The main aim of this study is to investigate how political strategies (issue ownership, issue trespassing, and issue extremeness) and communication styles (responsiveness and mobilization) affect political candidates’ ability to trigger other users’ engagement (in terms of likes and retweets) as well as traditional media attention (in terms of news articles and of the proportion of media-related followers). Theoretically, the study links these strategies and communication styles within the framework of a single research and to expand these concepts to the social media realm. To do so, we rely on Swiss political candidates’ tweets over the course of the 2019 national election campaign while also integrating newspaper articles about these candidates. Combining political strategies with different styles of communication within the framework of a single study enables us to better understand the dynamics of public and media attention within political communication. Findings demonstrate a certain dose of media interconnection and highlight the specificities of Twitter in terms of communicative behaviors from media-related accounts and how they compare to offline media coverage. Practically, the study highlights what are best communication practices for political actors, especially which strategies and communications styles are more likely to generate other users’ engagement and media attention.

Following the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, the role that social media advertising can play in the outcomes of major elections is increasingly evident. While existing political advertising research has examined the influence of such adverts in contemporary election campaigns, there has been comparatively less research on the actual elements that make these adverts successful. The current study considers the extent to which different aspects of the political brand contribute to this success, particularly the use of the party leader as a heuristic device for voters and the strategic use of the “doppelgänger brand” phenomenon to undermine the opponent party’s campaign. By examining the adverts published on Facebook by the Conservative party and the Labour party in three key phases of the 2019 UK General Election, the importance of these two branding aspects in political social media advertising is investigated. The results show that the party that won the election, the Conservatives, made far greater use of both the leader heuristic and the doppelgänger brand phenomenon in their election adverts, and subtleties within the results reveal a novel finding for the use of the leader heuristic against the opponent party leader. The results are discussed in the context of election news coverage from 2019, and the ethical implications of treating deceptive campaigning techniques as successful are considered. The potential for the heuristics to be more powerful on alternative social media platforms with shorter-length content is also discussed as an avenue for future research to pursue.

Previous studies on the professionalization of campaign communication concentrated on forms of communication, ignoring the important question of how election campaigns vary in terms of the content of their election messages. The article intends to partially fill this breach by dealing with the case of Poland’s parliamentary election campaigns in the years 2005–2019. Therefore, it not only describes the main groups of determinants (systemic, competitive, technological, and social) influencing the speed and direction of the process of professionalization in Poland but also attempts to verify the extent to which a party’s electoral messages include certain content that can be treated as manifestations and effects of professionalization. Based on an analysis of audiovisual political advertising during five parliamentary campaigns, the study shows the dominance of valence issues (comparing them to position issues) in spots and the presence of centralized personalization (but not beyond simple party labeling). No linear increase or decrease of trend intensity has been observed regarding the above issues during the five elections. While the overall occurrence of these phenomena remains stable in the campaigns under study (meaning a significant, usually predominant share of party spots in a given year), their intensity varies.

The research examines political advertising on Facebook during the 2019 European and local election campaigns in Hungary. Previously, political advertising had been difficult to study due to a lack of publicly available data. However, since spring of 2019, information on political advertising on Facebook has been publicly accessible in European countries. The study collected all political ads during the two nationwide election campaigns in Hungary to map the political advertising sphere based on spending. The research tests theories regarding the political restructuring potential of social media, including the oppositional/democratizing role of social media, and the theses of normalization versus equalization. Additionally, the ad-specific thesis of ‘stealth media’ is tested, which argues that Facebook’s ad platform can be employed to circumvent campaign-related regulations. Our findings suggest that the opposition remarkably dominates the political Facebook advertising sphere in the present illiberal context. Beyond this fact, the normalization theory seems to prevail, and there is no evidence that ads are used to increase the personalization of politics. In Hungary, Facebook’s advertising platform is not a type of ‘stealth media’ as it is dominated by official political actors, but a few partisan media outlets were strongly involved in the advertising campaign.

