Matlhogonolo Bene
Biographic Data
| ID | 281209 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matlhogonolo Bene |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matlhogonolo |
| FAMILY NAME | Bene |
| SIGNATURE | BENE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Eötvös Loránd University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0177-9717 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 163 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Constructing representation: Political actors’ representative style on Facebook during European and national election campaigns
This study investigates contemporary forms of political representation by analyzing the Facebook communication of 110 political leaders from eight European countries during both national and 2024 European Parliament (EP) election campaigns. Based on constructivist theories of representation, we introduce the concept of ‘representational style’, defined as the specific combination of six communicative elements: policy focus, personalized communica…
Does Negativity Pay Off? The Impact of Political Party Attributes on the Use and Performance of Negative Campaigning in Digital Political Advertising
While research has shown how different political actors adapt engagement-triggering strategies in organic election campaigns on social media platforms, we know little about how such strategies are used in paid political advertising and how they affect algorithmic ad performance. To address this gap, this study analyzes how party attributes shape spending on, impressions of, and the cost efficiency of negative campaigning in digital political adve…
Go negative to be on the safe side! A 10-country investigation of the link between journalists’ negative framing and political actors’ strategic communication
This paper examines which types of political communication strategies are more likely to be negatively framed by journalists. For political actors, the risk of negative framing is significant: while their statements may reach readers, journalists’ negative interpretations can alter the intended context and meaning. To explore the message-related factors influencing journalists’ negative framing, we analyze data from the second wave of the Compara…
False sense of security and a flurry of misplaced trust: The construction of trust in and by Facebook
In this research, we highlight the fundamental forces that shape the dynamics of trust in the digital society by examining how platform-specific and platform-mediated trust is constructed on Facebook. We define three potential pillars of trust considerations on which user trust in and on the platform may rest: (1) self-confidence in recognizing and hedging platform-related risks, (2) trust in the platform’s self-regulatory capacity, and (3) gover…
The Long-Range Character Assassination Machine: The Role of Megafon's Astroturf Influencers in the 2022 Pro-Government Campaign in Hungary
In this study, we argue that Astroturf influencers, who are not officially associated with the campaign but are informally integrated into it, can play a crucial role in election campaigns by amplifying the campaign's voice and taking on important communication tasks that have been outsourced to them. This 2022 parliamentary election campaign in Hungary is a unique case, as 2 years before the election, an agency called Megafon was established to …
Shocking Experience: How Politicians’ Issue Strategies Are Shaped by an External Shock During Campaigns
In this article, we focus on how the issue strategies of political leaders are influenced by an external shock that completely changes the public agenda of the election campaign. The 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election campaign is a unique case to investigate this question, as Russia attacked Ukraine six weeks before the election day (April 3, 2022). The study aims to investigate whether the campaign’s issue strategies changed due to this shock…
Political Issues in Social Media Campaigns for National Elections: A Plea for Comparative Research
As ideological, class-based voting has waned, issue-based voting has become more prevalent. Political parties can sway election outcomes by promoting certain topics, particularly on social media, which has become pivotal to political communication. However, our understanding of political actors’ social media strategies remains limited. This thematic issue, based on the international research project Digital Election Campaigning Worldwide (DigiWor…
Divisive Issues, Polarization, and Users’ Reactions on Facebook: Comparing Campaigning in Latin America
Economic, social, and health crises have shaken and polarized contemporary politics. An element fueling this polarization is the dissemination of divisive topics on social media platforms. While these polarizing social media tendencies are increasingly studied, research exploring digital political communication in South America remains scarce. This study aims to analyze the electoral campaigns in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru to define the fe…
Feel local, post local: An ethnographic investigation of a social media-based local public
Using an ethnographic approach, this study examines the social media-based local public sphere during a by-election campaign in Jászberény, a medium-sized city in Hungary. We conducted online observations and interviews with local actors to explore the construction and functioning of the communication arena on Facebook, the central social media platform of local politics. We show that there is a vibrant local public on Facebook, where local elite…
