and analysis of programmatical convergency as defined in the election manifestos of various political parties. For manifestos quantification a coding scheme by a Comparative manifesto project group has been applied. The reason for using the above mentioned scheme is that it provides a structured methodology to quantify the domains that the political parties do focus the most in their manifestos. The aim of the analytical part of the thesis is to define how and especially from where the Movement ANO...

The thesis deals with elderly people as voters and their attitudes towards slogans about social security. It examines electoral behaviour and preferences of elderly people and the influence od age on their voting decisions. Part of the thesis is devoted to the slogans od political parties, which are an important part of the campaigns and provides an comparison of election programes of parties in context of social security. The aim of the empirical work was to ascertain the views and attitudes of elderly people to particular slogans about social securities used in election campaign to the Chamber of Deputies in 2010.

"The present investigation was concerned with college students' perceptions of candidates in the 1972 Presidential Election."--[1].