Örebro University

Örebro University School of Business

Project Work (IK4002)
Supervisor: Sirajul Islam, PhD
Examiner: Hannu Larsson, PhD
VT 25/05/2015

Social Media and its Political impact: A case study of

Cambodia 2013 election
Sereyvisith Sokhan
2014

Abstract

There have been many examples of political activities involving the use of social media
like what was in previous studies in many countries, for instance, the Arab spring. The
purpose of this study is to find out the political impacts of social media on Cambodia 2013
election when ruling party was dramatically lost huge numbers of parliament seats to the
biggest opposition party though it still leads the government, but it marked a new turning
point for Cambodia’s politics with only two major parties won the election. The
questionnaire based on Media System Dependency theory was used during the survey
with 200 students from four universities in capital Phnom Penh. The finding indicates the
effects of social media on their political stance as the majority of the respondents agreed
that they decided to choose political party according to the information perceived from
social media.

Keywords: Qualitative Research, Media System Dependency, Social Media and

Politics, Voting Decision, Cambodia 2013 Election
1. Introduction
The Internet has been long argued by scholars as a democratizing medium for its capacity
in accessing various information and interaction, bringing individuals into the political
process, (Delli, 2000; Morris, 1999). The past survey reports by Smith & Rainie (2008)
suggest that the Internet is an important political information source for young adults. For
that occasion, social network sites provide users a unique platform for sharing
information. Social network sites which can be referred as social media are web-based
services that allow a construction of a public or semi-public profile with a bounded system
for individual, sharing of their list of connections and those made by others within the
system, (Ellison, 2007). In addition, social media has strong associations with
characteristics and communication relevant to protest activity such as documentation,
motivating information, content relay, and perceived content reliability, (Wilson & Dunn
2011). It enables various forms of interaction between voters and political actors. User-
generated content can provide meaningful information that citizens might not be able to
obtain elsewhere. Furthermore, the collaborative and open nature of social media can
lower the barriers of entry into politics, particularly for the group of less politically erudite,
(Kushin & Yamamoto, 2010). Thus, social media can significantly influence the political
arena. For instance, (Effing R. et al, 2011) research during Netherlands national election
of the House of Representatives of June 9, 2010 showed that politicians with higher social
media engagement got relatively more votes, a positive substantial correlation within nine
parties out of sixteen.
Following the previous researches, this study tends to find the political impact of social
media on Cambodia 2013 election. It was a surprise to everyone when the election result
was announced by National Election Committee of Cambodia that the ruling political
party, which has been in power for more than 30 years and holding 90 seats from 2008
general election, received only 68 and the biggest opposition party received 55 seats,
which was previously holding just 26 seats. It was a sharply loss number of seats of the
ruling political party when it took years to gain 90 seats since the first election in 1993,
according to the official results. Notably, there were also an increase in number of mobile
phone subscribers, from 19105115 in 2012 to 20264514 in 2013, and number of Internet
subscriptions, from 2706923 in 2012 to 3861979 in 2013. These figures were published
by Telecom Regulator of Cambodia (TRC) 2015 online reports. Likewise, a report by
COMFREL (2013) shows an estimated 1 million Cambodian in the age group between 18
and 30 years used Facebook.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to find out whether there is any involvement of social
media in Cambodia 2013 election. The research questions regarding this matter are to
what extent Cambodian people rely on social media? And did social media influence their
voting decision? By answering to these questions we can determine the level of
dependency of voters on social media for perceiving political information and the effect
on their voting decision. In the following section, the brief explanation of social media and

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its fundamental features is purposely provided for a hint of what platform can be
considered as social media and the way it can be functioned by users.

2. Social Media

Social media can be defined as a group of Internet-based applications that developed

on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation
and exchange of user-generated contents, (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). According to
o'Reilly, Web 2.0 is World Wide Web sites that underline user-generated content,
usability, and interoperability. Regarding (Kietzmann et Al, 2011), the functionality and
implication of social media can be explained by using the honeycomb framework. Figure
1 illustrates the honeycomb conceptual model by (Kietzmann et Al, 2011).

