Facebook as a medium of political campaigns during the May 2013 Election assessed by the first-time voters in the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of St. La Salle

Caceres, Maikko Lirazan, Katherine

Lozañes, AlyssaMereria, Christine Marie

Sichon, Nicole

CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION

According to Rappler (2012), in a minute, there’s an average of 5 Filipinos that log on to their respective Facebook accounts to either update their status, upload photos or even just to check their friends’ updates. In an hour, almost 300 Filipino users open their Facebook accounts which lead Philippines to rank 8th in the world and is considered to be a Facebook country. Also, about 1,226, 960 users were added over the past 6 months.

http://static.rappler.com/images/B-FBusersbycountry-420.png

From these statistics, politicians tend to use social media in their political campaigns during elections. Social Media has become a new battleground for them to test how popular and influential they can be by gathering more supporters through these social networking sites.

House to house campaigns, rallies, and outreach activities are just some of the traditional campaigns during elections, but nowadays traditional campaigns and new media combine in the form of social media campaigns.

Social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are being used in campaigning since 2010 elections in the Philippines.

During the May 2013 midterm elections in Bacolod City, Facebook was bombarded by different campaigns of electoral candidates running for different Government offices. They’ve created fan pages which contained their platforms, schedules, political jingles, photos and campaign related videos. In this way they can update their supporters faster regarding their schedule of activities and through the Facebook buttons like shares and likes they can monitor their performance and identify how popular they were during the election campaign.

Different types of Political campaigns in Facebook during the last May 2013 Midterm Elections

As avid Facebook users, the researchers have observed that Facebook has been utilized as an avenue for political campaigns. The higher visibility of political campaigns in Facebook during the campaign period for the last May 2013 midterm elections sparked interest to conduct this study.

Statement of the Problem

This research aimed to study Facebook as a medium of political campaigns during the last May 2013 midterm elections and how the first-time voters from USLS’CAS assess it. Specifically, the research aimed to answer the following questions:1. What were the contents in the political campaigns of the electoral candidates posted in the Facebook account of the respondents?2. Were the respondents’ decision-making affected by the information of the political campaigns found in their Facebook accounts?3. What were the bases of respondents?4. Who posted their campaigns in Facebook account?5. How effective is Facebook as a medium of political campaigns for the electoral candidates?

Conceptual Framework

Lazersfeld and Katz Two-step model of Communication

Fig.1 The relationship between Political campaigns in Facebook and Voters’ Decision-making

Hypothesis

Facebook has influenced the decision-making of the first-time voters who have seen the political campaigns in their Facebook page.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

ScopeThe research will be aimed towards the first time voters

of the last May 2013 midterm elections. The respondents will be students from the College of Arts & Sciences enrolled in the University of St. La Salle – Bacolod for A.Y. 2013 – 2014.

Limitations

The study conducted aims to show the impact of Facebook as a means of political campaigning amongst the youth, especially towards the first time voters of the University of St. La Salle-Bacolod. The study was conducted during the second semester of Academic Year 2013-2014 and covered 150 students coming from different CAS Majors.

Initially, the researchers set 200 as the target number of respondents but were unable to do so because of the following constraints:• The survey was too filtered.• The study only focused on students from the College of Arts & Sciences• Some of the desired respondents are not registered voters• Some respondents lacked knowledge about politics and have not heard of the political candidates listed down in the questionnaire.• Some respondents were not active Facebook users.• Lack of time to conduct the survey proved to be a major setback for the group.

Significance of the Study

The study may be significant to the following:

• College Students (18 years old and above). College students will learn the different factors about a certain political campaign of a candidate, in which their electoral decision-making could be influenced. Moreover, college students are new and fragile in the whole voting scenario.

• Professionals. Professionals will be able to gain knowledge as to how the youth of today engage in politics. Also, this will enlighten them on the background of political campaigns in Facebook, the tactics used by the politicians and the interactions they give to their followers.

• Media. Since Facebook is a popular campaign tool, Media finds it easy to search for news about political candidates in their Facebook pages. Through this study, Media could determine the factors that underlies why Facebook is considered a popular campaign tool in this modern times.

