scholarly journals Global Spaces for Local Politics: An Exploratory Analysis of Facebook Ads in Spanish Election Campaigns

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 271
Author(s):  
Dafne Calvo ◽  
Lorena Cano-Orón ◽  
Tomás Baviera

Sponsored content on Facebook has become an indispensable tool for implementing political campaign strategies. However, in political communication research, this channel is still unexplored due to its advertising model in which only target audiences are exposed to sponsored content. The launching of the Facebook Ad Library in May 2018 can be considered a turning point in this regard, inasmuch as it now offers users direct access to ads paid for by political parties, among other advertisers. This paper analyzes some aspects of the strategies implemented by six national parties during the campaigns running up to the two general elections held in Spain in 2019, by performing an analysis on a corpus of 14,684 ads downloaded directly from the Facebook Ad Library. It also provides evidence of the different emphasis placed by the parties on sponsored content. For its part, an analysis of ad scheduling shows how the publishing of ads was stepped up as polling day approached, while also revealing the practice of posting political content way in advance of election campaigns.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (81) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Costa Santos ◽  
Carlota Pina Bicho

<span>The social networks are an indispensable tool for political communication during election campaigns. This article seeks to contribute to the theoretical on whether online campaigns are helping change the paradigm for communication between candidates and voters, or whether on the contrary they are reproducing the styles and formats put forward by the mass media. The study begins by analysing the content of the Facebook pages of political parties and independent movements regarding the September 2013 local elections. The authors then present an exploratory model that seeks to explain the variations in interactivity from one page to another.</span>



2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
Lorena Cano-Orón ◽  
Dafne Calvo ◽  
Guillermo López García ◽  
Tomás Baviera

As fake news elicits an emotional response from users, whose attention is then monetised, political advertising has a significant influence on its production and dissemination. Facebook ads, therefore, have an essential role in contemporary political communication, not only because of their extensive use in international political campaigns, but also because they address intriguing questions about the regulation of disinformation on social networking sites. This research employs a corpus of 14,684 Facebook ads published by the major national political parties during their campaigns leading up to the two Spanish general elections held in 2019. A manual content analysis was performed on all the visually identical ads so as to identify those containing disinformation and those denouncing it. The topics addressed in these ads were then examined. The results show that the political parties’ Facebook ad strategies were akin to those of conventional advertising. Disinformation messages were infrequent and mainly posted by Ciudadanos and VOX. Nonetheless, it is striking that the main topic addressed in the ads was the unity of Spain—precisely the issue of Catalonia’s independence. In light of this, it can be deduced that ‘traditional’ parties are taking longer to renounce classical forms of campaigning than their ‘new’ counterparts, thus demonstrating that the actors implementing disinformation strategies are not only restricted to the extreme right of the ideological spectrum.



Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 985-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cushion ◽  
Daniel Jackson

This introduction unpacks the eight articles that make up this Journalism special issue about election reporting. Taken together, the articles ask: How has election reporting evolved over the last century across different media? Has the relationship between journalists and candidates changed in the digital age of campaigning? How do contemporary news values influence campaign coverage? Which voices – politicians, say or journalists – are most prominent? How far do citizens inform election coverage? How is public opinion articulated in the age of social media? Are sites such as Twitter developing new and distinctive election agendas? In what ways does social media interact with legacy media? How well have scholars researched and theorised election reporting cross-nationally? How can research agendas be enhanced? Overall, we argue this Special Issue demonstrates the continued strength of news media during election campaigns. This is in spite of social media platforms increasingly disrupting and recasting the agenda setting power of legacy media, not least by political parties and candidates who are relying more heavily on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to campaign. But while debates in recent years have centred on the technological advances in political communication and the associated role of social media platforms during election campaigns (e.g. microtargeting voters, spreading disinformation/misinformation and allowing candidates to bypass media to campaign), our collection of studies signal the enduring influence professional journalists play in selecting and framing of news. Put more simply, how elections are reported still profoundly matters in spite of political parties’ and candidates’ more sophisticated use of digital campaigning.



Obra digital ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 39-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Alonso-Muñoz ◽  
Susana Miquel-Segarra ◽  
Andreu Casero-Ripollés

El uso de Twitter como herramienta estratégica para la comunicación política se ha incrementado notablemente durante los últimos años, especialmente en periodo de campaña electoral. El objetivo de esta investigación es examinar el grado de cumplimiento de los principios dialógicos atribuidos a las redes sociales. Para ello se aplica la técnica del análisis de contenido cuantitativo a los tuits publicados por los principales partidos españoles (PP, PSOE, Podemos y Ciudadanos) durante las elecciones generales de 2015. Los resultados demuestran que pese al elevado número de publicaciones realizadas por los cuatro partidos, ninguno aprovecha el potencial dialógico de Twitter.Untapped communication potential. Twitter as a mechanism for generating dialogue in an electoral campaignAbstractThe use of Twitter as strategic tool for political communication has increased considerably in recent years, particularly during electoral campaigns. The main goal of this paper is to examine the degree of compliance with the principles of dialogue attributed to social media. To achieve this, a quantitative content analysis was carried out on the tweets shared by the main Spanish political parties during the 2015 General Elections. The results show that although a high number of tweets were made by the four political parties during this period, none of them took advantage of the full potential of dialogue on Twitter.Keywords: Twitter, social media, political communication, electoral campaign, digital media