Figure 1The Honeycomb of Social Media

- Identity: The identity functional block represents the magnitude to which users
disclose their identities in a social media setting. This can include revealing information
such as name, age, gender, profession, location, and also other information that portrays.
- Conversations: The Conversations part within the framework characterizes the
magnitude to which users communicate with other users in a social media setting. Many
social media sites are designed primarily to facilitate conversations among individuals
and groups.

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- Sharing: Sharing represents the magnitude to which users exchange, distribute,
and receive contents. The term ‘social’ often suggests that exchanges between people
are crucial.

- Presence: The Presence represents the magnitude to which users can know if
other users are accessible. It includes knowing where they are, in the virtual world and/or
in the real world, and whether they are available. In the virtual world, this can be known
through status lines like ‘available’ or ‘hidden.’
- Relationships: The Relationships represents the magnitude to which users can
be related to other users. By ‘Relate’, it means that two or more users have some form of
association that leads them to converse, share objects of sociality, meet up, or simply just
list each other as a friend or fan. Subsequently, how users of a social media platform are
connected often determines the what-and-how of information exchange.
- Reputation: The Reputation is the extent to which users can identify the standing
of others, including themselves, in a social media setting. Reputation can have different
meanings on social media platforms. In most cases, reputation is a matter of trust,
however, since information technologies are not yet good at determining such highly
qualitative criteria, social media sites rely on ‘mechanical Turks’: tools that automatically
aggregate user-generated information to define trustworthiness.
- Groups: The Groups functional block represents the magnitude to which users
can form communities and sub-communities. The more ‘social’ a network becomes, the
bigger the group of friends, followers, and contacts.

The social media sites and services started forming more than a dozen years ago. For
example, in 1997, the social network site Sixdegrees allowed users to create profiles, list
their friends, and add friends-of-friends to their own lists, (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). However,
it was little known around the world back then. The popularity of social media began in
the late 1990s. For instance, weblog, which slowly started in the early 1990s, have
become very famous as they are easy to create and maintenance, (Kietzmann et Al,
2011). Since then, social media has changed the life of individuals and corporations alike
(Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010). It can be used for promotional purposes by different kind of
companies and organizations. For instance, the use of social media demonstrates by
(General Electric, 2008; Procter and Gamble, 2008) that this media has two interrelated
promotional roles in the marketplace. First, social media facilitates companies to talk to
their customers; and second, it enables customers to talk to one another. Social media
also allows customers to talk to companies. When the popularity of social media has
dramatically grown over the years, it has also taken the political landscape to the whole
new level. It becomes the arena where political parties and movements use for promoting
their propaganda and attracting more supporters. Gaining greater access to information,
more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake
collective action, these increased freedoms can help loosely coordinated public demand
change, Clay (2011).

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3. Methodologies
This study used qualitative research approach for exploring and understanding the
meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The aims of
qualitative research are generally directed at providing an in-depth and interpreted
understanding of the social world, by learning about people’s social and material
circumstances, their experiences, perspectives and histories, (Ritchie et al, 2013). Thus,
it is suitable for using such approach in this study. Besides that, this study relies on Media
System Dependency as a conceptual framework.
3.1 Conceptual Framework
The social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. It is
a way of interaction that has an impact on individual behavior and can occur within
groups and between groups. It is a fundamental process that affects ways of
socialization, conformity, leadership and social change. Social influence takes many
forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience,
leadership, persuasion, sales and marketing, Smith et al. (2014) .
Base on this definition, Media System Dependency Theory were used as the
conceptual frame in this study. It is considerably suitable for this research study as it
explains relationship and the effects between three entities, Audience, Media, and
Society; in this case, Media is the social media platform such as Facebook,
Twitter...etc. According to Rubin & Windahl (1986), this theory was developed by
Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Defleur (1976) and grounded in classical sociological
literature positing that media and their audiences should be studied in the context of
larger social systems. Figure 2 illustrates Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur's (1976) MSD
conceptual model

Figure 2 Media System Dependency

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 1) The relationship between the society and the media: Within this relationship,
media access and availability are regarded as important antecedents to an individual’s
experience with the media. The nature of media dependence on societal systems
varies across political, economic, and cultural system.

