Digital Campaign Practices – The Israeli Case Study (General Elections March 2021)

The paper focuses on the digital campaigns that accompanied the general elections for the 24th Knesset on March 2021. This campaign was unique for a few reasons. These elections constituted the fourth electoral round within two years period (April 2019 – March 2021) due to a political deadlock and inability to maintain a long-lasting government on account of PM Netanyahu’s indictment. Both politicians and citizens were already weary of the ballots’ fever. Additionally, the campaign that had lasted 100 days (December 2020 – March 2021) took place within the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. During these months Israel went from a severe third lockdown; the longest of all to stepping out of the Corona due to a very successful vaccination operation. During these months I have closely monitored the online campaigns of all political actors, mostly via social websites and media coverage. On this paper, I’m focusing on the more difficult to track, hidden from the eye campaigns. These are rather problematic to study, due to their nature. However, they are a portrayal of the fifth era of political campaigns – Algorithmic Campaigns (Haleva-Amir, 2021). The study wishes to illustrate a few current practices: The ongoing and extended use of fake profiles and interference networks; 1. A shift towards more intimate campaigns a. Platforms switch from ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter to Tik Tok, WhatsApp, Telegram, Tinder and Clubhouse. b. The return of the newsletters. c. From mass conferences to live online events (which can be attributed to the pandemic) d. Political microtargeting at the personal level (The text messages attack). 2. Constituents as Active Political Campaigners a. Use of grassroots’ supportive videos as formal campaign messages; b. Use of Web Celebs / Influencers c. Engineered Mobilization through Constituents Management Applications (Elector) 3. Sectorial Designated Campaigns for Alternative Audiences – a. The Arab sector. b. The French community. c. LGBTQ community. d. Youth, and children. 4. The web as frontier-less space - one of the outcomes of campaigning on less central media platforms is a blatant disregard for electoral and general laws that slips under the public radar and represents the state’s incapacity to enforce its laws on political actors during electoral campaign. 5. The urgent need of regulation – these practices exemplify the necessity of a designated legal reference to minimize the negative outcomes algorithmic campaigns entail.