Strategic Political Communication Research Articles

Authenticity, Image-Construction, and Social Media: Multimodal Insights from US Vice President Kamala Harris on Twitter

This study contributes to the broader discourse of mediated strategic political communication by providing insights into how a rarely studied elected government official (Vice President) uses authenticity cues on social media to construct her public image. Using the case of US Vice President Harris, the study adopts a Multimodal Discourse Analysis to uncover how she strategically displayed authenticity in her first 90 days of office. Findings indicated that she enacted authenticity through her tweets that showed her close relationship with President Biden, her interactions with citizens of different age groups, her official addresses, her expression of inner thoughts, and her display of intimate working environments. The study also discusses the broader implications of findings for strategic communication on social media.

Golkar Sidoarjo DPD's Strategy for PIP Scholarship Distribution Campaign

Background: Effective political communication strategies are crucial for enhancing public engagement. Specific Background: This study explores the qualitative communication strategies used by a local political party during the Indonesia Smart Program (PIP) scholarship distribution, contrasting it with quantitative approaches that focus on numerical data. Knowledge Gap: Existing literature lacks insights on how qualitative methods, particularly direct interviews, can inform community engagement and program visibility. Aims: The research aims to analyze DPD Golkar Sidoarjo's communication strategies using primary interviews and secondary campaign materials. Results: Findings show that the party successfully utilized various media to increase visibility and transparency of the PIP, leading to significant community involvement through initiatives like KIPK. Novelty: This study highlights how qualitative approaches can deepen understanding of political communication's impact on community perceptions. Implications: The increased public trust in DPD Golkar Sidoarjo indicates the effectiveness of strategic political communication in influencing electoral outcomes, revealing valuable insights into political engagement dynamics. Highlights : Emphasizes the significance of qualitative insights for understanding community perceptions. Highlights the effective use of media in enhancing program visibility and transparency. Demonstrates the link between strategic communication and increased public trust and electoral support. Keywords: political communication, qualitative research, Indonesia Smart Program, community engagement, DPD Golkar Sidoarjo

Challenging and Enhancing Legitimacy Through Humor: A Comparative Study of Candidates’ Use of Humor on Facebook before the 2019 and 2023 Finnish Parliamentary Elections

A prevalent aspect of contemporary digital campaigning is the use of humor to attract attention, elicit amusement, and mark group boundaries. This study investigates the humor in digital campaigns during two recent Finnish parliamentary elections, focusing on how different styles of humor are used to (de)legitimize political ideas and actors. Our original dataset consists of 125,604 posts by 1262 candidates on Facebook six months before the 2019 and 2023 election days. Using Facebook’s haha reactions and manual coding to annotate humor style, we focused on 729 posts with seemingly intentional humor by candidates. We show how different parties and individual candidates used humor to varying degrees and in different styles. Overall, the proportion of humorous posts was not high, but the populist radical right Finns Party candidates used humor by far the most, and their style was primarily aggressive, aimed at delegitimizing the incumbent government, political opponents, and their reference groups. Candidates from other major parties also used some humor, but overall the tone was more positive. Some of these candidates were profiled as “humor specialists” who produced similar combinations of ridicule and anti-elitism as the Finns Party candidates or, alternatively, focused on disseminating self-deprecating and affiliative humor. Affiliative and self-deprecating humor was used to foster closeness, ordinariness, and spontaneity, thus legitimizing oneself as a relatable candidate. The paper discusses how candidates use humor strategically to stand out in a competition for attention between candidates, and elaborates on the implications of using different humor styles in strategic political communication.

Social Media, Personalization, Visuals, and Strategic Political Communication: The Case of an African Vice President’s Image-Construction on Twitter

ABSTRACT Social media platforms have heightened the demand for identity-based politics, in which the public expects politicians to display personal aspects of their lives toward strategic ends. Using a multimodal rhetorical approach, this study analyzes the tweets of Ghanaian Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in his first year after the 2020 election and to understand how he constructs his public image through personalization. Results indicated that he displayed his religious beliefs, strong relationship with his wife, personalized visual graphics, and patriotic participatory acts. The study argues that Bawumia’s identity and Ghana’s cultural context manifest in his personalization on Twitter. The image he constructs and the broader implication of this present study for strategic communication are discussed.