2) The relationship between the media and the audience: This relationship is the
key variable in this theory because it affects how people might use a mass medium.
This relationship also varies across media systems. The more salient the information
needs, the stronger are the motivation to seek mediated information and the
dependency on the medium. In result, the likelihood for the media to affect audiences
becomes greater.

3) The relationship between the society and the audience: The societies influence
consumers’ needs and motives for media use, and provide norms, values, knowledge,
and laws for their members. Social system can function an alternatives to the media
by offering similar services of the media.

Davies (2009) said that individuals have diverse goals for political media use, and
different media cover politics with differing emphases; therefore, citizens’ reliance on
any one medium or genre should impact whether their voting decisions are based on
a candidate’s popularity and likability or on more substantive considerations, such as
leadership ability or stance on particular issues.

Although, this theory was introduced since 1976, there are many recent researches
using this theory for explanation the impact of media on individual or community. For
instance, the study by Hindman (2004), Davies (2009) and Brough & Li (2013); this
means that the theory is valid for social research; and in this case, the impact of social
media on politics was studied, especially, the voting decision in Cambodia 2013
election; therefore, the MSD is a well-suited conceptual framework for interpreting and
explaining the phenomena.

3.2 Data Collection

The survey was used as the instrument for data collection. According to Oates, survey
is a systematic way to obtaining the same kind data from a large group of people; it
can produce either qualitative or quantitative data. The survey was chosen because
of cost and time efficiency and the ability to engage large sample size. The survey
started by distributing 200 copies of the questionnaire to four different universities in
capital Phnom Penh with 50 each. The university students are adult; and according to
(Lenhart et al, 2010), 93% of adult age between 18 and 29 most likely go online; and
also, a final assessment and report on 2013 National Assembly Election published by
The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL) showed the
estimated statistics from The National Institute of Statics that approximately 370000
young Cambodian have reached the voting age of 18 each year during 2008 and 2013
election and a probable 3.5 million out of 9.6 million voters on the voter list are in the

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 age group between 18 and 30. The report also stated that youth voters had been most
likely decisive in this election. Hence, the university students are the appropriate target
group. They were randomly selected during the break time and explained the purpose
behind the study. They were asked to write their minds on the paper. Each respondent
spent an average of 5 mn answering the questionnaire. The questionnaire itself was
designed based on Media System Dependency theory and general demographic
questions. However, in this study, the relationship between society and media
questions were not included because the accessibility of internet and social media
and other related matters were not the problem in the country as the 2015 online report
from TRC suggested. Table 1 shows the list of chosen questions by category
Category Questions Type of Answers
Demography
1. Gender Male or Female
2. Age (Opened-Answer)
3. Which province are you from? (Opened-Answer)
4. What is your educational background? (Opened-Answer)
5. Did you participate in 2013 election? Yes or No
The relationship between the society and the audience
6. How important is it to you to stay informed about A scale from 1-5,
political issues? Very unimportant to
Very important
The relationship between the media and the audience
7. What social media platforms have you used? (Opened-Answer)
8. How often do you use social media? Everyday
2 days per week
3 days per week
4 days per week
5 days per week
6 days per week
9. Have you ever noticed any political party's activity Yes or No
on social media?
10. Have you ever searched for political information on Yes or No
social media?
11. How have you found political information on social (Opened-Answer)
media?
The Effects
12. Did you choose or change your political party based Yes or No
on information from social media?
13. Have you ever verbally spread out the political Yes or No
information to people that don't have social media
accessibility?
Table 1 List of Questions

