Campaigning in the fourth age of political communication. A multi-method study on the use of Facebook by German and Austrian parties in the 2013 national election campaigns
Starting from the contribution to the discussion on a fourth age of political communication, here we argue that, as a consequence of how the Web 2.0 has changed political campaigns, the theoretical...
Reaching Out to the Europeans. Political Parties’ Facebook Strategies of Issue Ownership and the Second-Order Character of European Election Campaigns
The European Election campaign 2019 enjoyed heightened attention in the European and global public due to the recent emergence of populist actors, new parties, and large European issues such as immigration, climate change, and Brexit. Starting theoretically from the issue ownership theory, shareworthiness, and the second-order character of European elections, the study at hand investigates the campaigns of 69 parties from 9 countries on Facebook as one of the current central spheres of electoral contest. Facebook enables parties to provide users with selected issues considered advantageous for themselves. The number of posts’ shares indicates whether the parties manage to reach out to the v…
Information Greater than Mobilisation Greater than Interaction: Contours of a Pan-European Style of Social Media Campaigning
This chapter compares the Facebook campaigns of 90 political parties aggregated by the political groups in the EP to which they belong from 12 countries in the 2019 EP election. Based on these results we identify the contours of a pan-European style of social media campaigning that can be described as follows: national contexts dominated and framed the EP elections. In comparison to the three key functions of election campaigns, parties place the most importance by far on information in their use of social media. Calls for mobilisation play a certain role, while the parties seem hardly interested in interactions. The ongoing neglect of social media’s interactive potential in politics calls …
Campaigning for Strasbourg on Facebook: Introduction to a 12-Country Comparison on Parties’ Facebook Campaigns in the 2019 European Parliament Election
European Parliament (EP) elections provide an ideal context for comparative studies on the communication strategies of political parties at national and European level. The 2019 EP election campaign allows analysing how the different political parties use Facebook to inform, interact with and mobilise voters. The study of the electoral campaign also enables the identification of differences and similarities between countries and between parties. This chapter introduces an edited volume that presents results of a quantitative content analysis of more than 12,000 Facebook posts published by political parties from 12 European countries in the last four weeks before the 2019 EP election. It des…
Social Media as a Campaigning Tool in Elections: Theoretical Considerations and State of Research
To extend their reach to supporters and voters, three election campaign functions are key to political actors: information, interaction and mobilisation. We argue that these three functions are interrelated and function most successfully through interrelationship. Thus, the distinction between top-down and bottom-up communication appears to be rather artificial in the context of online campaigns. In campaign practice, both directions are rather closely linked. Our theoretical framework shows how Facebook can be used specifically to realise the three key functions and provides the background for the following chapters for analysing how political parties actually use Facebook in European Parl…