“They are always ambiguous when they don't know how it will turn out.” Dissemination, Practices, and Ethical Assessment of Strategic Ambiguity

Strategic ambiguity increases an organization's scope for action. Ambiguous statements are, among other things, easier to deny; they also facilitate change. Strategic ambiguity has long been a theoretically well-established practice in organizational communication research. To date, the substantial number of theoretical and conceptual contributions has been contrasted by relatively few empirical studies of strategic ambiguity. This is the starting point of the present paper, which provides answers to the following research questions: How are the use and diffusion of strategic ambiguity perceived? What goals are pursued with strategic ambiguity? What ambiguous practices are used in strategic political communication? And finally: How is strategic ambiguity assessed ethically? To answer the research questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted. In addition to political PR practitioners, political journalists were also interviewed in order to contrast the self-assessments of PR practitioners with the external assessments of journalists. The results show that strategic ambiguity is perceived as very common in the field of politics. From an ethical perspective, strategic ambiguity is evaluated ambivalently: Protective motives, which are evaluated as legitimate, are contrasted with deliberately deceptive motives, which are evaluated as illegitimate.

Tweeting is Leading: How Senators Communicate and Represent in the Age of Twitter Annelise Russell

Every U.S. Senator is on Twitter and every U.S. Senator pursues rhetorical agendas. Senators pursue rhetorical agendas as policy wonks, constituent servants, or partisan warriors. This is the central thesis of Annelise Russell’s new book Tweeting is Leading, the latest contribution to the renowned Oxford Studies in Digital Politics series. In Tweeting is Leading, Russell uses a wealth of content analytic and Senate demographic data to analyze and understand how federal elected officials use social media for their political public relations efforts. Dr. Russell is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Kentucky. Social media such as Twitter provide politicians the opportunity to bypass media gatekeepers and communicate directly with key publics. By 2013, every member of the U.S. Senate had a Twitter presence although the frequency of usage varied. For instance, Russell found that in 2013, the average senator tweeted 675 times but this ranged from a total of 23 to 2,272 tweets (p. 69). Russell collected data in both 2013, the first non-election year of universal adoption, and 2015, a second election off-year, to analyze frequency of tweeting, determinants of social media behavior, and content strategies from Senate accounts. Electoral off-years were chosen as the sample to focus on government communication when senators are not actively campaigning. Overall frequencies increased from 2013 to 2015 highlighting the increased importance of social media for strategic political communication. Russell argues that “the use of Twitter is now a normal part of lawmakers’ routines and seen as a common, if not necessary, element of lawmaking” (p. 51). One important finding was that there are not consistent variables explaining which senators use Twitter more frequently. There were not consistent patterns in how variables such as gender, age, partisanship, prior electoral performance, committee leader status, or seniority influence Twitter communication frequency.

Komunikasi Politik dan Branding Pemimpin Politik Melalui Media Sosial: A Conceptual Paper

The presence of digital media, such as social media allows us to connect without any limitations of space and time. Consumption of social media brings changes in various aspects of life, including the habits of communicating and interacting in today's network society. In the political field, social media creates opportunities for political leaders to carry out political communication. As a strategic political communication channel, social media plays a role in receiving and responding to public aspirations. In fact, the use of social media for campaigns by political leaders shows a trend of increasing popularity and electability due to the influence of branding on social media. The use of social media by political leaders in building specific branding is at the core of this article. Political leaders optimize their personal social media accounts for political communication. The positive perception of the public allows for an increase in popularity and electability which brings to the national political stage. This article is a conceptual paper that analyzes the concept of branding in politics in the era of digital political communication by utilizing social media. The author uses relevant literature reviews from previous studies. This article reveals that several political leaders that have been studied have optimized social media to carry out political communication to their citizens. They display digital content to gain public support and trust, and display branding as a populist, professional, humanist, and responsible political leader.