Definition of Terms

Like is a function in Facebook that allows people to express their preference over a piece of information.Link is a clickable function in Facebook that allows users to open or access another websitePosting means the encoding of text, photo, video, music, graphic Interchange Format (GIF) and other related materials in a message board.Hashtag (#) is a clickable link that leads you to all the posts made related to the topic.First-Time Voters is the variable being tested in this study. They are comprised of people from the age of 18.Share is the activity in Facebook that enables users to post others’ prior posts in their own timeline.Timeline is where all activities of the Facebook user is being shown.Newsfeed is where the posts of one’s Facebook friends appear.

CHAPTER 3RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGNThis study used the correlational research design in which is most

appropriate in resolving the relationship between the independent and dependent variable in the study: Facebook and Political campaigns.RESPONDENTS

The respondents were the first-time voters in Bacolod City for the last May 2013 midterm elections and enrolled for the first semester School Year 2013-2014 in the College of Arts and Sciences of University of St. La Salle. They were located through a non-probability sampling technique or the snowball sampling.SAMPLING DESIGNThe study used a non-probability sampling technique or the snowball sampling. The population sample is the College of Arts and Sciences which we set into a quota of 150 respondents.

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTSThe researchers used a group administered

questionnaires which will be used to survey a set of people. (See Appendix). The first block marked by a Roman numeral (I) indicates the background information which includes their name, age, address, course, year level and sex. The next block is allotted for the series of checklists which will provide the data of their personal activities and initial impulses on political campaigns on the social media sites specifically on Facebook

The last block comprised of two checklists that will help us further determine whether or not the political campaigning done by the candidates through Facebook really made an impact towards the first-time voters’ decision.

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE INSTRUMENTThe instrument used was checked by the research adviser,

Mr. Virgilio Aguilar, who approved the content and the appropriateness of the questions asked. Also, Mr. Julius Mariveles, Mr. Roderick Samonte and Mr. George Aguilar gave their insights and corrections to the instrument. DATA GATHERING PROCEDURE

The questionnaires were distributed from October 2 to 4. The questionnaires were given to the College of Arts and Sciences students, using the snowball technique. The researchers haven’t had a specific sample size for each course, considering only the targeted 200 respondents. Since, the target was not reached; it was lowered down to 150 respondents.

Course Number of copies

Bachelor of Arts Communications/LIACOMM 26

Psychology 10

Political Science 56

Interdisciplinary Studies 20

Bachelor of Science Computer Science 9

Information Technology 37

Table 1. Number of Copies per Course

STATISTICAL TREATMENT

The statistical tools that were used for the interpretation of the data are as follows: 1. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages, means and ranks were used to summarize the following data: a. Profile of the students according their course, age and address.b. Access to internet,c. Hours spent on using Facebook; in a day, in a week, in a month.d. Political campaign contents posted on Facebook; photos: Campaign Posters, Political activities, videos: Political jingles (positive and against other candidates), Political Advocacies, text: schedule of political activities, platforms, Facebook status.e. Candidates that created their Facebook page campaign purposes.f. Responses if the Facebook campaign influences the voters’ decision-making.

CHAPTER 4PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

OF DATA

Table 2. Classification of USLS CAS First time voters according to their course and age

• Photos A) Campaign posters = 89 = 58.2%B) Political activities= 64 = 41.8%

In Figure 7, it is indicated that more respondents have known political propagandas against the other party of the running candidate, 36.7%. According to Mayorga, a sociologist, negative propaganda defies freedom of expression and democracy connection. Moreover, it is an issue of ethical campaign and considering the electoral traditions since then. Positive jingles have 33.3% of the population response and 30% is the advocacy videos.

A) Schedule = 40 = 28.8%B) Platforms = 55= 39.3%C) Status = 45 = 32.1%

Political candidates who posted on Facebook last May 2013 Elections

Congressmana) Cana =23 = 13.6%b) Golez = 72 = 42.6%c) Leonardia = 65 = 38.5%d) Palma =9 = 5.3%

Even if Golez topped the Facebook campaigns, Bing Leonardia won as the city congressman.

Mayora) Puentevella =105 = 65.6%b) Sayson = 55 =34.4%

Bacolod Mayor Monico Puentevella wins over Sayson with 65.6% while Sayson only got 34.4%. This implies that Puentevella’s political campaigns in Facebook might have paved the way of his winning the mayoral position.

