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Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election

A large-scale experiment during the 2010 U.S. Congressional Election demonstrated a positive effect of an online get-out-the-vote message on real world voting behavior. Here, we report results from a replication of the experiment conducted during the U.S. Presidential Election in 2012. In spite of t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Jones, Jason J., Bond, Robert M., Bakshy, Eytan, Eckles, Dean, Fowler, James H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173851
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author Jones, Jason J.
Bond, Robert M.
Bakshy, Eytan
Eckles, Dean
Fowler, James H.
author_facet Jones, Jason J.
Bond, Robert M.
Bakshy, Eytan
Eckles, Dean
Fowler, James H.
author_sort Jones, Jason J.
collection PubMed
description A large-scale experiment during the 2010 U.S. Congressional Election demonstrated a positive effect of an online get-out-the-vote message on real world voting behavior. Here, we report results from a replication of the experiment conducted during the U.S. Presidential Election in 2012. In spite of the fact that get-out-the-vote messages typically yield smaller effects during high-stakes elections due to saturation of mobilization efforts from many sources, a significant increase in voting was again observed. Voting also increased significantly among the close friends of those who received the message to go to the polls, and the total effect on the friends was likely larger than the direct effect, suggesting that understanding social influence effects is potentially even more important than understanding the direct effects of messaging. These results replicate earlier work and they add to growing evidence that online social networks can be instrumental for spreading offline behaviors.
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spelling pubmed-54059162017-05-14 Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election Jones, Jason J. Bond, Robert M. Bakshy, Eytan Eckles, Dean Fowler, James H. PLoS One Research Article A large-scale experiment during the 2010 U.S. Congressional Election demonstrated a positive effect of an online get-out-the-vote message on real world voting behavior. Here, we report results from a replication of the experiment conducted during the U.S. Presidential Election in 2012. In spite of the fact that get-out-the-vote messages typically yield smaller effects during high-stakes elections due to saturation of mobilization efforts from many sources, a significant increase in voting was again observed. Voting also increased significantly among the close friends of those who received the message to go to the polls, and the total effect on the friends was likely larger than the direct effect, suggesting that understanding social influence effects is potentially even more important than understanding the direct effects of messaging. These results replicate earlier work and they add to growing evidence that online social networks can be instrumental for spreading offline behaviors. Public Library of Science 2017-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5405916/ /pubmed/28445476 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173851 Text en © 2017 Jones et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Jones, Jason J.
Bond, Robert M.
Bakshy, Eytan
Eckles, Dean
Fowler, James H.
Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title_full Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title_fullStr Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title_full_unstemmed Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title_short Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
title_sort social influence and political mobilization: further evidence from a randomized experiment in the 2012 u.s. presidential election
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28445476
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173851
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