Strategic Use of Social Media by Political Parties: Evidence from Italy

Abstract

We examine how Italian politicians strategically use news events and political communication to increase their support in the electorate. Using machine-learning techniques, we extract events about immigration and the economy from newswires. We then test a causal chain connecting events, political communication, the salience of particular cleavages, and support for parties measured. In addition, we measure the relevance of such effects in explaining support for parties by calibrating a structural model of political competition informed by the relationships uncovered by our reduced-form analysis. We show that social media communication about immigration impacts salience and voting, and is more important than actual events in explaining political support.