Leah Rosenzweig presented at The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC) in March 2015.

1. The Impacts of Civic
Technology Conference
Leah R. Rosenzweig & Lily L. Tsai
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT)
GOV/LAB
March 25, 2015

2. MIT GOV/LAB
• omidyar—project origin

3. Research Questions
• What presentations or “framings” of political news
and information are most likely to stimulate online
action among Kenyan citizens?
• What types of actions are citizens most likely to
take online?
• Does online social media alter existing patterns of
political engagement among Kenyans?

4. Research Design
• Randomly assigned articles about county
government misspending
• Framed to emphasize an opportunity to
gain resources, a threat to take action or
risk losing resources, or neutral
• Also included a “bandwagoning” line to
each framing:
• “342 people joined us in just 3
days! Take action and join the
growing numbers”

5. Research Design
• Outcome measures included:
• share on FB
• share on Twitter
• Sign a petition
• Write a comment to the Senate
Majority leader

6. Opportunity Threat Neutral
Opportunity +
bandwagoning
Threat +
bandwagoning
Neutral +
bandwagoning
Facebook Advertisement
Each visitor from FB was randomly
assigned to view 1 of 6 pagesTreatment Pages
Potential Actions
Despite this misspending of county government funds, powerful Parliamentarians are working to opposing
legislation to increase the county government budget rules from 30 percent to 60 percent to be spent on
development. This threat is real! You could lose county funds for development such as infrastructure, water,
health, and education projects.
All counties
Threat
55% 38% 7%
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Facebook
Share this petition with other Kenyans and allow your voice to be heard.
te this misspending of county government funds, powerful Parliamentarians are working to opposing
ation to increase the county government budget rules from 30 percent to 60 percent to be spent on
pment. This threat is real! You could lose county funds for development such as infrastructure, water,
health, and education projects.
Threat
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Facebook
Share this petition with other Kenyans and allow your voice to be heard.
Sign a petitionWrite to the senate majority leader

9. Initial Results
FB ad served to 1,395,410 Kenyans
24,359 FB clicks, 17,932 unique
visitors
653 unique visitors from facebook took
any action