Henkilöityminen eduskuntavaalikampanjassa
Puheenjohtajat ja puolueet sosiaalisessa mediassa
Keywords:
campaign communication, personalization, social media, parliamentary elections, party leadersAbstract
The social media communication of political actors is vital in campaign communication, but the practices and content vary between the actors. The significant role of party leaders in parliamentary election campaigns is undeniable but their role in the party communication and how they are discussed on social media is less known. The focus of the research is on personalization in the campaign communication of Finnish parties and party leaders on three biggest social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram during the 2019 parliamentary election. The aim is to research how personalization manifests in the posts by political actors. The posts are highly individualized, but there is less personal content published. Principally, social media does not seem to add personal content by political actors, as most personal content found in the data is shares from traditional media. The party leaders have a significant role as a communicative actor representing themselves as well as their party and the other candidates from their party. There are also significant differences between the platforms. Publishing on Twitter relies strongly on agenda-setting and topic posts while Facebook includes most personal content out of all three platforms. Instagram is the least used platform by all actors.
