Selfies, policies, or votes? Political party use of Instagram in the 2015 and 2016 Spanish general elections
Selfies, policies, or votes? Political party use of Instagram in the 2015 and 2016 Spanish general elections
Do parties in Spain use Instagram and for what purpose? What characterizes posts that are effective at engaging the electorate? This article examines the use of Instagram during the Spanish general elections of 2015 and 2016. Content analysis of party publications on Instagram was carried out to test whether parties use the application to broadcast their policy positions, mobilize voters, or to promote their main party candidate. Regression estimation models are then used to explain the varying levels of user engagement with party posts. The findings illustrate that the new challenger parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos, use the social media app in a systematic way that is distinct from the traditional mainstream parties in Spain. Moreover, party newness, attempts at mobilization, and the promotion of the main party candidate are found to be important explanations for party success on Instagram.
political parties, Spain, social media, Instagram, elections
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart
e25c6280-842c-407f-a961-6472eea5d845
April 2019
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart
e25c6280-842c-407f-a961-6472eea5d845
Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart
(2019)
Selfies, policies, or votes? Political party use of Instagram in the 2015 and 2016 Spanish general elections.
Social Media and Society, 5 (2).
(doi:10.1177/2056305119826129).
Abstract
Do parties in Spain use Instagram and for what purpose? What characterizes posts that are effective at engaging the electorate? This article examines the use of Instagram during the Spanish general elections of 2015 and 2016. Content analysis of party publications on Instagram was carried out to test whether parties use the application to broadcast their policy positions, mobilize voters, or to promote their main party candidate. Regression estimation models are then used to explain the varying levels of user engagement with party posts. The findings illustrate that the new challenger parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos, use the social media app in a systematic way that is distinct from the traditional mainstream parties in Spain. Moreover, party newness, attempts at mobilization, and the promotion of the main party candidate are found to be important explanations for party success on Instagram.
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2056305119826129
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Accepted/In Press date: 13 December 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 4 April 2019
Published date: April 2019
Keywords:
political parties, Spain, social media, Instagram, elections
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Local EPrints ID: 437454
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/437454
ISSN: 2056-3051
PURE UUID: 285750a1-d2e0-432b-af2f-5042683475b3
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Date deposited: 30 Jan 2020 17:40
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:01
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