“Backstage moments during the campaign”: The interactive use of Instagram by Spanish political leaders

Abstract

The political use of social media is a well-established field of research. We perform a content analysis of the messages posted on Instagram—one of the fastest growing social networking sites—by the leaders of the four main political parties in Spain, with special emphasis on the interactive use of this platform and the functions played by the posts. The sample of Instagram posts includes a non-election period and a period of regional elections. The results point to a practically irrelevant use of interactive tools, and an emphasis on the self-promotion of leaders and their parties. Accordingly, the data show that Instagram is basically used by Spanish leaders as a supplement to their campaign efforts and strategic objectives. These findings are discussed and linked to broader theoretical issues such as the hypothesis of normalization and the use of the Internet for broadcasting.

Telegram in campaign: the use of mobile instant messaging services in electoral political communication

“…However, Telegram provides strictly unidirectional communication since subscribers cannot interact with the parties on their channels. In any case, this is not a disruptive factor in its political use in the Spanish sphere since, as recent studies have shown, the communication of top Spanish leaders is clearly anchored in a traditional media logic, focusing on one-way broadcasting, and mirroring mass media practices (Pineda et al, 2020).…”

historias de Instagram de Mariana Rodríguez. Análisis de su agenda y rol como primera dama

“…La clase política, por tanto, ha buscado hacerse presente en las diferentes redes sociales; no obstante, se ha detectado que el uso estratégico de Instagram como herramienta de comunicación política aún se encuentra en fase experimental (Moreno-Díaz, 2022;Pineda et al, 2022). Una de las conclusiones de los estudios es que los políticos se presentan de manera populista en las redes sociales, esto es, acompañados de grandes cantidades de gente con el fin de hacer notar que son populares (López-Rabadán y Doménech-Fabregat, 2021).…”

“…No obstante, a lo anterior, los antecedentes de investigación han identificado que Instagram puede servir como un medio para difundir dos tipos de contenidos políticos: autopromoción de gobierno e ideología. Pineda et al (2022) encontraron que la primera se realiza a través de la difusión de información sobre la implementación de políticas públicas. La autopromoción busca mantener al día a sus seguidores sobre la forma en que trabajan los políticos a manera de diario visual (Vossen, 2019), con el objetivo de convencer a sus seguidores que se trata de una buena gestión (Slimovich, 2022).…”

Death of a Platform?

“…Building on work looking into the adoption and use of web pages by political actors (e.g., Gibson, 2004;Foot and Schneider, 2006), scholars have expanded their horizons to also study party and citizen activity on various social media platforms (e.g., Bruns & Burgess, 2011;Koc-Michalska et al, 2020). Certainly, claims of the importance of social media use for political campaigning purposes have echoed among researchers and practitioners for over a decade (Pineda et al, 2020;Tumasjan et al, 2010) making it difficult to argue against the suggestion by Dimitrova and Matthes (2018) that "the impact of social media in political campaigning around the world is undeniable" (2018: 333). However, not only have such platforms come and gone during the last 10-15 years (e.g., Ancu and Cozma, 2009), the services that have stood the test of time have changed and adapted to fit with shifting online tendencies, trends, and business prioritizations (e.g., Rieder et al, 2015;Blumler, 2015).…”