Description
This book examines the 2020 campaign and election in the United States of America from the perspective of political marketing, always intrinsic to democratic elections. Whether focused on the development of campaign strategy, its implementation via various communication media, or how well that communication resonates and mobilizes the electorate, marketing is central to political campaigning.
The election of 2020 was arguably one of the most unique in recent memory. The campaign took place in a context which included a pandemic that prevented normal campaigning for much of the year, a historically unpopular and polarizing incumbent president and continued adaptation on the part of all political actors and citizens to a rapidly changing communication environment. Chapters in this book, by well-respected scholars in the field, focus on various aspects of this reality. This includes discussion of how candidates use various social media platforms, what effects the social media campaign has on citizens and legacy media, as well as how well marketing efforts resonate with citizens.
Political Marketing and the Election of 2020 will interest students, scholars, and researchers of political marketing, political communication, parties and elections, and American politics. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Political Marketing.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Political Marketing and the Election of 2020
Jody C Baumgartner
1. On Political Brands: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Sigge Winther Nielsen
2. A Long Story Short: An Analysis of Instagram Stories during the 2020 Campaigns
Terri L. Towner and Caroline Muñoz
3. Marketing Female Candidates as “Women”: Gender and Partisanship’s Influence on Issue Discussion on Twitter in 2020
Heather K. Evans
4. Tipping the Twitter vs. News Media Scale? Conducting a Third Assessment of Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects during the Presidential Nomination Season
Bethany Anne Conway, Eric Tsetsi, Kate Kenski and Yotam Shmargad
5. An Application of Psychological Reactance Theory to College Student Voter Registration and Mobilization
Tobias Reynolds-Tylus and Dan Schill
6. Candidate Evaluations and Social Media Following during the 2020 Presidential Campaign
Kate Kenski, Dam Hee Kim and S. Mo Jones-Jang
Afterword: Political Marketing, the 2022 Midterms and Future Campaigns
Bruce I. Newman and Jody C Baumgartner
