Digital Political Communication Research Articles

Digital political communication through a gender lens: discourses, themes, and inclusive language. A case study of two gender-balanced elections in Andalusia: 2018 and 2022

Electoral campaigns are particularly significant moments for identifying the available political options. Social media campaigns have become universal, and every candidate seeks to showcase their proposals and distinct political personality. The main goal of this article is to examine electoral political communication on social media platforms through a gender perspective. We analyze the messages posted on X (formerly Twitter) by candidates during the last two election campaigns in Andalusia. With a total sample of 2,196 posts, we applied quantitative content analysis and binary logistic regression, in addition to qualitative discourse análisis to a subset of the sample. We aim to identify how, where, when and by whom issues pertaining to women as a collective, feminism, gender, or the use of egalitarian language are introduced into two campaigns characterized by gender-balanced representation of candidates. Our findings indicate a limited use of inclusive language and infrequent foregrounding of women in discourse. Nonetheless, gender is a significant explanatory factor for a more inclusive communication style toward women, alongside an explicit emphasis on addressing policies affecting women.

From Humour to Impact: Internet Memes in Political Discourse through (de)legitimization

Internet memes, as artifacts of digital culture, quickly spread political ideas and critiques, transcending traditional media. Despite their prevalence, understanding how memes use semiotic elements and (de)legitimization strategies to shape political narratives on social media is limited. This research investigates how semiotic representations and (de)legitimization processes materialize in political discourse through social media memes. Using Van Leeuwen's (2005, 2007) framework of social semiotics and (de)legitimization strategies, we analyzed the visual and textual elements of 47 memes collected from January to July 2024; we selected 11 memes that represent Van Leeuwen's (de)legitimization strategies. The study revealed that memes convey complex political messages using semiotic resources, including color, gesture, and text. Intertextuality, humor, irony, rationalization, and moral evaluation are commonly used to criticize or support political figures and ideologies. This highlights the dynamic role of social media in political communication, where memes rapidly influence public perception. The findings emphasize the importance of understanding semiotic and rhetorical strategies in political communication analysis. The study contributes to the discourse of digital political communication by showing how memes, as cultural artifacts, shape political narratives and legitimacy. The research has significant implications for political strategists, communicators, and academics interested in the intersection of media, politics, and culture.

Comparative Digital Political Communication: Comparisons Across Countries, Platforms, and Time

Comparative communication research needs to catch up to other disciplines. In this special issue and the associated International Communication Association preconference, we focus on comparative work related to digital political communication. This introduction argues that comparative digital political communication needs to consider comparisons across various dimensions, including countries, platforms, and time, whereas existing comparative communication research focuses on country or territorial comparison. We highlight the six submissions’ approaches to comparative work. Each submission provides at least one of these three dimensions of contrast. We conclude with a discussion of enduring gaps in this field of research, such as the lack of studies using time as a dimension of comparison. Time is crucial for understanding ever-changing digital media platforms. We also conclude by discussing some ongoing challenges in political communication research.

Political familiarity vs. journalism background: insights from three Israeli prime ministers on social media

PurposeTo explore a potential relationship between politicians’ media background and social media success through an analysis of content and engagement strategies adopted by three consecutive Israeli prime ministers on their official Facebook pages.Design/methodology/approachA detailed comparative content analysis of a total of 1,242 posts published by three Israeli prime ministers – Benjamin Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett – on the same official Facebook account, “the Prime Minister of Israel,” during their respective terms. Metrics like engagement rates, content distribution and media type utilization were considered.FindingsAll analyzed prime ministers exhibited consistent messaging strategies, suggesting a standardized approach to digital political communication. However, we found no correlation between a politician’s media background and their success on social media. Instead, decisive determinants of engagement outcomes were factors like longstanding political exposure and familiarity.Practical implicationsThe observed uniformity in leaders’ messaging strategies indicates a prevalent standardized approach in digital political communication, revealing potential avenues for innovation and diversification.Originality/valueThis research challenges the prevailing notion that background in media inherently benefits digital political engagement, emphasizing the significance of political experience. The results provide new insights into the evolving landscape of political communication. Using signaling theory to evaluate how digital content reveals leaders’ intentions and credibility, our findings provide new insights into political communication in the digital era.

