Inför riksdagsvalet 2018 syntes en ny aktör inom fältet för politisk marknadsföring; influencern. Denna studie är skriven i syfte att granska vilka strategier som används då influencers försöker påverka människor politiskt. Med fokus på personalisering och negativ politisk marknadsföring genomfördes en retorisk textanalys av åtta bloggar drivna av svenska influencers i syfte att besvara frågeställningen: Vilka strategier använder sig influencers av för att påverka människors politiska åsikter?  Studien resulterade i slutsatsen att både personalisering och negativ politisk marknadsföring är strategier som används då influencers försöker påverka människors politiska åsikter. Personalisering användes dock i högre grad vilket antas bero på att influencers också i en mer kommersiell marknadsföring använder sig av en personlig relation till sina följare när de vill sälja en produkt.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated.

The organizations of national and provincial parties in Canada are understood to be separated from one another. However, it is not known whether this separation extends to the constituency-level organizations of those parties. In order to provide a better understanding of how national and provincial parties are linked at the local level (if at all), this thesis describes and accounts for the local organizations of the national Liberal Party and the provincial Liberal parties in sixteen national constituencies selected from the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Information from interviews with local party activists and participant observation in the ridings is used to develop a continuum of constituency-level party organizations. Descriptions of the activist bases, constituency associations, and local campaigns in each riding allow for each local organization to be placed along this continuum between integrated local organizations, which share important linkages between the national and provincial levels, and differentiated local organizations, where no such linkages exist. The placement of local organizations along this continuum is accounted for by (1) similarities or differences between the national and provincial party systems in the three provinces studied; (2) the actions of incumbent members of the national Parliament and provincial legislatures; and (3) characteristics of the constituencies. The patterns identified lead to a classification of four types of local organizations – One Political World, Interconnected Political Worlds, Distinctive Political Worlds, and Two Political Worlds – that illuminate the different forms of linkages between national and provincial parties that exist at the constituency level. This examination of the local organizations of the Liberal Party calls into question the academic consensus on the separation of national and provincial parties in Canada. Instead, the Liberal Party is characterized as an unevenly integrated party, where the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties are separated from provincial counterparts, but where the national and provincial parties on the ground are oftentimes integrated. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In recent years, negativity has become a dominant theme in the political campaign. However, there are no comprehensive studies to measure the amount of negativity and to examine how parties and candidates adopt these negative strategies, particularly in the Canadian context. Although some studies have focused on a particular aspect of negative campaigning in a Canadian election, the question remains of how and to what extent parties adopt negative strategies in an election. In this thesis, I have collected and analyzed parties’ press releases in the 2015 federal election to examine and explain negativity in parties’ political campaigns. I have tested my results according to five primary theories of negative campaigning, including competitive positioning, ideological proximity, party organization, coalition or minority effect, and negative personalization, to see if these theories apply in the Canadian context. My results indicate that the 2015 federal campaign was a highly negative one, and most of the negative attacks have been directed towards the leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, while the Conservative Party published the least amount of negative attacks during the campaign. I also found that the Liberal Party has published the most negative statements during the campaign. My results also show that one of the influential factors in shaping parties’ negative campaign strategies is the other parties’ status in public opinion polls, particularly the federal voting intention factor. Although the results show that most of the attacks in the 2015 campaign targeted leaders of parties, I did not find enough support in my models to verify the negative personalization theory. The overall findings of this thesis show that Canadian elections are moving toward a presidential-style campaign, similar to the United States, by becoming more negative and more personalized, which can have significant implications for Canadian democracy.

In 2022, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This act had created turmoil outside of Ukraine’s border and politicians around the globe took this as a chance to promote themselves and their values. This thesis follows how was the war used in the Czech Republic during Senatorial, Municipal, and Presidential campaigns. To do so, a qualitative analysis of multimodal content uploaded to individual politicians and full-party Facebook and Twitter profiles has been conducted. The author argues that a phenomenon discovered in journalism called “media domestication” can be applied also to the field of political communication. Each party and politician has constructed the war in their own way to present their values while sharing the content, due to the fact that in their communication, different elements of the war have been used. This allows its own interpretation to fit the agenda of the sender of said communication.

