Electoral campaigns in the digital age: the impact of social media and design communication on the 2018 “Lebanese parliamentary elections” campaigns

Abstract

Technology is altering human communication and their lifestyle. It helped in spreading information and made it more focused for serving human needs. This technological revolution was known as the “information age” which had a dramatic impact on our culture, in terms of making life much easier. The digital revolution changed a lot in the ways we communicate and we interact. Living in the digital age, people are being exposed to a brand-new power; the digital power. Social media gives the opportunity to bring politics closer to people and creates an atmosphere that is incredibly informative and easily accessible. Digital media and social media created a visible influencing platform that is also informative which targets people and manipulates their actions. This research aims to study the influence of social media and design communication in the 2018 Lebanese parliamentary election campaigns, mainly the one of the civil society coalition “Kollouna Watani” to assess its effectiveness in directing people’s voting choices. The research findings proved the importance of social media in electoral campaigns. The results confirmed that social media as a tool of communicating political content do affect voters but cannot direct their voting decisions. The findings support the need to better understand the importance of building a well-studied campaign ahead of time while planning the design content.