Social media politics: A pattern of strategic network campaigning is forming

The popularity of Facebook in Taiwan offers an opportunity for politicians to employ it as an election campaigning tool. The 2012 Taiwan presidential election happens to be the optimal timing for candidates to put Facebook into practical use. The experience of using social media in Arab Spring demonstrates the bottom-up power to change politics while Obama strategically employed social media in the 2008 US presidential election shows that social media can be utilized by top-down approach. When candidates confront social media in the Taiwanese presidential election, will their strategic action change to conform more with its bottom-up character in order to benefit more from it? With the help of in-depth interviews, this paper found that candidates compromised their control power over Facebook in order to exchange the benefits. A new form of candidates using social media namely Strategic Network Campaigning emerged. This concept facilitates candidates to reach the balance between bottom-up and top-down power.