Information, issues, and supporters: The application of online persuasion in the 2015 General Election

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1724
• Author: Nigel Jackson

ACADEMIC PAPER

Information, issues, and supporters: The application of online

persuasion in the 2015 General Election

Nigel Jackson

Reader in Persuasion and Communication,

Cookworthy Building, Plymouth Business

School, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

Correspondence

Nigel Jackson, Reader in Persuasion and

Communication, Cookworthy Building,

Plymouth Business School, University of

Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA,

UK.

Email: nigel.jackson@plymouth.ac.uk

Funding information

Faculty of Business Facilitation Grant, Univer-

sity of Plymouth 2015

This paper explores how political parties use their websites to persuade visitors during

the 2015 UK General Election campaign. The home pages of 41 party websites were

assessed. The findings suggest that parties view visitors as rationally assessing mate-

rial, not emotionally; thus, the content provides information and seeks to mobilise

support and generate resources. However, application of Nielsen's F‐pattern finds

that these are precisely the areas within a website most likely to be placed beyond

where visitors will look. Simple changes in design structure, the use of emotional mes-

sages, and shortcuts should make party websites more persuasive.

1|INTRODUCTION

The Internet has been used in election campaigns since the 1992 U.S.

Presidential election and was first used in the UK for the 1997 General

Election (Ward & Gibson, 1998). The research on the use of websites

in UK elections (Coleman, 2001; Coleman & Ward, 2005; Jackson,

2006; Lilleker & Jackson, 2011; Pack, 2010; Ward & Gibson, 1998)

has focused on the provision of information and the level of interac-

tion. This literature reflects an orthodoxy that stresses why and how

political actors have and use a website. An alternative interpretation

is that political parties view their websites not just to provide informa-

tion but also as persuasive tools. This paper seeks to assess whether

political parties used their websites as persuasive tools during the

2015 UK General Election campaign.

1.1 |Persuasion theory

Although there is no single agreed definition of persuasion (Stiff &

Mongeau, 2003), we can suggest that it is a process by which some-

one (a persuader) seeks to change the behaviour of another person

(the persuadee) via some form of communication. It is a reasonable

proposition to suggest that persuasion is central to the political pro-

cess. Persuasion has been applied to the political process in a number

of contexts. Consistent with traditional political science is a study by

Goot and Scalmer (2013) who assessed the role of persuasion in the

Australian 1951 Referendum to ban communism, which the No

campaign won. They ascribe this success to the fact that the No cam-

paign mobilised their core Labour voters and attracted some Liberals.

They argued that this was achieved by targeting public meetings in

key geographic areas and using effective rhetoric. A more media‐

effects approach was taken by Enikolopov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya

(2011), who found that access to independent, as opposed to only

government controlled, television impacted on voting behaviour.

Where an alternative source of television existed, then overall turnout

for the 1999 Russian parliamentary elections decreased by 3.8% and

at the same time increased the vote for the major opposition parties

by 6.3%. This therefore codified the effects of one media in Russia

during these elections, and if television has such persuasive effects,

other media such as web technologies may also.

A number of studies have more overtly applied persuasion theory

to politics. Thus, Chebat, Filiatrault, and Perrien (1990) used a study of

381 respondents in Canada to suggest that source credibility was

important irrespective of whether the individual had high or low

involvement in an issue. This is clearly consistent with Aristotle's writ-

ings on rhetoric when he suggested that probably the most important

factor of rhetoric (persuasion) is ethos, the credibility of the message

sender. Dewan, Humphreys, and Rubenson (2014) tested ethos but

also Aristotle's two other factors logos (the message) and pathos (the

audience), using data from the British Columbians for Single Transfer-

able Vote to test the effect of three factors: different messages, differ-

ent campaigners, and endorsement by public figures. They found that

being canvassed did persuade voters, and that they responded to

arguments and endorsements, but that the characteristics of the per-

suaders (the canvassers) had little impact.

Support for this research was provided by an institutional grant.

Received: 7 March 2018 Accepted: 3 April 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1724

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1724.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1724

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of7