Compare the impact of grassroots campaign management strategies and the use of media strategies on the electoral performance of political parties during election campaigns (12)

Usually traditional grassroots campaign strategies are conducted through email, mail, and phone calls. This is done to try and encourage individuals to turn out and vote in a general election, by election, referendum etc. this is the longest outstanding method of campaigning, however the use of grassroot strategies is in decline due to new upcoming technologies events are still put on to canvass for marginal seats. An example of this was the general election in 2017 where 100,000 people used MyNearestMarginal which is a left-wing political organisation. Therefore showing that using grassroots as a method of campaigning is still relevant as it creates an opportunity for the party and its supporters to come together in order to target marginal seats. Although the Conservative party won the 2017 General election with 45.4% of the votes, they did end up losing 13 seats in parliament, however the Labour party gained their 13 seats. This then means that it can be argued that Labour’s efforts of targeted canvassing overall withheld a significant impact on their electoral performance and how they did in the election. Furthermore Momentum held weekly weekend campaigning in areas which the seats were vital in their electoral success such as Croydon central. Therefore it can also be argued that die to this mass campaigning on the weekly helped the Labour party to gain those 13 seats because of their tireless efforts to target marginal constituencies to try and get them to vote labour.

The use of new technologies as a form of political campaigning has dramatically increased within recent years. This involves using social media as a means of reaching out to the electorate to try and convince them to vote a certain way. This is usually done through popular social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as it allows politicians to directly engage with people. This method was used by Best for Britain who were aiming to keep the conservative party out of power. This led to them spending a whooping £187,417 on 128 Facebook adverts in only a 30-day time period during the 2019 general election. However on the flip side the conservative party ended up spending £2.1 million on Facebook ads throughout the entire campaign. This shows that currently the use of new technologies and media as a campaigning stagey is very prevalent as it spends money on social media adverts that that reach anyone nationwide. This has been largely effective as phones are now an everyday essential to Brits and means that these adverts can constantly access their target markets through refinements and personal preferences via the apps. During the final week of the 2019 general election the conservative party sent 2500 live Facebook adverts out which in comparison the Labour party only sent out 250. Showing how by the use of new technologies and media this may have helped the conservative party win the 2019 general election with 43.6% of the overall votes through its significant impact on their campaign.