Populism in Context. A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a convenient space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in voters’ mobilization (Engesser et al., 2017). However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear on political actors’ communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the cont…
In the Web of the Parties: Local Politicians on Facebook in Hungary
The study examines the Facebook use of elected local politicians over two years in Hungary. To gain insights into the role of local politicians in social-media-based local publics in Hungary, a large-scale data collection has been conducted to capture the Facebook activity of all elected local representatives (mayors and councilors; N = 19,503) from the 3,152 Hungarian municipalities. Our research uncovers the level (adoption, activity) and direc…
A safety net against populism? An investigation of the interaction effect of political efficacy and democratic capacities on populist attitudes
The paper interprets populism as a symptom of a mismatch between how the democratic polity operates and how citizens conceive their own aspirations, needs and identities vis-à-vis the polity. However, democracy requests certain attitudes and skills from citizens: political engagement, a reflective attitude, scrutiny of the power holders and balancing trust-based cooperation with critical reactions towards political authorities. In line with this,…
Digital media, democracy and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe
CEE countries faced significant political, economic, social, and technological transformations over the last four decades. Democratic processes, after relative stabilization, tremble again around polarizing values, populist leaders, or nationalistic ideologies. Online communication, especially social media platforms, play a vital role in shaping how citizens interact with the state, political actors, media, and other citizens. The collection of m…
Facebook as a Political Marketing Tool in an Illiberal Context. Mapping Political Advertising Activity on Facebook during the 2019 Hungarian European Parliament and Local Election Campaigns
The research examines political advertising on Facebook during the 2019 European and local election campaigns in Hungary. Previously, political advertising had been difficult to study due to a lack of publicly available data. However, since spring of 2019, information on political advertising on Facebook has been publicly accessible in European countries. The study collected all political ads during the two nationwide election campaigns in Hungar…
Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 …
Between anger and love: A multi-level study on the impact of policy issues on user reactions in national election campaigns on Facebook in Germany, Hungary, and Norway
Eliciting user reactions is an important tactic for political actors using social media like Facebook to seek attention for campaign messages on policy issues. Still, little is known about policy issues’ effect on user reactions and how structural factors play into this relationship. Applying a standardized manual content analysis on Facebook posts from political parties and their top candidates during the German, Hungarian, and Norwegian nationa…
The Polyphonic Sounds of Europe: Users’ Engagement With Parties’ European-Focused Facebook Posts
It is an old concern in public and academic debates that people are not interested in European-level issues, and even European Parliamentary election campaigns, which are the main democratic tools of the European Union (EU) to involve ordinary people into political decision-making, are mostly about national-level political topics. Moreover, even when European issues emerge, the context of its discussion is often harmful to European integration an…
Patterns of Negative Campaigning during the 2019 European Election: Political Parties’ Facebook Posts and Users’ Sharing Behaviour across Twelve Countries
Focusing on the 2019 European Parliament campaign, we investigate parties’ engagement in negative campaigning on Facebook and the relationship to a parties’ ideology and their status as governing versus opposition party at the national level. Manual coding of 8,153 Facebook posts of parties from twelve European countries shows parties create less negative posts than positive and neutral ones. However, these negative posts attract more shares than…
Strikingly similar: Comparing visual political communication of populist and non-populist parties across 28 countries
Along with the recent boom in support of populist movements in Europe, social media seems to be the ideal place for their interaction with the public. While Facebook has been thoroughly explored for populist campaigning, there is still scarce research on visual aspects of their communication. Analysing the 2019 European Parliament campaign, this study seeks to determine the distinct characteristics of a populist visual communication style and its…
Keep Them Engaged! Investigating the Effects of Self-centered Social Media Communication Style on User Engagement in 12 European Countries
On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors' Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept of self-centered social media communication style which fo…
In varietate concordia?! Political parties’ digital political marketing in the 2019 European Parliament election campaign
