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Reaching Out to the Europeans. Political Parties’ Facebook Strategies of Issue Ownership and the Second-Order Character of European Election Campaigns

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Europawahlkampf 2019

Abstract

The European Election campaign 2019 enjoyed heightened attention in the European and global public due to the recent emergence of populist actors, new parties, and large European issues such as immigration, climate change, and Brexit. Starting theoretically from the issue ownership theory, shareworthiness, and the second-order character of European elections, the study at hand investigates the campaigns of 69 parties from 9 countries on Facebook as one of the current central spheres of electoral contest. Facebook enables parties to provide users with selected issues considered advantageous for themselves. The number of posts’ shares indicates whether the parties manage to reach out to the voters with these issues. The results show that parties use Facebook strategically for highlighting certain issues and focusing on specific political levels in line with the theoretical approaches. However, it seems that users in contrast to the theories do not pay heightened attention to issues and political levels which are strategically emphasized by parties. These findings point to a remarkable gap between parties’ and their followers’ communication. The supply and demand side of campaign communication obviously do not overlap to a high degree. User engagement seems to be driven by other factors.

This publication is part of the work of the junior research group “DigiDeMo” which is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts and coordinated by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt).

Incubator program of the Center for Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd Research Network (project number: 03013645)

All authors would like to thank all collaborators and coders that helped in this project: Alina Schauer, Anastasia Veneti, Anders Olof Larsson, Andrea Ceron, Andreea Voina, Antonia Borsutzky, Dan Jackson, Darren Lilleker, Delia Cristina Balaban, Xénia Farkas, Giovanni Pagano, Hana Elsemmary, Hanna Hestnes, Ioana Palade, Julia Szambolics, Krisztina Burai, Lea Dakowski, Line Fellmann, Margherita Bordignon, Marie Cathrine Løver Thu, Marius Vigen, Meda Mucundorfeanu, Mehdi Abdelkefi, Sébastien Bellanger, Sophie Rebillard.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Following Petrocik (1996), “issues” and “problems” are being used interchangeably.

  2. 2.

    In contrast to that, the theory of EU issue voting (Hobolt et al. 2009; Tillman 2004) “argues that European Parliament elections are not exclusively about domestic issues but have increasingly become contests over different visions of the European Union.” (Treib 2014, p. 1547).

  3. 3.

    Parties analyzed and their membership of parliamentary groups in the European Parliament – France: Les Républicains (EPP), Nouvelle Donne, Parti Socialiste (S&D), En Marche, Mouvement Democrate, Mouvement Radical Social et Libéral (Renew Europe), La France Insoumise (GUE/NGL), EELV (Greens/EFA), Rassemblement National (ID); Germany: CDU, CSU (EPP), SPD (S&D), Familienpartei Deutschlands (ECR), FDP, Freie Wähler (Renew Europe), Linkspartei, Tierschutzpartei (GUE/NGL), B90/Die Grünen, ÖDP, Piratenpartei, Volt (Greens/EFA), AfD (ID), Die Partei (no parl. group); Hungary: Fidesz (EPP), DK 365, MSZPFB (S&D), Momentum Morgalom (Renew Europe), Jobbik Magyarorszagert Mozgalom (no parl. group); Ireland: Fine Gael (EPP), Fianna Fail (Renew Europe), Sinn Féin (GUE/NGL), Green Party Ireland (Greens/EFA); Italy: Forza Italia (EPP) Partido Democratico (S&D), Fratelli d’Italia (ECR), Lega (ID), Movimento 5 Stelle (no parl. group); Poland: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, Platforma Obywatelska (EPP), Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, Wiosna (S&D), Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (ECR); Spain: PP (EPP), PSOE, PSC (S&D), VOX (ECR) Ciudadanos, EAJ-PNV (Renew Europe), Podemos, Izquierda Unida, Obloque (GUE/NGL), Esquerra Rublicana de Catalunya (Greens/EFA), Partit Demòcrata Catalunya (no parl. group); Sweden: Kristdemokraterna, Moderaterna (EPP), Socialdemokraterna (S&D), Sverigedemokraterna (ECR), Centerpartiet, Liberalerna (Renew Europe), Vansterpartiet (GUE/NGL), Milijopartiet (Greens/EFA); UK: Labour (S&D), Conservatives (ECR), Liberal Democrats (Renew Europe), Plaid Cymru Wales, The Green Party, Scottish National Party (Greens/EFA), Democratic Unionist Party, The Brexit Party (no parl. group). Note: The German Die Partei was categorized as belonging to no parliamentary group – one of their MEPs belongs to the Greens/EFA and one MEP to no parliamentary group.

  4. 4.

    Posts containing text, picture, video, or links have been collected. Posts which announce events were not collected due to API restrictions.

  5. 5.

    Holsti reliability values in detail: Polity (0.73); Politics (0.74); Policy: Economy and finance (0.87); Policy: Labor and social issues (0.89); Policy: Domestic policy in general (0.96); Policy: Immigration policy in general (0.99); Policy: Criminality/crime rate in general (0,99); Policy: Political radicalism/religious fanaticism (0.96); Policy: Transport and infrastructure (0,96); Policy: Crimes of asylum seekers, refugees or other immigrants (1,00); Policy: Environmental and energy policy (0.92); Policy: Brexit (0.99); Policy: Measures against refugees (0.99); Policy: ‘Leave the EU’ policy in other countries (1.00); Local/regional level (0.96); National level (0.85); EU level (0.83); Global level (0.87); Other level (0.99).

  6. 6.

    Changing the perspective and comparing the issues among countries rather than among party groups provides further indication of the dominance of national issues: Brexit was addressed in 39% of all posts in UK as well as 13% of all Irish posts, while being virtually absent in the seven other countries (with a maximum of 2% in France).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Für Kommunikationswissenschaft Und Medienforschung, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Jörg Haßler, Katharina Schlosser & Anna-Katharina Wurst

  2. Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Dragvoll, Norway

    Melanie Magin

  3. Department of Communication, FHWien der WKW, Vienna, Austria

    Uta Russmann

  4. Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wroclaw (Poland), Wrocław, Poland

    Paweł Baranowski

  5. Centre for Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest, Hungary

    Márton Bene

  6. Department of Language Theory and Communication Science, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Vicente Fenoll

  7. Institut Für Publizistik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Simon Kruschinski

  8. Medienwissenschaft, Universität Trier, Trier, Germany

    Peter Maurer

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  1. Jörg Haßler
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  2. Melanie Magin
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  7. Anna-Katharina Wurst
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  8. Vicente Fenoll
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  9. Simon Kruschinski
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  10. Peter Maurer
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Correspondence to Jörg Haßler .

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    Christina Holtz-Bacha

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Haßler, J. et al. (2020). Reaching Out to the Europeans. Political Parties’ Facebook Strategies of Issue Ownership and the Second-Order Character of European Election Campaigns. In: Holtz-Bacha, C. (eds) Europawahlkampf 2019. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31472-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-31472-9_3

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