Official Truths in a War on Fake News: Governmental Fact-Checking in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand

This article analyses the practice of state-operated fact-checking websites in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It is the first empirical study of governmental news corrections in Southeast Asia and covers more than 2,700 official posts published by Malaysia’s Sebenarnya.my, Singapore’s Factually, and Thailand’s Anti-Fake News Center. It finds that correction practices across the sites mainly function to sustain the salience of a supposedly constant and omnipresent fake news threat. Assuming an important role in strategic political communication, official fact checks accompany domestic fake news discourses that prepare the ground for restrictive legislation. At the same time, the analysis did not reveal any propagandistic abuse as the sites refrained from excessively defending governments and accusing political opponents. This finding is qualified regarding Singapore’s Factually that recently changed its approach towards targeting government critics personally.

The Politician as a Player: Political Strategic Communication as a Play

Approaches to post-truth society describe a shift in societies towards non-binding communication. There are at least two problem inherent to these approaches. On the one hand, there is no plausible explanation as to why a shift from a truth-based to a post-truth society is now apparent. On the other hand, the blanket assumption that the truth is completely unimportant today is not plausible either. This is the starting point for this article. We begin with a concept frequently found in journalistic descriptions: politics as a play and politicians as players. A theoretical approach is presented that conceives political strategic communication as a play. Elaborating on this, the acceptance of lies and bullshit is the result of political self-staging. To this end, the theory of strategic communication plays based on Bateson and Goffman will be presented and developed further into staging and truth plays in politics. The proposition: strategic political communication is increasingly – but not always – being played and perceived as a play in which the entertainment character is more important than the binding nature of the staging and the statements.

Strategic Political Communication of Young Business Actor Be Succes Politician

The aims study were to find out the steps taken by businessmen be success a politicians and strategic political communication by entrepreneurs who have succeeded in becoming politicians. This research uses a qualitative approach. In determining the informants of the researchers used informant entrepreneur Ryan Kono who is currently the deputy mayor of Gorontalo. Data collection methods in this study are the sources of literature and documentation. Based on the description of the discussion the following conclusions are explained 1) Political process of businessmen be a succes politicians carried out with the initial process Ryan Kono advanced to represent Gorontalo City in partnership with Marten A Taha. Ryan Kono is a businessman who has political instincts, and is talented. Ryan Kono was already in politics at a very young age. Ryan Kono's political career can be supported by his experience as an entrepreneur. This supports the victory of Ryan Kono with the results of voting from the elections in Gorontalo City through quick counts through the superior Vote Counting Information System (Situng) with a result of 42.665 or 41.20 percent and 2) Political communication strategies promise change and improvement of natural policies in the fields of economy, social welfare, health, using digital media as a means to market ideas, solicit support, and raise funds from their constituents. Other strategic political communications include internal Political Communication, Formation of a Success Team, Coordination and Outreach and Political Campaign

Techniques of Strategic Political Communication: The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Persuasive Devices

ABSTRACTThis research analyzes the entire range of Arabic language communiqués issued by the Muslim Brotherhood from July 2013–July 2017 in order to show how political Islamist movements utilize persuasive techniques to advance their strategic communication campaigns and achieve their political goals. Using agenda-setting as a theoretical framework and the seven devices developed by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) in the late 1930s as a deductive tool, this article demonstrates that the Brotherhood’s communication strategy strongly aligned with the seven devices developed by the IPA: more than one technique was identified in 97% of the movement’s communiqués analyzed. These findings indicate that persuasive techniques are being used by the Brotherhood as strategic communication devices to serve the goals of 1) discrediting the current military regime; 2) winning the hearts and minds of Egyptians; and, 3) establishing themselves as a legitimate political actor. This case study advances second-level agenda setting theory by suggesting that the IPA’s persuasive techniques reveal the specific mechanisms through which the Brotherhood seek to achieve their communication goals. By raising awareness of these techniques as a critical means of setting the Brotherhood’s agenda, this article also seeks to empower domestic and regional audiences consuming these messages.