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 3.3 Data Analysis
The process of analysis involved, firstly, the data filtering; all data were input into
spreadsheet software. The ineligible respondents such as those who have never used
social media or did not participate in 2013 elections; moreover, the uncompleted
answered papers, were ignored; this procedure was to eliminate unwanted data,
which could contaminate the final finding. After this, the quasi-statistical analysis
approach was adopted for defining the meaning of the collected data. The quasi-
statistical analysis approach uses counting of times something is mentioned in the
responses to estimate the frequency. The term quasi statistic is for simple counts of
things to support terms such as some, usually, and most. It was introduced by Becker
(1970) when qualitative researchers frequently make quantitative claims in a verbal
form, using terms such as many, often, typically, sometimes, and so on; Becker
argued that numbers have the value of making such claims more precise and
conceived. (Maxwell, 1995) stated that quantitative data could constitute an important
check on such biases and can provide systematic evidence for diversity that may be
overlooked by both the researcher and participants themselves. (Sandelowski, M. et
al, 2009) also made a similar point about “quantitizing” qualitative data, stating that
this is done in qualitative research “to facilitate pattern recognition or otherwise to
extract meaning from qualitative data, account for all data, document analytic moves,
and verify interpretations”, (p. 210). In this case, this analytical approach was chosen
because it is appropriate for analyzing the collected data that involved hundred of
respondents.

4. Result & Discussion

After the filtering process, out of 200 respondents, only 130 were valid for this study as
they have been using social media and had participated in the 2013 election. The
details of the find is explained and discussed below.
4.1 Demography
The majority of the respondents were female, 73 out of 130, and 57 were male. They
were in the age group between 19 and 39. 5 of them identified themselves as Master
students, and the rests were bachelor students. They came from different regions
across the country. Figure 3 shows the number of respondents by provinces.

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 Figure 3 Respondents by Provinces

This means that the respondents are from nearly an entire area in Cambodia. All the
above results show that the respondents reach the study target, as mention above
that youth voters was most likely decisive in this election. The noble part is that they
are from diverse areas, which make this study more balanced.
4.2 The relationship between the society and the audience
To be able to understand the involvement of politics on social media, the questions
regarding politics were asked. The first question was to comprehend the importance
of political information to the respondents or how they feel about politics. When asked
how important is it to you to stay informed about political issues? Figure 4 indicates
the common interest of respondents towards political issues.

Figure 4 How important is it to you to stay informed about political issues?

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 This result illustrates that the respondents believe that staying informed about the
political matters is vital as the majority of the answers suggested. This can be
interpreted that their intention in seeking political information is greater. According to
(Chew, 1994), the research has shown that the more an issue is perceived relevant
and interesting, the greater the need for information, which increases information
oriented media use.
4.3 The relationship between the media and the audience
When asked what social media platforms have you used? Unsurprisingly, all of them
responded with various platforms. The trend was already confirmed by “Social Media
and Young Adult” study, (Lenhart et al, 2010) that nearly three-quarters (72%) of
online 18-29-year-old use social media sites. However, the available social media
sites in the market, each of them has its own unique characteristics that attract
different users with diverse purposes. Hence, discovering the popularity of social
media sites among Cambodian youths is vital, so we can learn about any political
activities and strategies used on those sites. Figure 5 shows the list of social media
used by respondents.

Figure 5 Social Media Used by Respondents

Facebook is the most popular social media site used by respondents. This trend was
already mentioned above that a report by COMFREL (2013) shows an estimated 1
million Cambodian in the age group between 18 and 30 years used Facebook.
Therefore, this finding shows the role of Facebook is vital among Cambodian youths.
Although, this result cannot confirm the increase or decrease of popularity of other
social media platforms as there is no official report upon the number of Cambodian
users on those platforms; however, we can see that the usage of other social media
platforms such as Youtube and Google+ is fairly high among the respondents.
Moreover, the frequency of usage is similarly as important as which site they are using

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 because it measures the level of dependency of respondents on social media. Figure
6 illustrates how often the respondents use social media.

