scholarly journals Emotionalization and Privatization of Political Communication on Facebook

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Milica Vučković ◽  
Tanja Oblak Črnič
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Longitudinal Analysis ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Political Figure

Social media are usually accused of being one of the major forces for personalization of ‏political communication and consequently for depolitization of recent politics. However, personalization ‏seems to stimulate certain users to pay more attention to political issues and to act more responsively to ‏such highly personalized political profiles. This article presents the results of a longitudinal analysis of ‏online presence of Barack Obama to assess his political communication through Facebook. It also answers ‏if presence of emotional appeals and private life cues in the posts have any effect on users’ responses in‏ terms of numbers of their likes, comments and shares. Based on a quantitative analysis of 2804 Facebook ‏posts, published in the period from 2008 to 2016, the results of content analysis revealed that Obama ‏used his Facebook fan page almost exclusively to communicate about political issues instead of his ‏personal life. The analysis also confirmed that a smaller number of posts, which contained emotional ‏appeals or cues from private life had significantly higher numbers of users’ responses than posts that ‏were not emotionalized or privatized. While personalization of Obama’s political figure is part of a wider‏ debate, this study confirms that the presence of private cues and emotional appeals stimulates greater‏ responsiveness from Facebook users.

scholarly journals The First Prime Minister of the Instagram Age: The Visual Rhetoric and Image Management of Justin Trudeau

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Dingwall Dingwall
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Visual Rhetoric ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Image Management ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Key Techniques

This research focuses on an analysis of the visual rhetoric and image management of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Instagram photographs. As Instagram has grown in popularity, politicians and celebrities alike have harnessed the platform to convey their stories, brands, and messages to audiences, thereby curating and controlling the images presented to a wider audience. In Trudeau’s case, Instagram is employed as a strategic tool for image management. The literature review draws from key relevant subject areas: visual rhetoric and rhetorical studies, research on Instagram, political communication, and visual methodologies. Drawing on key elements from Hill (2006), Filimonov et al. (2016), and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Harrison, 2003) research, research questions focused on examining the use emotional appeals, image management strategies, and how Trudeau engages his audience. This research investigates how Trudeau’s image is crafted using visual rhetoric and image management in his Instagram photos through a content analysis. The project involved coding fifty of Trudeau’s Instagram images—through content analysis—systematically from October 19, 2015-March 2, 2017. Examining these images provides insight into the rhetoric and image management constructed through the visual images Trudeau presents on Instagram. Findings reveal that emotional appeals are a prominent factor in the images, that Instagram is used as a strategic tool for image management, and that Trudeau’s images engage his audience by balancing personalization and professionalism while inviting users in on private personal and professional moments. This research highlights key techniques in strategic political communications with key tools for image management and building visual rhetoric through visual means on social media. The methods explored in this research can inform professional communicators’ decisions regarding the images posted to social media (and Instagram in particular) and their content, their captions, and how they work to construct a narrative on social media that aligns with offline communications goals.

scholarly journals The First Prime Minister of the Instagram Age: The Visual Rhetoric and Image Management of Justin Trudeau

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Dingwall Dingwall
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Visual Rhetoric ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Image Management ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Key Techniques

This research focuses on an analysis of the visual rhetoric and image management of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Instagram photographs. As Instagram has grown in popularity, politicians and celebrities alike have harnessed the platform to convey their stories, brands, and messages to audiences, thereby curating and controlling the images presented to a wider audience. In Trudeau’s case, Instagram is employed as a strategic tool for image management. The literature review draws from key relevant subject areas: visual rhetoric and rhetorical studies, research on Instagram, political communication, and visual methodologies. Drawing on key elements from Hill (2006), Filimonov et al. (2016), and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Harrison, 2003) research, research questions focused on examining the use emotional appeals, image management strategies, and how Trudeau engages his audience. This research investigates how Trudeau’s image is crafted using visual rhetoric and image management in his Instagram photos through a content analysis. The project involved coding fifty of Trudeau’s Instagram images—through content analysis—systematically from October 19, 2015-March 2, 2017. Examining these images provides insight into the rhetoric and image management constructed through the visual images Trudeau presents on Instagram. Findings reveal that emotional appeals are a prominent factor in the images, that Instagram is used as a strategic tool for image management, and that Trudeau’s images engage his audience by balancing personalization and professionalism while inviting users in on private personal and professional moments. This research highlights key techniques in strategic political communications with key tools for image management and building visual rhetoric through visual means on social media. The methods explored in this research can inform professional communicators’ decisions regarding the images posted to social media (and Instagram in particular) and their content, their captions, and how they work to construct a narrative on social media that aligns with offline communications goals.

scholarly journals Youth perspective on social media discourse on “Lazy Nigerian Youths” conversations

INFORMASI ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Nkiru Comfort Ezeh ◽  
Augustine Godwin Mboso
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Youth Perspective

