The rise of Instagram as a tool for political communication: A longitudinal study of European political parties and their followers

Anders Olof Larsson

doi:10.1177/14614448211034158

Abstract

Featuring a longitudinal, structural study of European party and citizen activity on Instagram between 2012 and 2018, this article outlines the overarching changes in the ways that Instagram has been employed for political party communication. Differentiating between populist and non-populist political parties, the results indicate that much like for other platforms such as Facebook, the former category of parties enjoy higher amounts of citizen engagement than their non-populist competitors. Detailing the uses of different types of posts by the two types of political actors, the study provides insights into how political parties have adopted and used Instagram from 2012 and onward.

Highlights

The bulk of our knowledge of how political parties, politicians, and the citizens who potentially vote for them make use of social media for electoral and similar purposes is largely based on studies of Twitter (Enli, 2017; Hemsley et al, 2018; Jacobs et al, 2020; Jungherr, 2015) and to some extent on research looking into Facebook
With the spread of social media employment in political campaigns across the globe starting in the early 2010s, comparably recent scholarship has suggested the need for longitudinal insights into the uses of platforms like the one under scrutiny here
Kreiss et al (2017: 2) suggested “the rapid changes of the Internet mean we cannot presume continuity” in the ways that social media platforms are used by politicians and citizens alike

Summary

Introduction

The bulk of our knowledge of how political parties, politicians, and the citizens who potentially vote for them make use of social media for electoral and similar purposes is largely based on studies of Twitter (Enli, 2017; Hemsley et al, 2018; Jacobs et al, 2020; Jungherr, 2015) and to some extent on research looking into Facebook (e.g. Larsson, 2016; Ceccobelli, 2018; Nave et al, 2018; Nitschke et al, 2016; Sorensen, 2016; Stetka et al, 2019). It would seem that our understanding of the online engagement of such actors needs to expand beyond the two mentioned platforms, detailing activities undertaken on other social media as well This appears as a suitable way forward for at least two reasons. The tendency for scholars to emphasize Twitter and Facebook over other platforms is likely related to the relative ease with which data can or could (Bruns, 2019; Freelon, 2018; Rieder, 2015) be gathered from these platforms in comparison with others (Lewis et al, 2013; Lomborg and Bechmann, 2014) Such technical developments and opportunities for data collection have served to further the prominence of studies featuring Twitter and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Facebook data

Methods

Results

Conclusion