Vice Mayora) Alama= 10 = 6.7%b) Gasataya = 63 = 42%c) Gonzales = 54 = 36%d) Novero = 23 = 15.33%

Greg Gasataya topped the Vice-Mayoral position with 42%, closest to him is Vladimir Gonzales with 36%. Quite afar from the first two, Renecito Novero comes third with only 15.33% and Johram Alama with 6.7 %. Greg Gasataya won the Vice-Mayoral position, so it could be implied that he did well with his political campaigns, also reflected in his Facebook visibility.

Bobby Rojas tops the list with 6.1%, Em Ang comes next with 5.6%, followed by Kalaw Puentevella’s 5.3%, Ceasar Distrito comes fourth with 4.7%, Israel Salanga comes fifth with 4%, El Cid Familiarian is the sixth with 3.9%, Jocelle Batapa-Sigue comes next with 3.7%, Carl Lopez follows with 3.6 %, Ed Guillem at ninth place with 3.4%, Wilson Gamboa Jr. follows with 3.2%, Miguel Estrella at 11th with 3%, while Alex Paglumotan and Elmer Sy ties on the 12th spot with 2.9%.

YES NO NO RESPONSE

52 = 34.7% 84 = 56% 14 = 9.3%7.1

Most of the respondents did not use the information posted by the congressional candidates in Facebook as a basis for their voting decisions, reflected by 56%, whereas only 34.7% of the respondents used the information. Even if Golez topped the Facebook campaigns, Bing Leonardia won as the city congressman.

YES NO NO RESPONSE

54 = 36% 79 = 52.7% 17 = 11.3%7.2

52.7% of the respondents did not use the information posted by the mayoral candidates as a basis for their decisions, only 36% did. However, Puentevella topping the mayoral candidate who posted in Facebook still won as the city Mayor.

YES NO NO RESPONSE51 = 34% 84 = 56% 15 = 10%7.3

Also, in vice-mayoral candidates, 56% of the respondents did not use the information and only 34% did. Greg Gasataya won the position as the city Vice- Mayor, and he also topped the candidates who posted their campaigns in Facebook.

YES NO NO RESPONSE

55 = 36.7% 82 = 54.7% 13 = 8.7%7.4

56.7% of the respondents also didn’t use the information posted by the candidates running for city councilors, only 36.7% did. However, among the top 12 candidates who posted their campaigns in Facebook according to the survey, 9 of them actually won as city councilors.

The survey shows that most of the political candidates last May 2013 local elections used Facebook as a part of their political campaign, as this is supported by Silverman, (2010); “With social media’s popularity, it has been tapped by the aspiring politicians as a part of their political campaigns. It is because online campaigning provides a much easier, cheaper and faster way of reaching to the target voters. Thus, it can be considered a shortcut from traditional campaigning (Lardizabal, 2013).”

However, tapping Facebook for political campaigning wouldn’t secure success. Social media may be an interactive venue for political campaigning, but the truth is, aspiring politicians are never really online to answer their supporters’ queries. They just host live Q & As’ from the social media sites (Jerpi, 2013).

Thus, the results show that the respondents were able to know more about the political candidates through Facebook, however they didn’t directly base their voting decision from it.

CHAPTER 5SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary of FindingsResearch shows that respondents who were mostly 19-

year olds took about 50% of the overall population of the first-time voters. 40.5% of the respondents access Facebook through Wi-Fi. Furthermore, study shows that 42.3% uses Facebook on a limit of 1 to 3 hours a day. In a weekly Facebook usage, the research shows that most respondents access Facebook 3 to 5 days a week, presented by 41.8%. Most respondents are avid Facebook users, presented by 62.9% who answered that they use Facebook 2 to 4 weeks every month, followed by 33.3% who only use Facebook 1 to 2 weeks a month.

Regarding the campaign contents, 115 out of 150 respondents saw photos in Facebook, campaign posters were much visible, comprising of 58.2% while 64 of the respondents or 41.8% have seen photos of the candidates’ political activities. 88 respondents have seen video campaigns, wherein 36.7% are composed of negative jingles aimed at the candidates’ rivals, 33.3% are positive jingles and 30% of these videos are advocacies. 90 respondents have seen text posts of the politicians, 39.3% have seen political platforms, 32.1% Facebook statuses, and 28.8% political campaign schedule of the candidates.

Anthony Golez topped the Congressional candidates who posted their political campaigns in Facebook with 42.6%, closely being followed by Bing Leonardia, the congressional-elect with 38.5%. Lyndon Caña comes third with a small percentage of 13.6%, while Ely Palma comes fourth with just 5.3%.