2020 ◽  
Vol 119 (477) ◽  
pp. 587-603
Author(s):  
Sarah Brierley ◽  
Eric Kramon

ABSTRACT Political parties use different methods—such as holding rallies, door-to-door canvassing, and distributing gifts—to mobilize voters during election campaigns across Africa. But how do parties choose which approach to use in each constituency? We propose that parties prefer to hold rallies in core constituencies, and to use targeted strategies—canvassing and handouts—in swing and opposition districts. However, opposition parties may not have sufficient resources to pursue such a strategy. Ruling parties have the dual advantage of being in a strong financial position, and having the ability to target core voters with state benefits between elections. Using post-election survey data from Ghana’s 2012 election, we show that the ruling party canvassed the most in districts where they were electorally weak and concentrated rallies in their home constituencies. In contrast, the opposition party focused all of its efforts in its home districts. The results highlight how incumbency status shapes parties’ campaign behaviour. They also suggest that ruling parties can combine core and swing voter targeting in different stages of the electoral cycle.



2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 350
Author(s):  
Olga V. Novoselova

As digitalized election campaigns are a new phenomenon, there are almost no studies defining the peculiarities of modern nationalist messages in online political communication research. This article seeks to identify some communication patterns and recent innovations in delivering online nationalist messages. These patterns are regarded in conflation with nationalist and populist approaches by political leaders during their digital election campaigns. The literature review approach to making generalizations is chosen to explore the articulation of nationalist and populist messages during Donald Trump’s (The United States), and Jair Bolsonaro’s (Brazil) election campaigns. Overall, the study boils down to an analysis of the populist and nationalist signifiers in social media posts, and the degree to which their structures of meaning revolve around the vertical down/up or the horizontal in/out axis. As a result, some common traits of modern nationalist messages in online political communication are identified and future areas of research are proposed.



2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-109
Author(s):  
Dren Gërguri

The 2017 general elections in Kosovo are the first to be considered for the high use of Facebook by political parties. Kosovo has nearly 1 million Facebook users, and this is one reason that has pushed all political parties, without distinction, to include Facebook in their electoral strategies. The paper analyses the use of Facebook by political parties in the 2017 general election and deals with the adaptation of Kosovar political parties with this new form of political communication and their popularity on Facebook. Data were collected during the campaign using the software R. In the fourth age of political communication, the web 2.0 has changed political  campaigns and the flow of information now is more dynamic than in the past. The paper presents the flow of information/messages through Facebook, with politicians connecting directly with citizens, bypassing traditional media. Through a quantitative content analysis of the seven parties’ Facebook pages, it is analysed how they used Facebook as a campaigning tool and based on the findings, the mobilisation function was the dominant one. 



2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Lorenc Ligori

In recent election campaigns in Albania, whether general or local, party leaders have become increasingly important. There is a dominance of party leaders in political communication in an electoral campaign. Increasingly the media focus is on leading individuals, neglecting parties and collective identities. Political leaders now serve as a shortcut to informing the electorate. But why does this happen? Is this a feature of the Albanian electoral reality or a trend and influence from developed democracies? What are some of the specific circumstances in the country that enabled this change? Is it a demand from the electorate or an imposition on it? What role does media play in this regard? These and other matters related to it such as: how the party leaders are elected, internal party democracy issues, the methods and tactics of campaign organization, the role of electoral rules and the type of electoral system, etc. shall be briefly addressed in this paper, which is based on observations and analysis of three election campaigns, two general elections (2017 - 2021) and one local (2015).



2022 ◽  
pp. 329-351
Author(s):  
Carolina Moreno-Castro ◽  
Małgorzata Dzimińska ◽  
Aneta Krzewińska ◽  
Izabela Warwas ◽  
Ana Serra-Perales

The main objective of this chapter is to compare the political discourses of Polish and Spanish citizens on science issues such as vaccines and climate change expressed by the citizens participating in the public consultations held in València (Spain) and Łódź (Poland) during the autumn of 2019. As the general elections were held very close to the public consultations in both countries, it was expected that there would be references to election campaigns, political parties, or public policymaking during the debates. Then, those statements explicitly expressing political views on climate change and vaccines were selected from the debate transcripts before applying five specific frames and variables for analysis and interpretation. The results show that more political opinions were expressed in the debates on climate change than on vaccines. Moreover, the citizens' views on the science-politics dichotomy mainly were negative, with the men mixing science with politics more than the women.



2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (13) ◽  
pp. 607-620
Author(s):  
Umut Yıldız

In our age, new media provides the opportunity to reach much wider masses and segments in proportion to traditional media tools and equipment. Thanks to this opportunity, the dijital, which is accepted as the most important invention of the new media understanding, is used for many different purposes such as politics, entertainment, communication, commerce and education. Recently, the dijital has been used extensively for political communication, especially by political parties in terms of political election campaigns and initiatives. The dijital environment appears as an important medium that enables political parties and groups to meet and communicate with their stakeholders. For this reason, the communication work of political parties on the dijital should continue in a stable and determined manner in the process other than the election campaigns. Here, it is aimed to reveal how politically effective the political participation and communication processes of political parties and groups are with the opportunities provided by the new media patterned dijital. Within the framework of the study, the conceptual structure of political communication and the new media patterned dijital process were examined, and the purposeful status of their use by political parties was tried to be explained. Key Words: New Media Political Parties Political Communications.



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