IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 33

parties and candidates adopted and used social media
tools as part of their campaign in the 2013 presidential
elections in Cyprus. Interviews with social media officers of five political parties were conducted with the
aim of uncovering the frequency and type of social medial usage in the elections. Results reveal that social media were primarily used for one-way communication
rather than being a means of discussion and interaction
between politicians and voters. Most candidates used
social media merely for dissemination of news, images,
political messages, and upcoming events. However, all
parties recognized that the role of social media in presidential elections could be enhanced to allow more interaction between candidates and voters.

Social Media Potential
A new type of web technology popularly referred to as
social media have opened up possibilities for enhanced
online human-to-human interaction. The use of social
media is spreading fast, from organizing events to sharing information, and from forming groups to running
entire political campaigns. Social media allow users not
only to seek information, but also to interact with others
through online expression such as posting political
commentaries on blogs and social network sites and
sharing multimedia commentary [8].
Political leaders and parties recently began to use
social networking to achieve political objectives [13]. A
wide range of factors is attributed to the increasing use
of social media for online campaigns and online electioneering both by politicians and by citizens. Parisopoulos et al. [14] cluster these factors into two major
sets, supply driven and demand driven. Supply driven
factors are those factors that relate to the use of social
media by politicians, and demand driven factors are
those that relate to the use of social media by non-politicians for political reasons.
Candidates can adopt many Internet tools for the
purposes of communicating with constituents and voters in order to collect donations, foster community, and
organize events. The available tools include social networking sites (SNSs). These are web-based services that
allow individuals 1) to construct public or semi-public
profiles within a bounded system, 2) to articulate [27] a
list of other users with whom they share a connection,
and 3) to view and traverse their list of connections and
those made by others within the system [4]. Facebook
profiles also give candidates a platform to publicize
their support for a number of existing political groups,
causes, and other candidates. In addition, they can post
notes to their supporters and respond to comments on
their individual web pages or walls [10].
One of the most well-known examples of leveraging
social media for a campaign is the 2008 American
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presidential election in which President Obama used
social media to his advantage, posting on Facebook,
tweeting, and creating YouTube videos that disseminated his message much faster than any traditional marketing medium. However, globally many politicians
don't seem to utilize the potential of social media.
Khaldarova et al. [7] for example, suggest that Finnish
politicians do not yet appear to be making that breakthrough push in use of online social media. While some
politicians use online social media tools helpful for
interaction with citizens, most politicians use social
media as a dissemination tool rather than as a way to
engage with voters. In addition, it seems that social media
is often used as a campaigning tool and then quickly
abandoned after the elections.
The picture seems to be similar in other countries
too. A study in [16] showed that the Internet is not being
used to its maximum potential by Indian politicians.
Many of the party sites were not interactive nor were they
adequately updated. Also, not many politicians used
their sites to disseminate news and photographs to
potential voters and several sites remained unchanged
before, during, and after the elections. Johannessen [9]
has also suggested that Norwegian politicians are still
uncertain about how to communicate using SNSs and
what communication through SNSs should mean for
the political process. Further, according to [14], Greek
politicians have not acquired a deep understanding of
Facebook's potential. Most candidates just upload promotional material or announcements rather than seeking meaningful discussion with their supporters.

Most politicians use social media
for short-term dissemination rather
than long-term engagement.
More recently, in the U.S. 2016 elections, social media
seemed to have played a very important role. According
to Frank Speiser, for example (quoted in [28]), the
recent election was the "first true social media election."
Social media's role in the election has been bigger than
ever before [29] and it seems to have carried tremendous influence on the electorate [30]. According to [27],
35% of people 18 to 29 years old said that social media
was the most helpful source of information in the 2016
presidential election. The two main candidates' use of
social media differed significantly, according to [32],
though. Donald Trump's posts were often focused outward, attacking others rather than talking about himself

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