Analyzing the Downstream Consequences of a Politician’s Snarky Attack on Opponents: An Abstract

With the advent of social media, politicians have found a new avenue to connect to their supporters and reach out to many others who could be potential supporters. This is evident from growing money spent by politicians on digital advertising, with a Statista report stating that about 1.8 billion USD were spent on the 2018 midterm elections and this amount increased to 2.8 billion dollars during the 2020 presidential elections (Statista 2021). Our research takes a look at these social media posts by politicians and their persuasiveness, measured as the attitude towards the candidate. Grounded in Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), our theorizing is based on accessibility to persuasion motives, which in this case would be garnering votes by the politician.

A large body of research has explored how individuals respond to political marketing efforts. However, little is known about how the content of a politician’s posts on social media can influence the voter’s decision. This is an issue of significant theoretical and practical relevance since research has recognized that Twitter has been extensively utilized by effectively communicating with existing supporters and engaging new ones (Bode and Dalrymple 2016). Political persuasion is an interesting amalgamation of political and marketplace activities and studying persuasiveness in a political context can be applied to other consumption contexts (Kim, Rao, and Lee 2009).

This research makes several important contributions. Prior research has recognized that the impact of social media on civic and political participation has increased dramatically over the last twenty years (Boulianne 2020). However, no research has established a link between a politician’s posts and resultant attitude formed towards the candidate, improving our understanding in this regard. Further, this research makes a theoretical contribution to the stream of political marketing, persuasion, and social media literature. This research also has practical implications for managers as many times, organizations openly support political candidates, which could potentially gain more customers or lose customers. A politician’s posts predictive of attitude that will be formed by individuals could greatly impact the organization’s plan to support (or not) a certain candidate.