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While conventional wisdom suggests political ads are often misleading, this is the first known study to quantify the prevalence of inaccuracies in political advertising. This study also examines how and explains why the U.S. news media provide coverage of political advertising in the manner that they do. A multi-method research design includes a content analysis of the television ads from the 2008 presidential election, secondary data analysis of the National Annenberg Election Survey 2008, semantic network analysis of press coverage of political television ads from the 2008 election, as well as in-depth interviews with scholars, practitioners, journalists and lawyers having expertise in the issues surrounding political advertising. Of all the English-language paid political ads that aired on television during the 2008 general election, just under 30% contained at least one inaccuracy based upon the ratings of FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com. This figure, however, is likely a gross under representation of the prevalence of inaccuracies in political ads from 2008 because most of the ads (70%) were never evaluated by these purportedly elite fact-checkers. Among ads assessed, however, more than three out of four of the evaluated claims had some degree of inaccuracy. Furthermore, ads containing at least one inaccuracy aired twice as often on television as the ads that were never evaluated. To the degree inaccurate ads air on television more frequently, then, there is cause for concern particularly given the broadcasters' mandate to serve the public interest. Moreover, while political interest supporters were one of the groups most likely to have inaccuracies in their ads, nearly half of their spending was in the last weeks of the election contributing to most of their ads going without evaluation. Thus, in a post-Citizens United world, attempts by fact-checkers to review the onslaught of PAC ads during the final weeks of the 2012 election (and the final weeks of future elections) will be crucial in combating inaccuracies. This study also extends the work of Geer (2006) who offered an organized review of negativity in political advertising. Rather than finding support for the hypothesis that negative attack ads are more accurate than advocacy ads, the evidence challenges Geer's defense of negativity. Among the ads evaluated by the fact-checkers, inaccuracies were significantly more likely to be present in attack rather than either advocacy or contrast ads. While Geer may have demonstrated that negative ads offer more substantive evidence, simply because evidence is presented does not mean the evidence is accurate. In the more provocative ads of 2008 designed to gain attention, inaccuracies were rife. Moreover, rather than the mainstream news media fixation on political ad negativity, the evidence in the forthcoming pages suggests attention is more warranted concerning the accuracy of the claims within the ads regardless of the ad's tone. A first step toward a theory of strategic misinformation is also offered by demonstrating that it is possible to predict which political ads were more likely to draw an inaccurate rating from the fact-checkers. Holding all other variables constant, it was attack ads that had the highest odds of being evaluated as inaccurate with contrast ads also having a high likelihood. These predictions also confirmed that as the campaign progressed, the odds of an ad being rated inaccurate declined which was a function of ads not being evaluated. Furthermore, it was revealed that a loss of momentum or a decline in public perceptions of candidate characteristics increased the odds of candidates drawing inaccurate ratings in their attack ads. In extending understanding of how news media cover candidate campaigns when political advertising is referenced, a plurality of media outlets from the over two dozen in the study were characterized foremost by their focus on campaign strategy rather than fact-checking. One cluster, however, emerged as AdWatchers - those committed to using political ads to scrutinize the accuracy of what candidates and their surrogates were claiming. Nonetheless, the economic realities of adwatching are that there is a so called "chilling effect" because it is expensive, time-consuming, and divisive. Furthermore, the dearth of watchdog ad reporting enables broadcast stations to continue airing ads that may be false while preserving their ability to claim ignorance about the content when faced with regulatory compliance issues. Thus, the political ads most likely to air are the ones with inaccuracies. Chances are the ads will go unscrutinized by the mainstream news media while television stations profit from their proliferation. / Mass Media and Communication