Divisive Issues, Polarization, and Users’ Reactions on Facebook: Comparing Campaigning in Latin America

Economic, social, and health crises have shaken and polarized contemporary politics. An element fueling this polarization is the dissemination of divisive topics on social media platforms. While these polarizing social media tendencies are increasingly studied, research exploring digital political communication in South America remains scarce. This study aims to analyze the electoral campaigns in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru to define the features that trigger polarized emotional reactions on Facebook. The corpus comprises a sample of 2,930 posts published by candidates and political parties during the first round of the presidential elections held in these countries between 2021 and 2022. We hypothesize that users are more likely to react in a polarized way to content focused on divisive issues. In addition, we examine how these patterns differ across countries and the influence of the level of political polarization. Finally, the role played by party-level characteristics in the emotional reactions of users is also analyzed. By means of quantitative content analysis, these questions are addressed using multilevel negative binomial regressions to identify what predicts Love and Angry reactions. The bandwagon effect seems to work positively on users’ moods since the most popular political actors receive significantly more Love reactions, irrespective of the post’s subject. In more polarized countries, there is a tendency to react more negatively to certain divisive issues, generating greater visibility of these issues on social networks and thus promoting more polarization. These findings expand knowledge about the dynamics of digital political communication in the Global South.

The Influence of Sexism and Incivility in WhatsApp Political Discussions on Affective Polarization: Evidence from a 2022 Multi-Party Election in India

In contemporary political discourse, the concern of affective polarization, often fueled by uncivil and sexist discourse, is notably evident in digital communication contexts like WhatsApp. In this study, we examined the potential effects of uncivil and sexist messages as well as moderator interventions against these messages coming from political in- and out-group members in such political groups through a survey experiment ( N = 1,464) fielded during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh (India) Legislative Assembly Elections. We investigate these questions and extend the prior work on affective polarization by introducing a new measure of Average Inter-party Affective Distance, which provides a single metric to index overall polarization in a multi-party election context. Our results showed that exposure to sexist uncivil messages had no discernible effect on affective polarization, political participation, and voting intention. Additionally, moderator warnings against incivility had no significant effects. However, we observed a variation in how respondents processed these messages based on their preexisting attitudes; notably, individuals with less sexist views were more inclined to vote after being exposed to sexist uncivil messages. These findings suggest that the influence of incivility and sexism in messaging platforms like WhatsApp on the wider electorate’s political behavior and attitudes is relatively limited. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of digital political communication, highlighting the importance of message content and preexisting individual differences in shaping affective polarization and mobilization.

Emotivism Trends in Digital Political Communication: The Influence on the Results of the US Presidential Elections

Citizens, organizations and institutions are increasingly making use of digital social networks such as Twitter as a means by which to express their position as regards political topics. However, an increasing amount of academic literature coincides, in that it highlights the emotive and expressive nature of these positions. In other words, for the most part, the political opinions that are publicized are more like backing based on support or rejection (without arguments or motives). In parallel, said expressions have a key emotional element (expressions of a positive or negative affective disposition). This article consists of an analysis that aims, on the one hand, to measure the affective disposition of US citizens as expressed on Twitter during the two most recent electoral campaigns (2016 and 2020). Similarly, we have generated a model that facilitates the measurement of the extent to which the content of the aforementioned messages demonstrates arguments or motives, or lack of. By way of the use of a database for the same Twitter accounts in both elections, we provide very consistent results that highlight the lack of argumentation of the public debate and the notably polarized profile of the affective dispositions shown by participants. We use the thesis of emotivism to give a more significant analytical weighting to this research.

