Individualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Ugandan Elections

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dc.contributor.authorRyan S. Jablonski
dc.contributor.authorMark T. Buntaine
dc.contributor.authorDaniel L. Nielson
dc.contributor.authorPaula M. Pickering
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-29T13:20:24Z
dc.date.available2023-05-29T13:20:24Z
dc.date.issued2022-07-15
dc.description.abstractMobile communication technologies can provide citizens access to information that is tailored to their specific circumstances. Such technologies may therefore increase citizens’ ability to vote in line with their interests and hold politicians accountable. In a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Uganda (n = 16,083), we investigated whether citizens who receive private, timely, and individualized text messages by mobile phone about public services in their community punished or rewarded incumbents in local elections in line with the information. Respondents claimed to find the messages valuable and there is evidence that they briefly updated their beliefs based on the messages; however, the treatment did not cause increased votes for incumbents where public services were better than expected nor decreased votes where public services were worse than anticipated. The considerable knowledge gaps among citizens identified in this study indicate potential for communication technologies to effectively share civic information. Yet the findings imply that when the attribution of public service outcomes is difficult, even individualized information is unlikely to affect voting behavior.en_US
dc.identifier.citationJablonski RS and others, “Individualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Ugandan Elections” (2022) 9 Journal of Experimental Political Science 346en_US
dc.identifier.issnISSN 2052-2630
dc.identifier.issnEISSN 2052-2649
dc.identifier.urihttps://nru.uncst.go.ug/handle/123456789/8833
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherCambridge University Pressen_US
dc.subjectpublic services; information; elections; mobile phones; votingen_US
dc.titleIndividualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Ugandan Electionsen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
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