Supporting Democracy through Social Media Ads? An Online Field Experiment

• In Event: Media Campaigns and Persuasion

Abstract

Pro-democratic civil society organizations working under authoritarian conditions attempt to do much with few resources in a constrained context. In the absence of democratic state institutions, they have to undertake functions necessary for democratization and democratic consolidation, such as providing civic education and coordinating democratic mobilization. On the other hand, however, the lack of resources and legal guarantees usually confine them to metropolitan areas and upper-middle-class constituencies. Our study explores whether civil society organizations working in these contexts can benefit from paid social media advertisements in realising their democratic goals.

In collaboration with a civil society organization in Turkey, we conducted an online field experiment during the campaign period of the 2023 general election in the country. Our partner organization was an organization recruiting election monitors across the country to fight electoral misconduct and fraud. Before the election, we ran social media advertisements on Facebook and Instagram on their behalf in more than four hundred randomly chosen administrative districts in Turkey, corresponding to around half of all administrative districts in the country. No advertisements were published in districts assigned to the control group. The preliminary results demonstrate that paid social media advertisements increased the number of people registering to be election monitors, especially in socioeconomically disadvantaged districts.

Authors

• Aykut Ozturk, University of Glasgow

• Anja Neundorf, Unveristy of Glasgow

• Steven E. Finkel, University of Pittsburgh

• Ericka Rascon Ramirez, Middlesex University