An Informed Vote? Voting Behaviour in the Irish Fiscal Compact Referendum.
Posted: 17 Jun 2013 Last revised: 8 May 2014
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
In this paper we seek to shed light on how Internet-based newsgathering affects voting behaviour in the context of EU referenda by analysing data from an original survey commissioned for the May 31st 2012 Fiscal Treaty referendum in the Republic of Ireland. We assess whether online newsgathering in the run-up to the vote impacts vote choice by disentangling the mechanism that connects online-based information consumption, knowledge of relevant political facts and voting behaviour. We then investigate whether different types of websites produce different effects and how these processes are conditioned by pre-existing attitudes towards Europe. We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, the content of websites matter in influencing voting behaviour.
We find robust evidence that gathering online news during the campaign increases self-perceived knowledge of the Fiscal Treaty. Moreover, our results suggest that at the aggregate level respondents who browsed the web to gather information on the referendum were more likely to vote ‘no’ than those who did not, ceteris paribus. Finally, our findings indicate that the content of a website matters in influencing voting behaviour.
Keywords: European Union, referendum, voting behaviour, causal mediation analysis, Ireland.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation