CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 398Social Media and PoliticsMedia Influence and PoliticsElectoral Systems and Political Participation

Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle

Kreiss, Daniel, MCGREGOR, SHANNON C.·2018·Political Communication
DOI 10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This article offers the first analysis of the role that technology companies, specifically Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Google, play in shaping the political communication of electoral campaigns in the United States. We offer an empirical analysis of the work technology firms do around electoral politics through interviews with staffers at these firms and digital and social media directors of 2016 U.S. presidential primary and general election campaigns, in addition to field observations at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. We find that technology firms are motivated to work in the political space for marketing, advertising revenue, and relationship-building in the service of lobbying efforts. To facilitate this, these firms have developed organizational structures and staffing patterns that accord with the partisan nature of American politics. Furthermore, Facebook, Twitter, and Google go beyond promoting their services and facilitating digital advertising buys, actively shaping campaign communication through their close collaboration with political staffers. We show how representatives at these firms serve as quasi-digital consultants to campaigns, shaping digital strategy, content, and execution. Given this, we argue that political communication scholars need to consider social media firms as more active agents in political processes than previously appreciated in the literature.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814

Cites

42 of 42 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Social media companies such as Facebook and Google have billed themselves in the United States as only selling ad space, but research shows they are much more active in shaping campaign communications than previously known.

    “Moreover, while social media companies such as Facebook and Google have billed themselves in the United States as only selling ad space, research shows that they are much more active in shaping campaign communications than previously known (103).”

    From Physical and virtual repertoires of contention (2022) · cites this paper as [103]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 43 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Kreiss, D., & MCGREGOR, S. C.
Affiliations
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
  • University of Utah (US)
ORCID
Venue
Political Communication
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2017-10-26
Volume
35
Issue
2
Pages
155-177
ISSN
  • 1058-4609 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-7675
DOI
10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814
OpenAlex
W2766265131
Cited by
398
References
43
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 61 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 3
FWCI
88.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Political Communication (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Microsoft Research
  • University of Missouri
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Keywords
technology companies, 2016 US presidential election, political campaigns, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, online advertising, social networking sites, lobbying, corporate political activity

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review