Celebrity Endorsement im Bundestagswahlkampf 2013. Eine experimentelle Untersuchung zum Einfluss von Wahlempfehlungen Prominenter für Politiker und Parteien

Abstract

This article researches the effectiveness of fictitious political celebrity endorsement in Germany. While public support for political candidates by celebrities is a well-known phenomenon in the USA, and its effectiveness has been researched in numerous studies, it remains unclear to what extent these findings can be applied to the German context. Given the special role of parties in the German electoral system, the article presents empirical findings stemming from a 2x2-factorial experiment (n = 366), which was conducted in the context of the German Federal Elections 2013 and systematically varied the endorsement objects (party vs. candidate). The results indicate that party-centred political celebrity endorsements in Germany elicit no effects at all, whereas candidate-centred celebrity support evokes none to small negative effects, depending on the endorser’s popularity.