The Social Media has emerged as a new platform for discourses. It has no doubt provided people with easier and faster accessibility to information and has become an outlet for them to share their views on socio-political issues. It has also been observed that negative and hate comments seem to dominate on social networks used for social and political communication. Anchored on Public Sphere Theory, focus group discussions were conducted with undergraduate youths in South-east Nigeria examined on the issue of President Mohammadu Buhari’s referring to Nigerian youths as lazy, while speaking at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster on 18th April 2018. This article, therefore, explored the opinions advanced in the discourse based on the principles of freedom of expression and responsibility. The study suggests that while Twitter platform was more objective in the discussion of the issue of the day because it allows the use of filters to ensure that contents posted on the platform adhere strictly to rules and fair usage; Facebook and Whatsapp trailed with abuses and hate comments. The study recommended that owners of blogs and media houses who now post their contents on the social media should coordinate comments on such platforms and continue developing mechanisms that work to regulate the quality of posted content.

scholarly journals Data Mining and Content Analysis of the Chinese Social Media Platform Weibo During the Early COVID-19 Outbreak: Retrospective Observational Infoveillance Study

10.2196/18700 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e18700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiawei Li ◽  
Qing Xu ◽  
Raphael Cuomo ◽  
Vidya Purushothaman ◽  
Tim Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Hubei Province ◽  
Wuhan City ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Public Reaction ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Chinese Social Media

Background The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, is rapidly spreading worldwide with over 1.9 million cases as of mid-April 2020. Infoveillance approaches using social media can help characterize disease distribution and public knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors critical to the early stages of an outbreak. Objective The aim of this study is to conduct a quantitative and qualitative assessment of Chinese social media posts originating in Wuhan City on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods Chinese-language messages from Wuhan were collected for 39 days between December 23, 2019, and January 30, 2020, on Weibo. For quantitative analysis, the total daily cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan were obtained from the Chinese National Health Commission, and a linear regression model was used to determine if Weibo COVID-19 posts were predictive of the number of cases reported. Qualitative content analysis and an inductive manual coding approach were used to identify parent classifications of news and user-generated COVID-19 topics. Results A total of 115,299 Weibo posts were collected during the study time frame consisting of an average of 2956 posts per day (minimum 0, maximum 13,587). Quantitative analysis found a positive correlation between the number of Weibo posts and the number of reported cases from Wuhan, with approximately 10 more COVID-19 cases per 40 social media posts (P<.001). This effect size was also larger than what was observed for the rest of China excluding Hubei Province (where Wuhan is the capital city) and held when comparing the number of Weibo posts to the incidence proportion of cases in Hubei Province. Qualitative analysis of 11,893 posts during the first 21 days of the study period with COVID-19-related posts uncovered four parent classifications including Weibo discussions about the causative agent of the disease, changing epidemiological characteristics of the outbreak, public reaction to outbreak control and response measures, and other topics. Generally, these themes also exhibited public uncertainty and changing knowledge and attitudes about COVID-19, including posts exhibiting both protective and higher-risk behaviors. Conclusions The results of this study provide initial insight into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of Chinese social media data at the initial epicenter in Wuhan City. Future studies should continue to explore the utility of social media data to predict COVID-19 disease severity, measure public reaction and behavior, and evaluate effectiveness of outbreak communication.

scholarly journals Sosiaalisen median kommenttien analyysi multimodaalisesta näkökulmasta digitaalisen journalismin ja poliittisen viestinnän tutkimuksessa

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margareta Salonen ◽  
Elisa Kannasto ◽  
Laura Paatelainen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Individual Mode ◽  
Digital Journalism ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The One

Societal discussions flow on social media platforms that are studied by researchers in multiple ways and through various kinds of data sets that are extracted from them. In the studies of these discussions, multimodality unravels the semiotic modes that are communication resources through which meanings are socially and culturally created and expressed. In addition, the viewpoint of affordances can be used for viewing the functions of social media platforms and their discussions. Furthermore, this review was conducted to better understand how social media comments are researched from the perspective of multimodality in the context of digital journalism and political communication. A systematic literature review and qualitative content analysis were used as methods. The review discovered that the studies under review were not that high in multimodality and that text as an individual mode was the most common one. Furthermore, Twitter was the most researched platform and the one where the use of modes was more thoroughly explained.

scholarly journals Emotive and Positive Political Communication on Facebook: The Case of Argentinean Leaders

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Raquel Tarullo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Novel Approaches

The communication that political leaders have performed on social media in recent years demands constant and novel approaches for understanding how politicians interact with their supporters in the digital space. In this sense, the aim of this research is to examine the communication that Argentine political leaders display on Facebook, the most popular social media amongst Argentineans, during a highly polarized and politicized period in the country, taking special attention to the role that emotions play in this digital scenario. Using content analysis of the texts included in the posts, the results of this empirical work demonstrate that, on Facebook, political leaders prefer to communicate emotive messages rather than non-emotive contents and positive emotions rather than negative ones. Besides, hope is not only the most expressed one but also the emotion that generated more interaction among digital political supporters.

