Yu‐jui Chen and Pin‐yu Chu
Although Facebook is a self‐owned and direct information channel, legislators seldom take advantage of it in emphasizing their personality traits and enforcing their support in regular session( 2 % for emphasis on personal characterizes, and 0 % for endorsement). The results indicate that legislators’ Facebook still emphasize a legislator’ s political statement and daily life information. Unlike the results found in blogs and web sites in Taiwan( Wang, 2009), opponent attack is not the main strategy during the 2012 legislative election in Taiwan.
Table 3: Strategies of the legislator’ Facebook( average post per legislator) Strategy
Regular Legislative Session
Election Period
Mean SD % Mean SD %
T‐value Sig.( 2‐tailed)
Daily information‐sharing |
10.17 |
12.71 |
34 |
14.23 |
14.02 |
28 |
‐1.38 |
0.178 |
Emphasis on personal characterizes |
0.53 |
1.33 |
2 |
3.80 |
3.51 |
7 |
‐5.98 |
0.000 **
*
|
Endorsement |
0.1 |
0.40 |
0 |
4.30 |
5.35 |
9 |
‐4.33 |
0.000 **
*
|
Mobilization and participation |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6.80 |
5.50 |
13 |
‐6.77 |
0.000 **
*
|
Opponent attack |
2.27 |
4.10 |
8 |
4.40 |
9.74 |
9 |
‐1.13 |
0.266 |
Political information |
16.83 |
17.09 |
56 |
17.33 |
14.13 |
34 |
‐. 13 |
0.897 |
Total |
29.9 |
|
100 |
50.86 |
|
100 |
|
|
Note: *** p < 0.001
As show in Table 4, e‐information pattern, with the average post per legislator in the regular legislative sessions 12.47( 42 %) and with the average post per legislator in the election periods 26.7( 52 %), is the most frequently used e‐participation pattern on legislators’ Facebook pages. Our results reveal that the concept of e‐participation achieved a fine rate( 64 %) on the legislators’ Facebook pages, but most communications are still one‐way( 42 % for e‐information in the regular legislative sessions and 52 % in the election periods). The two‐way communication is not utilized properly or successfully, due to the fact that the Facebook of legislators still lack for dialogue and consensus‐building with citizens.
Table 4: E‐participation of the legislator’ Facebook Participation
Regular Legislative Session
Election Period
Mean SD % Mean SD %
T‐value Sig.( 2‐tailed)
E‐information |
12.47 |
13.02 |
42 |
26.70 |
22.90 |
52 |
‐2.99 |
0.006 ** |
E‐consultation |
6.47 |
11.45 |
22 |
1.80 |
2.80 |
3 |
2.03 |
0.029 * |
Non‐participation |
10.96 |
13.79 |
36 |
22.36 |
20.54 |
45 |
‐3.20 |
0.003 ** |
Total |
29.9 |
|
100 |
50.86 |
|
|
|
|
Note: *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.1
4.3 Differences in Facebook strategies used in different periods of time
To explore differences in communication strategies and patterns of legislators’ Facebook, we apply a paired t‐test to compare the strategies used in the election periods and in the regular legislative sessions( see Table 3). The three significant differences in strategies used between the regular session and the election period are: emphasis on personal [ t( 29) = ‐5.98, p = 0.000 < 0.001 ], endorsement [ t( 29) = ‐4.33, p = 0.000 < 0.001 ], mobilization and participation [ t( 29) = ‐6.77, p = 0.000 < 0.001). These three strategies, highly related to personal image building and promotion in political campaigns through the Internet, are increased during the legislative election. Legislators in Taiwan tend to use diversified marketing strategies, and political marketing is not the major consideration for legislators to use Facebook during the regular legislative session.
On the other hand, e‐participation is significantly different between the regular legislative sessions and the election periods( see Table 4). E‐information [ t( 29) = ‐2.99, p = 0.006 < 0.01 ] was increasingly applied by legislators by providing more personal political manifestos through Facebook. The decrease of e‐consultation
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