This paper is based on a research aimed at investigating celebrity politics using the emerging theories on celebrity capital in the context of an emerging democracy or third wave democracy, Ghana. The research focuses on the role of celebrity endorsement in the 2008 and 2012 election campaigns in Ghana to explore the mechanism of celebrity politics and capital in Ghana. The main aim of this pap...

Professor John Zaller has developed "A Theory of Media Politics" that posits a system of political campaigns in which voters, presidential candidates and the media are dependent on one another (Zaller, 1998). This theory is a direct descendant of An Economic Theory of Democracy, (Downs, 1957) which portrays voters and candidates as rational actors. Zaller's theory expands Downs' model to includ...

With the rise of video sharing giants like Youtube and Google Video, coupled with increased broadband connectivity and improved sharing functionality across social networking sites, the role of the viral video has been cemented in many IMC strategies. While most agree about the importance of better understanding viral marketing, there is less agreement about what makes content become viral. Whi...

Purpose – To contribute to the mapping of the social media discourse involving politicians and their followers during election campaigns, we examined Israeli politicians’ Aristotelian rhetoric on Facebook and its reception during the 2013 election campaign. D ow nl oa de d by U N IV E R SI T Y O F H A IF A A t 0 0: 49 3 0 M ar ch 2 01 5 (P T ) Design/methodology/approach – We examined the Arist...

Although there is an argument for a flow of logic from market structure to marketing strategy and performance, the nature of the political ‘market’ and service product constraints, strongly dictate marketing strategy choices. Interactions between what, at this stage, we may call the consumer (elector) and the supplier (electee) in political campaigns could be likened to mental stimulus processi...

Petition canvassers are political recruiters. Building upon the rational prospector model, we theorize that rational recruiting strategies are dynamic (Bayesian and time-conscious), spatial (constrained by geography), and social (conditioned on relations between canvasser and prospect). Our theory predicts that canvassers will exhibit homophily in their canvassing preferences and will alternate...

We examine the effect of deceptive advertising on voting decisions in elections. We model twocandidate elections in which 1) voters are uncertain about candidates' attributes; and 2) candidates can inform voters of their attributes by sending advertisements. We compare political campaigns with truthful advertising to campaigns in which there is a small chance of deceptive advertising. Our theor...