Restrictions on data-driven political micro-targeting in Germany

The revitalisation of canvassing in recent elections is strongly related to campaigns´ growing possibilities for analysing voter data to gain knowledge about their constituents, identifying their most likely voters and serving up personalised messages through individual conversations. The research literature about political micro-targeting hardly ever focusses on campaigns in parliamentary democracies with strict data protection laws. Based on in-depth expert interviews we introduce a framework of constraints in strategic political communication and reveal several restrictions on the macro, meso and micro levels which hinder the implementation of sophisticated data strategies in Germany. We argue that political micro-targeting highly depends on system-level contextual factors, budgetary and legal restraints, party structures and even individual decisions and knowledge on behalf of the campaign leadership.

Trump Trumps Baldwin? How Trump’s Tweets Transform SNL into Trump’s Strategic Advantage

What happens when a politician responds through social media to critical humor, as in the case of Donald Trump’s hostile reactions toward Alec Baldwin’s appearances on Saturday Night Live (SNL)? Analysis of experimental data collected in December 2016 (N = 325) shows that viewing Trump’s Twitter response accusing SNL of media bias inoculates viewers against Baldwin’s anti-Trump satire that is present in the original skit. Moreover, viewing the SNL skit and an article detailing Trump’s continued Twitter engagement with the show over the course of the fall 2016 season encourages viewers to connect the anti-Trump SNL humor with Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, resulting in significantly lower favorability ratings for the Democratic opposition. The implications of the findings and their influence on strategic political communication are discussed.

Social Media Activities of Political Communication Practitioners: The Impact of Strategic Orientation and In-Group Orientation

ABSTRACTThe question of why political communication practitioners use social media for strategic political communication activities has rarely been investigated. By using well-established theoretical approaches of communication research, such as the influence of presumed influence approach, this study sought to determine the extent to which the subjective perceptions of German political communication practitioners explain their professional social media activities. The results of a survey (N = 1,067) indicate that the more political communication practitioners perceived that other political communication practitioners used and were influenced by Facebook and Twitter, the more often they used social media themselves. In contrast, the presumed reach of Facebook and Twitter among politicians, journalists, and citizens, as well as the presumed influence of both media on these groups, were not related to the practitioners’ social media activities. These findings suggest that the practitioners’ social media activities are driven more by an in-group orientation toward their colleagues and less by a strategic orientation toward external stakeholders.

Political-intelligence elites, Strategic Political Communication and the press: the need for, and utility of, a benchmark of public accountability demands

This article explores whether the contemporary press adequately holds political-intelligence elites accountable when facing Strategic Political Communication (SPC) during those long periods when whistle-blowers are absent (‘journalism-as-usual’). It develops an original benchmark of public accountability demands of political-intelligence elites that the press should be capable of making, thereby providing concrete discursive strategies to facilitate this difficult task. Demonstrating its utility, this benchmark is used to evaluate press oversight during journalism-as-usual and facing Obama administration political-intelligence elite SPC on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program. This shows that manipulation of the contemporary press occurs through subtle, but effective, SPC techniques involving a certain style of information provision that influences national, international, mainstream and alternative press outlets’ accountability demands.

Where you lead we will follow: a longitudinal study of strategic political communication in election campaigning

AbstractThe ways in which election campaigns are planned, organized, and conducted have changed considerably during recent decades, and political parties constantly employ new ideas and practices in order to communicate as strategically and effectively as possible. The concept of strategic political communication refers to an organization's purposeful management of information and communication to achieve certain political goals. In this article, we focus on the role of the individual political party in developing election campaigning. The empirical material covers the 2002, 2006, and 2010 Swedish national election campaigns and illustrates how political parties lead and follow each other in the development of strategic political communication. By exploring party agency, this article contributes to the understanding of how ideas and practices of strategic political communication emerge and develop over time in election campaigning.

