Drivers and consequences of individual candidates' digital campaign spending levels: The case of Belgium (2007-2019)

The rise of the internet brought new communication possibilities for ordinary citizens and political actors alike. In some political communication researchers' view, it creates opportunities for smaller parties and less known electoral candidates to counterbalance their lack of access to mainstream media by providing relatively inexpensive online tools to get their message out there. This led to the development of the equalization theory, suggesting that digital campaign instruments can succeed in leveling out the electoral playing field. However, other researcher argue that bigger well-funded parties play at a higher level in both the offline and online world, leading to the normalization theory. The latter claims that resources also matter online. Our research wants to contribute to this ongoing debate by identifying and empirically testing the determinants behind the actual proportion of an individual candidate's campaign expenditure assigned to digital campaigning. Furthermore, we investigate whether digital campaigning matters. To reach our research goal, individual candidates' campaign expenditure data will be collected for all Belgian elections that occurred between 2007 and 2019. Using regression analysis we assess whether lower campaign budgets lead to a rise in the proportion spent on digital campaigning, thus supporting the equalization thesis. Additionally, we determine whether link-campaigns are more beneficial for individual electoral performance than ink-campaigns.