This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of how parties across 28 countries use digital political marketing on Facebook by drawing on the example of the 2019 European Parliament election. We introduce a theoretical model of political Facebook marketing and compare the paid media activity (sponsored posts, ads) of 186 parties to their owned media (posts) and earned media (user reactions, comments, shares). Our results concerning cros…
Topics to talk about. The effects of political topics and issue ownership on user engagement with politicians’ Facebook posts during the 2018 Hungarian general election
This study investigates the political topics that triggered user engagement on candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign on a full dataset of politicians’ communication by using automated content analysis approaches. We have limited knowledge on what topics spread well on Facebook. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the engagement-triggering effects of prominent topics of the 2018 Hungarian elec…
Who reaps the benefits? A cross-country investigation of the absolute and relative normalization and equalization theses in the 2019 European Parliament elections
This study is designed to contribute to the debate on whether Facebook is a normalizing or equalizing force in political competition in the context of the 2019 European Parliament elections. It argues that conflicting findings in the literature are due to (a) the lack of cross-country investigations, (b) the lack of a multidimensional approach to Facebook performance, and (c) the conceptual confusion around the normalization or equalization theor…
Out-of-Place Content: How Repetitive, Offensive, and Opinion-Challenging Social Media Posts Shape Users' Unfriending Strategies in Spain
Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from their feeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed the individual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focused on users' perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand how users socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-…
Images, Politicians, and Social Media: Patterns and Effects of Politicians’ Image-Based Political Communication Strategies on Social Media
Although images have always been part of politics, research on the visual aspects of political communication recently gained momentum, especially with the spread of social media–based political communication. However, there are still several significant research gaps in this field. The aim of this article is to identify and compare the patterns and effects of Hungarian politicians’ ( n = 51) image-based communication on Facebook ( n = 2,992) and …
Keep Them Engaged! Investigating the Effects of Self-centered Social Media Communication Style on User Engagement in 12 European Countries
On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors' Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept of self-centered social media communication style which fo…
Images, Politicians, and Social Media: Patterns and Effects of Politicians’ Image-Based Political Communication Strategies on Social Media
Although images have always been part of politics, research on the visual aspects of political communication recently gained momentum, especially with the spread of social media–based political communication. However, there are still several significant research gaps in this field. The aim of this article is to identify and compare the patterns and effects of Hungarian politicians’ ( n = 51) image-based communication on Facebook ( n = 2,992) and …
In varietate concordia?! Political parties’ digital political marketing in the 2019 European Parliament election campaign
This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of how parties across 28 countries use digital political marketing on Facebook by drawing on the example of the 2019 European Parliament election. We introduce a theoretical model of political Facebook marketing and compare the paid media activity (sponsored posts, ads) of 186 parties to their owned media (posts) and earned media (user reactions, comments, shares). Our results concerning cros…
Sharing Is Caring! Investigating Viral Posts on Politicians’ Facebook Pages During the 2014 General Election Campaign in Hungary
The study investigates 25 viral posts during the Hungarian general election campaign in 2014. These are posts whose numbers of shares were much higher than the average shares of their posters’ posts. The study addresses the question of what kind of content may go viral and how this happens. First, it investigates the most specific and common features of the content of these posts. Second, the way they are shared and the effects they may evoke wit…
Topics to talk about. The effects of political topics and issue ownership on user engagement with politicians’ Facebook posts during the 2018 Hungarian general election
This study investigates the political topics that triggered user engagement on candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign on a full dataset of politicians’ communication by using automated content analysis approaches. We have limited knowledge on what topics spread well on Facebook. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the engagement-triggering effects of prominent topics of the 2018 Hungarian elec…
Who reaps the benefits? A cross-country investigation of the absolute and relative normalization and equalization theses in the 2019 European Parliament elections
This study is designed to contribute to the debate on whether Facebook is a normalizing or equalizing force in political competition in the context of the 2019 European Parliament elections. It argues that conflicting findings in the literature are due to (a) the lack of cross-country investigations, (b) the lack of a multidimensional approach to Facebook performance, and (c) the conceptual confusion around the normalization or equalization theor…
Does context matter? A cross-country investigation of the effects of the media context on external and internal political efficacy
As a motivational factor of action, political efficacy is an important predictor of political behavior. The term was invented to capture the extent to which people feel that they can effectively participate in politics and shape political processes. Today, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the individual-level factors (socio-demographic variables, political preferences, etc.) that shape the level of internal and external dimensions of politica…
Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 …
Between anger and love: A multi-level study on the impact of policy issues on user reactions in national election campaigns on Facebook in Germany, Hungary, and Norway
Eliciting user reactions is an important tactic for political actors using social media like Facebook to seek attention for campaign messages on policy issues. Still, little is known about policy issues’ effect on user reactions and how structural factors play into this relationship. Applying a standardized manual content analysis on Facebook posts from political parties and their top candidates during the German, Hungarian, and Norwegian nationa…
Influenced by Peers: Facebook as an Information Source for Young People
The study examines the role and impact of Facebook as a central political information source within today's high-choice information environment among university students. It assumes that the growing role of Facebook as a political information source means the return of the two-step flow of information model: political views and experiences of the less interested majority are largely shaped by the communication of the fewer politically interested …
Patterns of Negative Campaigning during the 2019 European Election: Political Parties’ Facebook Posts and Users’ Sharing Behaviour across Twelve Countries
Focusing on the 2019 European Parliament campaign, we investigate parties’ engagement in negative campaigning on Facebook and the relationship to a parties’ ideology and their status as governing versus opposition party at the national level. Manual coding of 8,153 Facebook posts of parties from twelve European countries shows parties create less negative posts than positive and neutral ones. However, these negative posts attract more shares than…
Strikingly similar: Comparing visual political communication of populist and non-populist parties across 28 countries
Along with the recent boom in support of populist movements in Europe, social media seems to be the ideal place for their interaction with the public. While Facebook has been thoroughly explored for populist campaigning, there is still scarce research on visual aspects of their communication. Analysing the 2019 European Parliament campaign, this study seeks to determine the distinct characteristics of a populist visual communication style and its…
Shocking Experience: How Politicians’ Issue Strategies Are Shaped by an External Shock During Campaigns
In this article, we focus on how the issue strategies of political leaders are influenced by an external shock that completely changes the public agenda of the election campaign. The 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election campaign is a unique case to investigate this question, as Russia attacked Ukraine six weeks before the election day (April 3, 2022). The study aims to investigate whether the campaign’s issue strategies changed due to this shock…
Facebook as a Political Marketing Tool in an Illiberal Context. Mapping Political Advertising Activity on Facebook during the 2019 Hungarian European Parliament and Local Election Campaigns
The research examines political advertising on Facebook during the 2019 European and local election campaigns in Hungary. Previously, political advertising had been difficult to study due to a lack of publicly available data. However, since spring of 2019, information on political advertising on Facebook has been publicly accessible in European countries. The study collected all political ads during the two nationwide election campaigns in Hungar…
Media Visibility and Inclusion of Radical Right Populism in Hungary and Romania: A Discursive Opportunity Approach
This article investigates the discursive opportunities for radical-right populist politics in Hungary and Romania. We argue that it is important to assess whether the discursive activities of radical-right media are reflected and included in the chains of discussion in the public sphere. The involvement and visibility of radical-right media in news coverage is considered a cue for their acceptance as legitimate actors in the wider media ecosystem…
The constraints of antiretroviral uptake in rural areas: The case of Thamaga and surrounding villages, Botswana
This article examines the constraints of antiretroviral (ARV) uptake in the villages of Thamaga, Kumakwane, Mankgodi and Gakgatla which are in the Kweneng District of Botswana. The social interactionist approach and theories of health behaviour provided the theoretical basis of the study. Data were obtained by using interviewer-administered questionnaires which were applied to a sample of 145 respondents and 61 people living with HIV/AIDS in the …
Divisive Issues, Polarization, and Users’ Reactions on Facebook: Comparing Campaigning in Latin America
Economic, social, and health crises have shaken and polarized contemporary politics. An element fueling this polarization is the dissemination of divisive topics on social media platforms. While these polarizing social media tendencies are increasingly studied, research exploring digital political communication in South America remains scarce. This study aims to analyze the electoral campaigns in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru to define the fe…
Digital media, democracy and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe
CEE countries faced significant political, economic, social, and technological transformations over the last four decades. Democratic processes, after relative stabilization, tremble again around polarizing values, populist leaders, or nationalistic ideologies. Online communication, especially social media platforms, play a vital role in shaping how citizens interact with the state, political actors, media, and other citizens. The collection of m…
Out-of-Place Content: How Repetitive, Offensive, and Opinion-Challenging Social Media Posts Shape Users' Unfriending Strategies in Spain
Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from their feeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed the individual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focused on users' perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand how users socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-…
Feel local, post local: An ethnographic investigation of a social media-based local public
Using an ethnographic approach, this study examines the social media-based local public sphere during a by-election campaign in Jászberény, a medium-sized city in Hungary. We conducted online observations and interviews with local actors to explore the construction and functioning of the communication arena on Facebook, the central social media platform of local politics. We show that there is a vibrant local public on Facebook, where local elite…
A safety net against populism? An investigation of the interaction effect of political efficacy and democratic capacities on populist attitudes
The paper interprets populism as a symptom of a mismatch between how the democratic polity operates and how citizens conceive their own aspirations, needs and identities vis-à-vis the polity. However, democracy requests certain attitudes and skills from citizens: political engagement, a reflective attitude, scrutiny of the power holders and balancing trust-based cooperation with critical reactions towards political authorities. In line with this,…
The constraints of antiretroviral uptake in rural areas: The case of Thamaga and surrounding villages, Botswana
This article examines the constraints of antiretroviral (ARV) uptake in the villages of Thamaga, Kumakwane, Mankgodi and Gakgatla which are in the Kweneng District of Botswana. The social interactionist approach and theories of health behaviour provided the theoretical basis of the study. Data were obtained by using interviewer-administered questionnaires which were applied to a sample of 145 respondents and 61 people living with HIV/AIDS in the …
The political construction of old age as reflected in online discussions
The present paper examines the political construction of ageing and conflicts between generations. The process of construction is driven not merely by institutional actors and opinion leaders in the media, but also by citizens who talk to each other about politics. In my paper I have focused on the latter by observing online discussions that appear on the political forum Index.hu. Disagreement between old people’ and ‘young people’ evolved mainly…
Go viral on the Facebook! Interactions between candidates and followers on Facebook during the Hungarian general election campaign of 2014
The study addresses the question of what type of political content can trigger reactions from electoral candidates’ followers on Facebook. Citizens’ reactivity is increasingly important in contemporary political communication. The politicians’ posts can reach the wider public through the citizens’ public reactions. While we have extended knowledge about mass media reactivity, citizens’ political reactivity on social media is highly underexplored.…
Sharing Is Caring! Investigating Viral Posts on Politicians’ Facebook Pages During the 2014 General Election Campaign in Hungary
The study investigates 25 viral posts during the Hungarian general election campaign in 2014. These are posts whose numbers of shares were much higher than the average shares of their posters’ posts. The study addresses the question of what kind of content may go viral and how this happens. First, it investigates the most specific and common features of the content of these posts. Second, the way they are shared and the effects they may evoke wit…
Influenced by Peers: Facebook as an Information Source for Young People
The study examines the role and impact of Facebook as a central political information source within today's high-choice information environment among university students. It assumes that the growing role of Facebook as a political information source means the return of the two-step flow of information model: political views and experiences of the less interested majority are largely shaped by the communication of the fewer politically interested …
Media Visibility and Inclusion of Radical Right Populism in Hungary and Romania: A Discursive Opportunity Approach
This article investigates the discursive opportunities for radical-right populist politics in Hungary and Romania. We argue that it is important to assess whether the discursive activities of radical-right media are reflected and included in the chains of discussion in the public sphere. The involvement and visibility of radical-right media in news coverage is considered a cue for their acceptance as legitimate actors in the wider media ecosystem…
Images, Politicians, and Social Media: Patterns and Effects of Politicians’ Image-Based Political Communication Strategies on Social Media
Although images have always been part of politics, research on the visual aspects of political communication recently gained momentum, especially with the spread of social media–based political communication. However, there are still several significant research gaps in this field. The aim of this article is to identify and compare the patterns and effects of Hungarian politicians’ ( n = 51) image-based communication on Facebook ( n = 2,992) and …
Does context matter? A cross-country investigation of the effects of the media context on external and internal political efficacy
As a motivational factor of action, political efficacy is an important predictor of political behavior. The term was invented to capture the extent to which people feel that they can effectively participate in politics and shape political processes. Today, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the individual-level factors (socio-demographic variables, political preferences, etc.) that shape the level of internal and external dimensions of politica…
Topics to talk about. The effects of political topics and issue ownership on user engagement with politicians’ Facebook posts during the 2018 Hungarian general election
This study investigates the political topics that triggered user engagement on candidates’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign on a full dataset of politicians’ communication by using automated content analysis approaches. We have limited knowledge on what topics spread well on Facebook. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the engagement-triggering effects of prominent topics of the 2018 Hungarian elec…
Who reaps the benefits? A cross-country investigation of the absolute and relative normalization and equalization theses in the 2019 European Parliament elections
This study is designed to contribute to the debate on whether Facebook is a normalizing or equalizing force in political competition in the context of the 2019 European Parliament elections. It argues that conflicting findings in the literature are due to (a) the lack of cross-country investigations, (b) the lack of a multidimensional approach to Facebook performance, and (c) the conceptual confusion around the normalization or equalization theor…
Out-of-Place Content: How Repetitive, Offensive, and Opinion-Challenging Social Media Posts Shape Users' Unfriending Strategies in Spain
Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from their feeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed the individual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focused on users' perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand how users socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-…
The Polyphonic Sounds of Europe: Users’ Engagement With Parties’ European-Focused Facebook Posts
It is an old concern in public and academic debates that people are not interested in European-level issues, and even European Parliamentary election campaigns, which are the main democratic tools of the European Union (EU) to involve ordinary people into political decision-making, are mostly about national-level political topics. Moreover, even when European issues emerge, the context of its discussion is often harmful to European integration an…
Patterns of Negative Campaigning during the 2019 European Election: Political Parties’ Facebook Posts and Users’ Sharing Behaviour across Twelve Countries
Focusing on the 2019 European Parliament campaign, we investigate parties’ engagement in negative campaigning on Facebook and the relationship to a parties’ ideology and their status as governing versus opposition party at the national level. Manual coding of 8,153 Facebook posts of parties from twelve European countries shows parties create less negative posts than positive and neutral ones. However, these negative posts attract more shares than…
Strikingly similar: Comparing visual political communication of populist and non-populist parties across 28 countries
Along with the recent boom in support of populist movements in Europe, social media seems to be the ideal place for their interaction with the public. While Facebook has been thoroughly explored for populist campaigning, there is still scarce research on visual aspects of their communication. Analysing the 2019 European Parliament campaign, this study seeks to determine the distinct characteristics of a populist visual communication style and its…
Keep Them Engaged! Investigating the Effects of Self-centered Social Media Communication Style on User Engagement in 12 European Countries