Online Versus Offline Strategies in Comparative Perspective

2019 ◽  
pp. 903-924
Author(s):  
Tiago Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Political Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Campaigns ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
The Press

The Internet has undoubtedly become, in this last decade, an important new arena for political communication. Nonetheless, during electoral campaigns, the use of this medium poses both challenges and advantages for the institutional communication made by political parties and candidates. An often-overlooked advantage is the possibility, particularly on social media, for parties and candidates to bypass journalists and communicate directly to a large and varied audience. This aspect is particularly relevant since the literature has been noting, in the last decades, a decline in the salience of substantive political information in the mainstream news coverage of political events. By comparing the political actors’ campaigns on social media with press news coverage of those campaigns, this chapter examines the role and impact of the Internet on modern political communication. An extensive content analysis of four electoral campaigns in four different countries (United States, Italy, Brazil, and Portugal) shows that candidates’ and parties’ online campaigns, compared to news articles in the press, tend to be more frequently framed in terms of substantive political issues. Even though there are differences between political actors and the social media platforms used (Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube), the results suggest that, overall, candidates and parties do actually try to convey substantive political information when communicating directly to the electorate. Furthermore, compared to articles in the press, social media campaigns also tend to be less frequently framed in terms of conflict, political scandals, and strategy aspects.

The Professionalization of Political Communication? A Longitudinal Analysis of Dutch Election Campaign Posters

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rens Vliegenthart
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Longitudinal Analysis ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Time Changes ◽  
Scientific Treatment ◽  
Over Time

This article provides an analysis of Dutch election posters in the period from 1946 to 2006. Based on the literature on the professionalization of political communication, several hypotheses are formulated regarding changes in textual and visual elements of those posters. These hypotheses focus on over-time changes in the presence and prominence of the party leader and party logo’s as well as references to specific political issues and ideology in these posters. In total, 225 posters for 23 parties in 19 elections are analyzed. Results reveal that changes in visual elements are in line with the hypotheses, with an increased use of party logo, an increasing presence and prominence of the party leader, and a decreasing focus on ideology. The textual parts of the posters, however, show no or opposite trends. The results call for a more nuanced scientific treatment of the consequences of the professionalization of political communication and demonstrate the necessity to analyze both visual and textual elements of political parties’ communication.

scholarly journals Data Mining and Content Analysis of the Chinese Social Media Platform Weibo During the Early COVID-19 Outbreak: Retrospective Observational Infoveillance Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiawei Li ◽  
Qing Xu ◽  
Raphael Cuomo ◽  
Vidya Purushothaman ◽  
Tim Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Hubei Province ◽  
Wuhan City ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Public Reaction ◽  
Media Data ◽  
Chinese Social Media

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, is rapidly spreading worldwide with over 1.9 million cases as of mid-April 2020. Infoveillance approaches using social media can help characterize disease distribution and public knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors critical to the early stages of an outbreak. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to conduct a quantitative and qualitative assessment of Chinese social media posts originating in Wuhan City on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. METHODS Chinese-language messages from Wuhan were collected for 39 days between December 23, 2019, and January 30, 2020, on Weibo. For quantitative analysis, the total daily cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan were obtained from the Chinese National Health Commission, and a linear regression model was used to determine if Weibo COVID-19 posts were predictive of the number of cases reported. Qualitative content analysis and an inductive manual coding approach were used to identify parent classifications of news and user-generated COVID-19 topics. RESULTS A total of 115,299 Weibo posts were collected during the study time frame consisting of an average of 2956 posts per day (minimum 0, maximum 13,587). Quantitative analysis found a positive correlation between the number of Weibo posts and the number of reported cases from Wuhan, with approximately 10 more COVID-19 cases per 40 social media posts (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). This effect size was also larger than what was observed for the rest of China excluding Hubei Province (where Wuhan is the capital city) and held when comparing the number of Weibo posts to the incidence proportion of cases in Hubei Province. Qualitative analysis of 11,893 posts during the first 21 days of the study period with COVID-19-related posts uncovered four parent classifications including Weibo discussions about the causative agent of the disease, changing epidemiological characteristics of the outbreak, public reaction to outbreak control and response measures, and other topics. Generally, these themes also exhibited public uncertainty and changing knowledge and attitudes about COVID-19, including posts exhibiting both protective and higher-risk behaviors. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study provide initial insight into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of Chinese social media data at the initial epicenter in Wuhan City. Future studies should continue to explore the utility of social media data to predict COVID-19 disease severity, measure public reaction and behavior, and evaluate effectiveness of outbreak communication.

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