Figure 6 The Frequency of Social Media Usage by Respondents

When most of the respondents said that they use the social media every day, it means
that the level of their dependency on the social media is greatly high comparing with
other patterns of using, for instance, two days of using per week. The more often they
use social media, the more they rely on it. Base on MSD, the relationship between the
media and the audience is the most vital part within the theory because it predicts the
influence of social media on audience. At this point, even if, we cannot confirm the
political impacts of social media yet, in this result, the likelihood of the social media
effect on audiences becomes greater. The next question is to comprehend their
interest of political activities on social media. Again, the MSD stated that the more
significant the information needs, the stronger the motivation to seek mediated
information and the dependency on the media is. Nevertheless, to be able to prove
this among the respondents, the next enquiry is to find out whether they have really
looked for political information on social media. The respondents were asked whether
they had noticed any political activity during the election campaign. The majority of
respondents answered yes, 115 out of 130, only a small number of respondents
answered no. This result suggests that some political parties already noticed the
importance of social media and turned it into the tools for conveying their political
messages and policies during the election campaign as it provided more freedom over
governmental controlled media, according to Reporter without Borders 2013 report,
Cambodia ranked 143rd which had been affected by a lack of transparency and the
increase of authoritarianism and censorship. Then, when asked Have you ever
searched for political information on social media? 89 out of 130 confirmed yes, only
41 said no. It can be understood that the number of respondents had the intention in
seeking political information is higher than those who had no interest in searching for
that information. Even though the respondents had the intention in seeking political or
not, the result from following question shows that nearly all of them came across the

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 political information through different sources on social media. This can be confirmed
by asking the respondents, how have you found political information on social media?

Figure 7 How Have You Found Political Informations on Social Media

According to Ruiz & Sanz (2008), the greater the exposure leads to improve relations
with the medium when the individual is more aware with it and values its benefits more.
By increasing exposure levels to information, it can also fascinate users with low
dependency and affinity. If the trend continuously growing the future political impacts
of social media on those who previously had no intention in seeking political
information is superior. Nevertheless, this result can be interpreted that for those, who
had the political goal in using social media, were affected by the information shared
on social media sites.
4.4 The Effects
Consequently, when asked about their voting decision in 2013 election, whether they
changed their political stance based on the new information perceived by social
media, 79 out of 130 respondents agreed that they had chosen or changed their
political party accordingly. Although, these numbers are not showing significantly great
effects, however, these answers confirmed the existence of direct political impacts of
social media on major citizens’ voting decision. Furthermore, it could also have an
indirect effect as well when those who used social media spread out the political
information to those who had no accessibility of the Internet or lack of technological
knowledge. Although, this impact is out of this study scope, nonetheless, it can
suggest the indirect political impacts of social media on those voters decision making.
Therefore, it is also important to dig it out. When asked about this concerning matter,
90 out of 130 respondents had verbally spread out the political information to people
those who didn’t use social media. This suggests that there might have had an indirect
political impacts of social media, which need to be learnt. If so the effect of social
media is unimaginable.

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5. Conclusion

This study started for the purpose to find out the political impact of social media on voter
decision in Cambodia 2013 election by answering two research questions: what extent
Cambodian people rely on social media; and did social media influence their voting
decision; and using Media System Dependency as the conceptual framework. Answering
to these questions, the result shows that Cambodian people are significantly relying on
social media, and it did impact on their voting decision in 2013 elections. The finding also
shows there are many social media platforms used in Cambodia. Among those sites,
Facebook is the most popular follows by Youtube and Google+ and others. It means that
the use of social media in Cambodia is on the same situation as those described in
previous studies from other countries. Mostly, it was used to share information by political
parties, activists or normal citizens who think political information is vital. It also shows
the sign of impact on citizens voting decision in Cambodia 2013 election; and if the trend
keeps growing like this, it will become the target decisive arena for political parties to
attract new supporters, especially the young voters, in next general election.

The delimitations of this study is that the samples were randomly selected in urban area
where the accessible of the Internet is secured. Although, the respondents came from
various areas within the country but the people who were permanently located in rural
areas where Internet accessibility is limited were not included; therefore, their
understanding of social media and the impact of social media on their voting decisions
have not been studied.
However, this study still can be used as an example for those who interested in further
research on the similar topic; and it can also be used by the current or future political
parties which will participate in next general election as a reference that those social
media sites are the places where they should include in strategy planning as the influential
political arena for raising voters’ awareness of their leadership and policies. Moreover,
this study raises awareness among NGOs whose work is to promote democracy in
Cambodia to keep monitoring government activities against freedom of speech on social
media or a complete ban of accessibility.

6. Acknowledgements

Thanks and appreciations to persons who influenced my study and supported me with
their knowledge and experience my supervisor PhD. Sirajul Islam and examiner PhD.
Hannu Larsson, especially, the great gratitude to Swedish Institute scholarship for
making this study possible.

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