In recent years, celebrity populism has become increasingly prevalent in politics worldwide. However, the relationship between populism and celebrity politics is not straightforward, and more research is needed to understand how these two concepts intersect. The authors of this paper argue that a more nuanced understanding of celebrity populism is necessary to identify and analyze its various forms. By analyzing the communication strategies of the three populist candidates in the 2019–2020 Croatian presidential election, this paper empirically investigates how celebrity populism manifests in practice. The authors use their proposed conceptualization to classify the candidates based on their use of populist and celebrity strategies. This allows for a more granular understanding of the different ways in which celebrity and populism can be combined in politics. The findings suggest that celebrity populism can take on different forms depending on the specific context and characteristics of the candidates. Moreover, the authors argue that celebrity populism is a strategy that can be effective in gaining popularity and mobilizing voters, particularly in countries where trust in political institutions is low.

This study investigates how the US and Australian Departments of Defence used social media platforms for branding, perception management and to curb online firestorms as well as how their citizens reacted to these political branding techniques during the Afghan troops’ withdrawal and evacuations. The study analyzed 11,460 tweets and replies from the US and Australian DoDs. Results show that the US and Australian DoDs strategically used their tweets to communicate professionalism, military efficiency and exceptionalism, information and clarification, duty, commendation, commiseration, and support for mental health. Findings further demonstrate that there was a significant association between the US and Australian DoDs’ counterinformation (inoculations) and tweets approving of both the withdrawal and evacuations. The study uncovers that the branding efforts of the US and Australian DoDs during the Afghan withdrawal and evacuations were successful as their high reservoir of trust moderated the short- and long-term effects of the online firestorm.

The article analyzes the extent to which the professionalization of Lithuanian political campaigns has changed over the last 30 years. To achieve this, the article employs two main methods. First, it reviews existing research on election campaign professionalization. Second, it presents the findings from a case study of Lithuanian political campaigns. The analysis draws on data from interviews with PR professionals and politicians conducted over the past two decades (46 interviews). The analysis also includes a data review of party spending in parliamentary campaigns. Through these methods, the analysis finds that both candidates and professional political consultants increasingly view political campaigns as important. Professional consultants play a significant role in campaign preparation and management in all parties, with major functions implemented by external campaign professionals being related to marketing strategies and communication management. Furthermore, contemporary Lithuanian political campaigns are often permanent and centralized, using a variety of marketing tools and instruments to research the electorate and prepare advertising campaigns and messages. The study concludes that Lithuanian election campaigns are gradually becoming more professionalized across all parties. However, the degree of professionalization varies depending on the financial and human resources available to specific party campaigns.

In this paper we examine whether opposition parties, particularly the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), can promote transition in the electoral authoritarian regime in Russia. We use the example of the National Action Party’s (PAN) evolution as an “official opposition” party in Mexico and discuss how its campaign strategy and party identity evolved. Using a framework derived from the political marketing literature on party branding and rebranding, we argue that the PAN successfully rebranded itself via the electoral opportunities afforded by structure of Mexican federalism, which ultimately led to the democratic transition in 1999. We then address the possibility of a similar evolution occurring in Russia, by examining how the CPRF altered its national campaign message between 2015–2018. Finally, we speculate whether local opposition victories will spark the kind of transition in Russia that occurred in other electoral authoritarian regimes, such as Mexico.

This study analyzes the 2020 Serbian election campaign in the context of institutional conditions of competition in a hybrid regime, comparing it to the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The authors explore how electoral communication articulates social problems and solutions, and examine the impact of new information and communication technologies on political communication in hybrid regime. Taking into account the specific configuration of the public sphere inherited from the period of Milosević’s rule and the comprehensive application of persuasive techniques, the authors come to several findings regarding electoral communication in Serbia: first, the election campaigns have not reified as a platform for addressing key political and identity issues; second, the development of new information and communication technologies and new means of promotion widen opportunities for propaganda, making hybrid regimes more resilient to internal pressures for democratization; and, third, given the institutional context in which electoral communication takes place, the question arises as to whether, in the institutional context of hybrid communication, one can speak of political marketing as opposed to merely a commercialized variant of political propaganda. The study is based on in-depth interviews with experts, public polls, researchers, and campaign managers.