Where Grass Has No Roots: The Concept of ‘Shared Strategic Communication’ as an Answer to Unethical Astroturf Lobbying

ABSTRACTAs researchers pursue connections between strategic communication and management, they need to critique practices to develop norms that increase strategic communication’s long-term contribution to society. Norms of strategic communication are shaped by socially constructed standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and guide how strategic communication fosters organization-public relationships (OPR). Such norms are particularly important regarding deliberative strategic communication, which uses political CSR to guide corporations’ political role. Although principles of OPR and political CSR should foster more ethical strategic communication, some practices weaken such standards. To make that case, this article (1) reviews the historical foundations of deliberative discourse, (2) examines principles of OPR and political CSR, and (3) applies normative principles of deliberative discourse (4) to critique three cases of strategic political communication, known as astroturf lobbying, a deceptive lobbying practice that undermines and fakes grassroots movements. We conclude by integrating the findings into theory building that shifts CSR outcomes from advantaging individual organizations adding value to society. This theme uses ‘creating shared value’ to advocate shared strategic communication. This notion includes the normative claims of political CSR (open discourse, participation, transparency, accountability) to arrive at shared strategic communication that supports the ‘good’ organization and society simultaneously.

Presidential Agenda Building and Policymaking: Examining Linkages Across Three Levels

ABSTRACTTo investigate the role of strategic political communication in governing, this study comprehensively examined presidential agenda-building associations at three levels during the first six months of U.S. president Barack Obama’s second term. Multiple presidential information subsidies, national news content, and policymaking activity were monitored. The results revealed solid support for all three levels of agenda-building (i.e., object salience, attribute salience, and network associations among objects or attributes), but the linkages with media coverage and policymaking were not uniform across information subsidy types. Based on the analysis, presidential news releases, blog posts, and presidential speeches were the most effective all-around strategic agenda-building tools for media management and policymaking purposes during this time period. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

‘You know how tough I am?’ Discourse analysis of US Midwestern congresswomen’s self-presentation

Drawing on gender-role theories and considering the potential new media environments brought to the dynamics of strategic political communication, this study explores the nature of US Midwestern congresswomen’s strategic online self-presentations in comparison to those of congressmen. The discourse analysis presented in this study shows that in their official online biographies, that is, as given on websites provided by the US government, congresswomen devoted more space to describing their own personal traits than did congressmen. In particular, women tended to stress the masculine aspects of their personalities by using so-called masculine words such as tough and fighter much more than their male counterparts did. Such masculine terminology was scarcely evident in the biographies of male House members in the same states and committees as the female members. These findings imply that female politicians are more active in strategically presenting themselves as tough leaders in what appears to be a self-conscious effort to counteract detrimental gender stereotypes.

Strategic political communication in Serbian daily press

It was said for traditional journalism that it opened 'windows into the world' to the citizens. After introduction of the Internet and a vast number of convergent platforms one could argue that the gaze through these media windows is becoming more and more blurred, due to a continually increasing number and size of such windows, which gives raise to suspicion as to the depicted reality. Analyzing contents of the most investigated daily newspapers in Serbia, the author has investigated the realm of epistemic communication with special attention paid to its role in the process of forming political culture. In contemporary practice, the creators of public opinion are political figures (ranging from political parties to civil society organizations), those in power (members of Government and state administration), the media (from mass media to the social networks) and citizens (from individuals to the political public). Serbian press allow themselves to be gold dusted by PR agencies, presenting reality as patterns of success promoted by political establishment and spinned by manifestations of significance and power. In the aftermaths of the authoritarian pseudo-democratic regime, it is considered normal for political establishment members to use communication intermediaries to serve their interests, thus forcing the contents suitable for aggressive promotion of political clientelism. Unstable nature of the truth provided in various interpretations of recipients, among ideologically and culturally different readers, leads to abandoning of professional principles in journalism and their substitution with informative & entertaining contents. Within this context, news are losing their character as a public value and are becoming merchandise instead, possessed by the richest and most powerfull individuals.