Are we Missing Some Forces? An Exploratory Study Based on Twitter Analytics of Political Communication

Several governments are leveraging social media for political communication. While the phenomenon of gate-keeping in filtering information through social media has received attention from scholars, the role of diverse meso-entities (comprising pressure groups, experts, and professionals) in influencing digital political communication remains under-studied. We explore the trend in communicating a specific program for electoral gains and identify different types of entities that reshape and disseminate political communication on Twitter, with an illustration of the launch of the public health insurance program in India. We find the significant presence of meso-level entities that played an instrumental role in influencing political communication from macro to microlevel entities through the digital platform. We extend the Jungherr, Schoen, and Jürgens (2016) framework of macro to micro-level political communication in social media by recommending a few propositions to be tested in future studies. Further, this study also contributes to information diffusion theory by explicating the role of various information intermediaries in influencing information flow from macro to micro users on social media platforms.

Building Political Hashtag Communities: A Multiplex Network Analysis of U.S. Senators on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections

This study examines how U.S. senators strategically used hashtags to create political communities on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections. We propose a way to model topic-based implicit interactions among Twitter users and introduce the concept of Building Political Hashtag Communities (BPHC). Using multiplex network analysis, we provide a comprehensive view of elites’ behavior. Through AI-driven topic modeling on real-world data, we observe that, at a general level, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC. Yet, when disaggregating the network across layers, this trend does not uniformly persist. Specifically, while Republicans engage more intensively in BPHC discussions related to immigration, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC in topics related to identity and women. However, only a select group of Democratic actors engage in BPHC for topics on labor and the environment—domains where Republicans scarcely, if at all, participate in BPHC efforts. This research contributes to the understanding of digital political communication, offering new insights into echo chamber dynamics and the role of politicians in polarization.

Women and digital political communication in non-Western societies

ABSTRACT This special issue brings together contributions and theoretical insights that probe ways through which gender interacts with context to shape non-Western-based political communication trends. It seeks to address the need to diversify theory and research in political communication. Our key contribution is to provide empirically-guided, contextually-shaped and methodologically-rich research on digital political communication strategies that facilitate women's political participation in geographical areas underrepresented in the scholarship. We do this in five ways. First, feminist approaches to digital political communication have rarely been studied this way, focusing exclusively on previously unaddressed developments in non-Western settings while also theorizing their contributions to communication scholarship through a special issue format in a credible journal that retains a wider audience. Second, it is of scholarly interest to know whether women politicians in richer and poor countries grapple with the same issues when it comes to political communication. Third, we provide novel ways to expand scholarship on women's digital political participation through incorporation of indigenous knowledge and practices. Fourth, the diversity of fresh voices coupled with pioneering findings assembled in this special issue is encouraging in a field dominated by a few. Finally, the number of women vying for political office in the Global South is increasing. Therefore, studying how they are faring on the political frontline has a significant bearing on how current and future studies within the remit of understudied non-Western digital political communication can and should be framed, paving way for new and better understandings on the region and its multifaceted political perturbations.

Digital literacy and technopolitics, core enablers in a disintermediated digital political communication age

The growing interconnection of technology and politics and the enactment of particular political goals (technopolitics) has been closely articulated with emotions and the building of foreign policy narratives. In the current context of change in the communication paradigm, global and disintermediated, bringing together in the same digital space distinct actors, and having wide diffusion and reach, the challenges to international politics are diverse. Digital and media literacy are, in this regard, key to address the implications of these changes, avoiding the spreading of disinformation, fake news and distorted practices that might have profound effects at societal and political level. In this context, this paper aims at providing a basis for understanding the emerging and increasingly clear connection between political communication, polarization, disinformation, and emotions in social networks and digital literacy as a central factor explaining misuse or alleviating deficiencies, on the one hand, and how this context is affecting the reconfiguration of international relations and politics, on the other hand. The case of the war in Ukraine is illustrative of these trends and dynamics.

