My name is Tristan Hotham, I am a PhD Researcher at the University of Bath.
I study, social media, elections, party politics and campaigning.
Within the field I specifically have an interest in social media, elections, political parties and campaigning. My specialisms are UK political parties and the use of Facebook. I utilise a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to open the locked chest of social media campaigning.
I hold two Master’s degrees from the Universities of Bath and Durham respectively, alongside a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Exeter. I currently work on a ESRC funded PhD at the University of Bath – my thesis is titled “Examining the impact and effectiveness of Facebook on party campaigns”.
My thesis examines the Facebook phenomenon and its role as a campaign tool. Using extracted Facebook data, interviews and supportive external data sources such as the BES and Whotargets.me, this study will examine the impact Facebook is having as a campaign tool online, alongside its wider offline implications for parties campaigning in an era of party change. The thesis will examine pages content approaches effectiveness in garnering engagement, alongside examining the impact Facebook is having upon how parties are campaigning.
Alongside my academic interests I enjoy public engagement, as such I have been featured in:
Please also see my politics blog – and my YouTube channel.
“In the information age, man and spider both live in a web.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
