M-politics: Credibility and effectiveness of mobile political communications

New communication technologies and, in particular, SMS ( Short Message Service ) — that is, undersized text messages sent to a mobile phone by a computer or by another mobile device — offer political parties and candidates an innovative tool for communicating with their actual and prospective voters. The present study evaluates both credibility and its effects on the voting intention of SMS political communication (ie mobile-politics , M-Politics ), by considering credibility as a characteristic ascribed to SMS. The results indicate that although m-politics is considered a credible tool, with regard to their effect on the voting intention, it does not modify the intention to vote but rather reinforces the past voting behaviour of both Center-Right and Center-Left voters. Consequently, they do not allow political parties and candidates to grasp opposing coalition voters and change their voting intention, but only to enhance the loyalty of actual voters.