but if 90% of elections are won by the side that spends the most money on the campaign, then it pretty clearly is influence. there are other ways to get influence like you describe, the most reliable is to spend the most money.  it might be very cheap to 'get out the message' through social media, and this will be very effective if only one side is using social media while the other is spending a lot on legacy media. it's just that this is why everyone will start to spend more on using social media to get out their message.  this will be an even more effective way to use money to buy an election than what we had ten years ago. people are wise to the bullshit in campaign ads, but they still mostly don't know how much bots and shills can jam up 'organic' conversations through social media, and to tailor messsaging to specific audients.
Ireland