مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Political public relations scholars have contributed to a growing body of research about the use and impact of digital and social media. Their research shows that digital and social media are indeed critical channels of communication for public relations practitioners, allowing direct interaction with key publics and their opinion leaders, bypassing legacy media gatekeepers (Dozier, Sha, Wellhausen, & Ray, 2009).

In the early days of digital political public relations, much hype emphasized how digital tools could connect publics directly to campaign organizations (Bimber & Davis, 2003; Tedesco, 2004). Further research confirms that digital and social media do provide publics with powerful tools to shift from latent to aware to active publics. Activist publics often spring up overnight online, as an organic response to organizational missteps, causing migraines for practitioners. However, despite growing research on publics and activism, few studies have provided a profile of online politically active publics.

Campaignmanagers andstaffersusedigital andsocialmedia tomobilize support(Bor, 2014;Cogburn & Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011; Gueorguieva, 2008). Political public relations practitioners search for effective ways to influence voters. They also seek a better understanding of online political advocates who shape voter attitudes (Lawrence, 2010). Such searches have resulted in mixed outcomes.