‘Live’ to ‘survive’: women and digital political communication in Tunisia

ABSTRACT This study examines how social media platforms can facilitate greater visibility of Tunisian women in political communication activism to survive male politicians’ domination and the conventional media's boycott. The authors chose to focus on the case of Tunisian activist Abir Moussi to investigate how she uses Facebook for political mobilization and self-branding purposes. A monographic approach to the content of the Facebook page was carried out, along with a semiotic analysis of the speech given by Moussi on the decisions announced by President Kais Said on 25 July 2021. The results revealed a Facebook-Live-based communication strategy to address audiences as well as a large number of photos and videos. Besides, The Tunisian political activist used several linguistic elements in her discourse to make her political discourse effective, such as contrast, intertextuality, metaphor, etc. Unlike President Said, who uses Standard Arabic, the Tunisian political activist speaks the Tunisian dialect; Abir’s tone ranges from humorous, enthusiastic, provocative, menacing and promising; she provides her propaganda speech with legal texts and arguments to convince her audience, claiming to enlighten minds by simplifying ordinances and complex political terms. Moreover, she revealed several political and economic ‘hot issues’ that led to the Tunisian crisis. The authors conclude that social media does not create new ways of activism but rather amplifies traditional ones; they suggest enhancing the political efficacy of social media to boost political activism and emphasizing the concept of ‘online political efficacy’ in future research.

Politicians over issues? Visual personalization in three Instagram election campaigns

ABSTRACT The increased use of social media has triggered a visual shift in digital political communication. One central strategy is visual (self-) personalization and many studies have analyzed why and to what extent political communication is focused on individuals. Yet, most research has concentrated on personalization, leaving aside the question of whether it comes at the expense of policy issues or whether people are brought into focus as facilitators of such issues. We fill this research gap by analyzing how visual (self-) personalization on Instagram pages of parties and politicians during election campaigns has changed over time and whether it comes at the cost of addressing policy issues. We use data from three quantitative content analyses of Instagram posts published by parliamentary parties (n = 7) and top candidates (n = 18) in the ‘hot phases’ before three national German elections (N = 2313), covering all nationwide elections since Instagram has become a common campaign tool. It is shown that personal depictions are very common in Instagram campaigns of parties and candidates while addressing policy issues in posts varies between elections. Using a multilevel binomial regression model, we show that addressing policy issues is negatively related to personalization but further analysis shows that it is not a zero-sum game at the cost of addressing policy issues. Our results provide insights into how the presentation of politics might change when image- and video-based platforms continue to gain importance in political communication.

New Frontiers for Political Communication in Times of Spectacularization

Political spectacularization is a broad global phenomenon challenging contemporary digital political communication under new features that define interactive digital narratives. In this sense, the use of politainment formulas in digital contexts to reconnect the electorate with political leaders and institutions through a more direct and interactive communication deserves further understanding of its implications on the devaluation of political information and the loss of democratic quality. This thematic issue sheds some light on how the spectacularization of political communication, which increasingly takes place in online contexts, affects and is affected by these processes, where entertainment is crucial to engage citizens. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of how research on politainment has started to shift its attention away from traditional media toward the wide array of lenses of politainment among digital platforms. The articles in this thematic issue reflect this shift but also show its consequences in terms of political engagement. Finally, we outline further research steps, which should establish a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the complex relationship between political communication, entertainment, and new digital communication formulas, which is crucial to advance knowledge in the field.

Research on Digital Political Communication: Electoral Campaigns, Disinformation, and Artificial Intelligence

In recent years, political communication has emerged as one of the most prolific subfields within political science and the social sciences as a whole [...]

Political entrepreneurs in social media: Self-monitoring, authenticity and connective democracy. The case of Íñigo Errejón

Political entrepreneurs seek to mobilise public opinion and access large audiences who are not directly interested in politics, but are exposed to the digital environment. The aim of this research was to analyse how these figures promote experimental communication uses on channels far removed from political activity. We focused on Twitch, a successful platform for promoting entertainment and learning in the video games field. To do so, we conducted a significant case study, that of Íñigo Errejón, a Spanish male Member of Parliament, in 2021 through 18 live streamings that lasted 1223 min. We specifically described the conception and use of Twitch, measured the audience's impact, analysed the accountability exercise through this platform and evaluated the deliberative quality of conversation with users. To conclude, we identified three novel contributions of Twitch to digital political communication: self-monitoring, insofar as the elected politician himself proactively exercises accountability to the public without a third party intervening; the activation of mediated authenticity as a key value in the political actor's public construction; promoting connective democracy, which would help those sectors not used to employing political information to take an interest in it by detecting attention being paid to their needs and questions.

