Saturation or maturation? The diffusion of Twitter and its impact on preference voting in the Dutch general elections of 2010 and 2012

Abstract

Does social-media usage (e.g. Twitter) influence candidates’ number of votes? Recent studies have shown that a modest impact might exist. However, these studies used data on elections in which only a limited group of politicians used Twitter. In such a context it was easy for a candidate to stand out. It remains to be seen whether the effect holds in times of widespread usage. This study compares a low-usage with a widespread-usage election, the Dutch 2010 and 2012 national elections respectively. It utilizes unique data on all 1024 candidates of the ‘large’ parties. Interestingly, even in the context of widespread Twitter usage we still find a positive association between Twitter use and preference votes.