社交媒体与政治献金：新技术对政治竞争的影响
Social Media and Political Contributions: The Impact of New Technology on Political Competition
摘要：
政治竞选是美国最复杂的营销活动之一。作为其营销传播战略的一部分，越来越多的政治家采用社交媒体来告知其选民。本研究通过关注竞选捐款的变化，记录了竞选国会议员的政治家采用新技术（即Twitter）的回报。我们比较了政治家在Twitter渗透率高和低的地区开设Twitter账户之前和之后收到的每周捐款，控制了政治家月固定效应。具体而言，在政治竞选过程中，我们估计在Twitter渗透率高与低的地区开设Twitter账户的差异效应相当于所有政治家的捐款增加0.7-2%，而新政治家的捐款增加1-3.1%，他们以前从未当选为国会议员。相比之下，经验丰富的政治家加入Twitter的影响仍然微不足道。我们发现一些证据与这种解释一致，即这种效应是由关于候选人的新信息驱动的，例如，这种影响主要是由新的捐助者而不是过去的捐助者，没有Facebook帐户和Twitter更多信息的候选人驱动的。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，社交媒体可以通过降低新进入者向其选民传播信息的成本来加剧政治竞争，从而减少进入政治的障碍。
英文摘要：
Political campaigns are among the most sophisticated marketing exercises in the United States. As part of their marketing communication strategy, an increasing number of politicians adopt social media to inform their constituencies. This study documents the returns from adopting a new technology, namely Twitter, for politicians running for Congress by focusing on the change in campaign contributions received. We compare weekly donations received just before and just after a politician opens a Twitter account in regions with high and low levels of Twitter penetration, controlling for politician-month fixed effects. Specifically, over the course of a political campaign, we estimate that the differential effect of opening a Twitter account in regions with high vs low levels of Twitter penetration amounts to an increase of 0.7-2% in donations for all politicians and 1-3.1% for new politicians, who were never elected to the Congress before. In contrast, the effect of joining Twitter for experienced politicians remains negligibly small. We find some evidence consistent with the explanation that the effect is driven by new information about the candidates, e.g., the effect is primarily driven by new donors rather than past donors, by candidates without Facebook accounts and tweeting more informatively. Overall, our findings imply that social media can intensify political competition by lowering costs of disseminating information for new entrants to their constituents and thus may reduce the barriers to enter politics.
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