For the Mayoral position, Bacolod Mayor Monico Puentevella wins over Sayson with 65.6% while Sayson only got 34.4%.

Greg Gasataya topped the Vice-Mayoral position with 42%, closest to him is Vladimir Gonzales with 36%. Quite afar from the first two, Renecito Novero comes third with only 15.33% and Johram Alama with 6.7 %. Greg Gasataya won the Vice-Mayoral position, so it could be implied that he did well with his political campaigns, also reflected in his Facebook visibility.

For the position of city councilors, Bobby Rojas tops the list with 6.1%, Em Ang comes next with 5.6%, followed by Kalaw Puentevella’s 5.3%, Ceasar Distrito comes fourth with 4.7%, Israel Salanga comes fifth with 4%, El Cid Familiarian is the sixth with 3.9%, Jocelle Batapa-Sigue comes next with 3.7%, Carl Lopez follows with 3.6 %, Ed Guillem at ninth place with 3.4%, Wilson Gamboa Jr. follows with 3.2%, Miguel Estrella at 11th with 3%, while Alex Paglumotan and Elmer Sy ties on the 12th spot with 2.9%.

The survey showed that in the four local positions available during the May 2013 midterm elections (Congressional, Mayoral, Vice-Mayoral and City Council), most of the respondents didn’t use the information posted by the candidates as a basis for their voting decision.

Even if Golez topped the Facebook campaigns, Bing Leonardia won as the city congressman. Puentevella topping the mayoral candidate who posted in Facebook still won as the city Mayor. Greg Gasataya won the position as the city Vice- Mayor, and he also topped the candidates who posted their campaigns in Facebook. Among the top 12 candidates who posted their campaigns in Facebook according to the survey, 9 of them actually won as city councilors.

Conclusions

Facebook is a powerful media to bring the campaign of the hopeful candidates online and persuade the voters to vote for them. Facebook campaigns did add up to the retention of the minds of the voters. However, Facebook didn’t influence the decision making of the first-time voters rather; Facebook only boosted the visibility and familiarity of the hopeful politicians to the first-time voters.

Recommendations

The researchers recommend the following:1. To the students of USLS, you are greatly exposed to different kinds of media, be careful and be keen to know and stand firm for your decision.2. To the hopeful candidates, Facebook is a powerful media which can make you save a fair amount of money so use it responsibly and adapt to the fast changing media practices in the recent times.

ReferencesJournalsBautista, Ador Eduard ET AL., 2004. Voters’ Electoral Behavior: Factors that influence registered voters’ choice of candidates for the May 2004 National and local Elections in Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City. University of St. La Salle. Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. Electronic SourcesOvide, Shira and Rusli, Evelyn M.” How Facebook, Twitter Court Political Campaigns,”www.online.wsj.com. November 2,2012. July 9,2013. <http;//online.wsj.com/2012/11/2/how-facebook-twitter-court-political-campaigns>

Petronizio, Matt. “Can Social media really boost voter turnout?” www.mashable.com. October 2,2012. June 25,2012. http://mashable.com/2012/10/02/social-media-voter-turnout/

Reynolds, Sue. “Using Facebook for Political Campaigning.” www.carminemedia.com. March 20,2011. July 9,2013. http://carminemedia.com/2011/03/20/using-facebook-for-political-campaigning

Gartheir, Tanita. “Social media, politics create power couple”. www.wlox.com. hhtp://wlox.com/story/20650950/social-media-politics-create-power-couple/

Calderon, Sara Ines. “Facebook as a campaign tool: A look at mayoral candidates”. www.inside-facebook.com.April 28, 2010.July 11, 2013 www.insidefacebook.com/2010/04/28/facebook-as-a-campagin-tool-a-look-at-mayoral-candidates/

David, Meerman.2010. “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video and visual marketing to each buyers directly”

Dado, Noemi Lardizabal. “Social Media Influence and Philippine Elections” May 27 2013.July 9 2013

Behnke,Philip “Social Media and Politics(Online Social Networking and Political Communication in Asia)” www.kas.de.2010. July 11, 2013 http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas:21591-1522-1-30.pdf?110120093225

“How is Social Media Changing Politics?” www.debating.eu.Jan 22, 2013.July 9 2013 http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2013/01/22/how-is-social-media-changing-politics/