Facebooking a different campaign beat: party leaders, the press and public engagement

Abstract

Social media are increasingly entrenched in politicians’ campaigning. Yet even as they become more ubiquitous, evidence suggests widely used platforms normalize rather than equalize the existing power dynamics of the political landscape. Our study of New Zealand’s 2017 general election uses a mixed-method approach including analysis of five Party Leaders’ (PLs) public Facebook wall posts, campaign coverage in four newspapers and interviews with Party workers and MPs. Our findings show PLs seldom interact with citizens and mostly use posts to promote campaign information. Citizens are more likely to ‘like’ a PL’s post than share or comment and there are important divergences between Party and media agendas. These findings demonstrate not only the importance of social media for Parties’ attempts to control messaging and disrupt journalistic interference, but also highlight that neither Parties nor citizens seem much invested in dialogue. However, understanding which posts excite citizen engagement may help all Parties more effectively promote participatory democracy globally.

Gender, party and performance in the 2020 New Zealand general election: politicking on Facebook with Jacinda and Judith

“…A complex range of electoral and contextual factors intersect with the characteristics of social media to produce election outcomes. Politicians themselves insist that the particular affordances of social media platforms such as Facebook allow them to communicate and interact directly with citizens (Keller and Kleinen-von Königslöw, 2018; Magin et al, 2017) and mobilise voters (Ross et al, 2020), and there is some evidence that when political parties do interact with their followers, there is increased engagement, in the form of comments, likes and shares. Farkas and Bene (2021: 126) suggest that, ‘On Facebook, triggering user engagement is a strategic goal in itself’, because the structure of Facebook’s platform means that likes, shares and comments can boost the visibility of posts.…”

“…The centre-left Labour Party entered the official campaign on September 13 with a strong incumbency advantage, largely reflecting its 40-year old leader Jacinda Ardern's decisive and empathic leadership in the aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque shootings and during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which she fronted daily televised press briefings (Duncan, 2020). Some politicians acknowledge they use social media to subvert mainstream media agendas and there is also empirical evidence that political leaders use social media platforms to focus on the messages they wish to promote rather than mirroring the policy preoccupations of journalists (Ross et al, 2020). A crucial aspect of their social media behaviour relates to how politicians present themselves on social media and the increasing use of visuals, both photos and video, across all social media platforms has become an important element of politicians' impression management strategies and accords with the personalisation turn of modern politics (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013;Kreiss and McGregor, 2018;McGregor et al, 2017).…”

Bibi and Mr. Prime Minister: do different Facebook identities imply different messages for political leaders?

“…Politicians and elected officials around the world have embraced social media as a platform for motivating voter turnout, strengthening their audiences, building and improving their public image, and running campaigns for themselves or their parties (Adams and Quadri, 2018; Ahmed et al , 2016; Baviera et al ., 2019; Boczkowski and Papacharissi, 2018; Bossetta et al , 2017; Coe and Griffin, 2020; Ross et al , 2020; Schneiker, 2019). Past research has acknowledged the positive potential inherent in citizens' democratic use of social media (Bertot et al , 2010; Gil de Zúñiga et al , 2012).…”

Hiding hate speech: political moderation on Facebook

“…Moderation and the moderators’ role have become more important as online incivility, harassment, threats and hate speech have become more prevalent and frequently identified as an issue within democratic processes. Many studies have explored what triggers this kind of problematic participation and why it occurs (Coe et al, 2014; Graham and Wright, 2015; Ksiazek, 2018; Ksiazek and Springer, 2018; Løvlie et al, 2018a; Su et al, 2018; Wright and Street, 2007; Ziegele et al, 2014). The current study, however, focused more closely on how incivility is dealt with by those who facilitate and moderate debates.…”

“…Facebook facilitates more extensive dialogue between citizens and politicians, and political candidates’ presence in this platform has the potential to enhance democratic processes by providing a new space for political interactions (Utz, 2009). The main incentive for candidates to enter Facebook is to gain strategic advantages, especially during election campaigns when it has mainly been used as a marketing platform for political candidates (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013; Ross et al, 2020; Schwartz, 2015).…”