Media Literacy Web Challenges During Five Digital Parliamentary Campaigns in Bulgaria (2021–2023)

Since 2021 the Bulgarians had to go to the polls for five national parliamentary votes (one regular - April 4, 2021 and four early – July 11 and November 14, 2021, October 2, 2022, and April 2, 2023). Internet platforms, social media and especially social networks became increasingly popular channels for politicians to communicate with voters. The aim of the study focuses on the media literacy web challenges during the digital Parliamentary pre-election communication between politicians and society. The object is the specifics of the one-month campaigns. The subject refers to the digital election messages of political parties’ leaders presented in their Facebook profiles. The study is interdisciplinary and it uses mixed research methods. The results are indicative for those interested in digital political communication. The structured and analyzed information can be utilized into patterns for policy support for decision makers, academia, media, telecommunications, media literacy experts, general publics and private sector.

Komunikasi Politik Digital di Indonesia

The habits of the Indonesian people in seeking the information at this time have experienced a shift from what was previously considered television and print media as a means of actual information, turning to digital media as the main media for seeking information. This is in line with the demands of the industrial revolution 4.0 which demands an all-digital society, the great attention of the Indonesian people to the internet is an opportunity for political actors to turn to digital media as a means of political communication. Through research using descriptive literature study methods, researchers try to observe through online news, scientific magazines, television news, and digital literacy related to political communication built by political actors in Indonesia today. It was found that the results of political communication built through digital media were more effective because political messages were more easily conveyed thanks to the great attention of the Indonesian people to the internet. In addition, digital media can save time and cost in delivering political messages. This digital political communication, apart from personal branding, can also be used to resolve conflicts between the government and society

Mobilization and support structures in radical right party networks. Digital political communication ecologies in the 2019 European parliament elections

ABSTRACT The 2019 European Parliament elections seemingly fostered concerted political action among radical right parties (RRPs) to fortify their positions and mobilize publics on a pan-European scale. Digital platforms provide central infrastructure for networks among political actors and user interactions on the ground. Our study, therefore, investigates the intra- and transnational networking on Twitter established by RRPs’ strategic communication and user interactions. To understand how distinct political and media-related opportunity structures align with different intensities, types, and meanings of digital connections, we investigate the salience, actor types, and geographical scopes as well as the functions of digital connections within and across Twitter networks in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden during the EP election campaigns. Our results indicate the influence of parties’ structural power position on networked communication: The ecologies around RRPs in government reflect their integration in national discourses and competition. The networks of RRPs in opposition display a self-referential campaign ecology for the promotion and distribution of candidates, content, and positions. Transnationality in these networks is structured by EU-level collaboration and driven by civil society and political entrepreneurs, who appear keener to mobilize across borders.

MARUF AMIN’S POLITICAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN THE 2019 ELECTION CAMPAIGN: A LESSON FOR ANTI-HOAX POLITICS

Social media (Instagram) with embedded text in various forms of multimedia content have become an important battleground for politicians to place the relevance of their policies to the public during election campaigns. The narratives played by politicians in the digital space are aimed at securing the mass base and votes of supporters, while seeking early certainty of their victory. This study aims to analyze Maruf Amin’s political communication strategy in dealing with hoaxes in the 2019 Indonesian election campaign. In this study, the researchers used a qualitative method with a descriptive approach to analyze the data. Primary data were taken from interviews. Meanwhile, the secondary data ware from journal articles, books, news, report releases, and digital contents. The data analysis model used in this study is inductive analysis, an analytical model in qualitative research that does not depart from theoretical deductions but rather empirical facts. This article was prepared by applying research steps, starting with data collecting, data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. Results indicated that digital political communication strategies applied in campaigns against hoaxes can be seen from how the digital presence with the identity of politicians, authentic character, and having intellectual and social capital as ulama is indirectly attached to scientific authorities who are bound by responsibility for delivering scientific truth. In addition, another finding is that coherence and consistency in campaigns can play an important role in success against hoaxes. To conclude, anti-hoax narratives in elections are inevitable. In other words, it is political resources that are free to use at any time and ready to be used by politicians to reaffirm an agenda, neutralize an issue, instill new ideas about nationalism, and provide educational and literacy messages for the wider audience.