On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors' Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept of self-centered social media communication style which fo…
In varietate concordia?! Political parties’ digital political marketing in the 2019 European Parliament election campaign
This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of how parties across 28 countries use digital political marketing on Facebook by drawing on the example of the 2019 European Parliament election. We introduce a theoretical model of political Facebook marketing and compare the paid media activity (sponsored posts, ads) of 186 parties to their owned media (posts) and earned media (user reactions, comments, shares). Our results concerning cros…
Populism in Context. A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a convenient space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in voters’ mobilization (Engesser et al., 2017). However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear on political actors’ communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the cont…
In the Web of the Parties: Local Politicians on Facebook in Hungary
The study examines the Facebook use of elected local politicians over two years in Hungary. To gain insights into the role of local politicians in social-media-based local publics in Hungary, a large-scale data collection has been conducted to capture the Facebook activity of all elected local representatives (mayors and councilors; N = 19,503) from the 3,152 Hungarian municipalities. Our research uncovers the level (adoption, activity) and direc…
A safety net against populism? An investigation of the interaction effect of political efficacy and democratic capacities on populist attitudes
The paper interprets populism as a symptom of a mismatch between how the democratic polity operates and how citizens conceive their own aspirations, needs and identities vis-à-vis the polity. However, democracy requests certain attitudes and skills from citizens: political engagement, a reflective attitude, scrutiny of the power holders and balancing trust-based cooperation with critical reactions towards political authorities. In line with this,…
Digital media, democracy and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe
CEE countries faced significant political, economic, social, and technological transformations over the last four decades. Democratic processes, after relative stabilization, tremble again around polarizing values, populist leaders, or nationalistic ideologies. Online communication, especially social media platforms, play a vital role in shaping how citizens interact with the state, political actors, media, and other citizens. The collection of m…
Facebook as a Political Marketing Tool in an Illiberal Context. Mapping Political Advertising Activity on Facebook during the 2019 Hungarian European Parliament and Local Election Campaigns
The research examines political advertising on Facebook during the 2019 European and local election campaigns in Hungary. Previously, political advertising had been difficult to study due to a lack of publicly available data. However, since spring of 2019, information on political advertising on Facebook has been publicly accessible in European countries. The study collected all political ads during the two nationwide election campaigns in Hungar…
Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 …
Between anger and love: A multi-level study on the impact of policy issues on user reactions in national election campaigns on Facebook in Germany, Hungary, and Norway
Eliciting user reactions is an important tactic for political actors using social media like Facebook to seek attention for campaign messages on policy issues. Still, little is known about policy issues’ effect on user reactions and how structural factors play into this relationship. Applying a standardized manual content analysis on Facebook posts from political parties and their top candidates during the German, Hungarian, and Norwegian nationa…
Shocking Experience: How Politicians’ Issue Strategies Are Shaped by an External Shock During Campaigns
In this article, we focus on how the issue strategies of political leaders are influenced by an external shock that completely changes the public agenda of the election campaign. The 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election campaign is a unique case to investigate this question, as Russia attacked Ukraine six weeks before the election day (April 3, 2022). The study aims to investigate whether the campaign’s issue strategies changed due to this shock…
Political Issues in Social Media Campaigns for National Elections: A Plea for Comparative Research
As ideological, class-based voting has waned, issue-based voting has become more prevalent. Political parties can sway election outcomes by promoting certain topics, particularly on social media, which has become pivotal to political communication. However, our understanding of political actors’ social media strategies remains limited. This thematic issue, based on the international research project Digital Election Campaigning Worldwide (DigiWor…
Political science (29 works) · Social Media and Politics (27 works) · Law (24 works) · Politics (24 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (18 works) · Public relations (17 works) · Social media (15 works) · Media Studies and Communication (14 works) · Computer Science (11 works)