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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Leader of my Heart!

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The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed the emergence of ‘new’ media technologies which have contributed to reshaping the relationships between politicians, journalists and the general public in Western democracies and around the world (Fox and Ramos, 2012; Lilleker and Jackson, 2013). After diverse early attempts in several countries to harness these new tools during election periods, their use by Barack Obama’s campaign team in the 2008 US presidential elections is often cited as one of the first examples in which they appeared to contribute positively to mobilising sympathisers and party activists around the campaign (Thimm, 2011). In the subsequent 2010 UK general election and the 2012 French and US presidential elections, explored in this chapter, all major parties exploited web-based tools, including Facebook and Twitter accounts, websites, blogs and dedicated online platforms used to coordinate local campaign actions.