Abstract
Political campaign communication has become increasingly hybrid and the ability to create synergies between older and newer media is now a prerequisite for running a successful campaign. Nevertheless, beyond establishing that parties and individual politicians use social media to gain visibility in traditional media, not much is known about how political actors use the hybrid media system in their campaign communication. At the same time, the personalization of politics, shown to have increased in the media coverage of politics, has gained little attention in the context of today’s hybrid media environment. In this research we analyze one aspect of hybrid media campaign communication, political actors’ use of traditional media in their social media campaign communication. Through a quantitative content analysis of the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts of Finnish parties and their leaders published during the 2019 Finnish parliamentary elections, we find that much of this hybridized campaign communication was personalized. In addition, we show that parties and their leaders used traditional media for multiple purposes, the most common of which was gaining positive visibility, pointing to strategic considerations. The results have implications for both the scholarship on hybrid media systems and personalization of politics.
Highlights
The use of social media has become an everyday activity in political campaign communication (Enli, 2017), allowing political actors to bypass traditional media and connect directly with the public (Larsson and Kalsnes, 2014)
The results showed that traditional media shares formed a significant portion of parties’ and their leaders’ social media campaign communication
Previous research has shown that traditional media retains its agenda-setting power in the hybrid media system, determining which topics are brought up and discussed on social media (e.g., Harder et al, 2016; Langer and Gruber, 2021)
Summary
The use of social media has become an everyday activity in political campaign communication (Enli, 2017), allowing political actors to bypass traditional media and connect directly with the public (Larsson and Kalsnes, 2014). Not all news sharing is conducive to democracy, as evidenced by the rise of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news (Chadwick et al, 2018) For this reason, it is necessary to understand what kind of traditional media content is shared by political actors and which objectives are fulfilled with this type of hybrid media campaign communication. There is little research on hybrid media campaign communication from the perspective of functional theory Adopting this perspective is useful, as it allows us to examine how political actors perceive the benefits of using traditional media in their social media campaign communication. For this reason, our fourth and final research question is as follows: RQ4. Posts with multiple functions were categorized according to the most prevalent function
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
