Facebooking a different campaign beat: party leaders, the press and public engagement

Abstract

Social media are increasingly entrenched in politicians’ campaigning. Yet even as they become more ubiquitous, evidence suggests widely used platforms normalize rather than equalize the existing power dynamics of the political landscape. Our study of New Zealand’s 2017 general election uses a mixed-method approach including analysis of five Party Leaders’ (PLs) public Facebook wall posts, campaign coverage in four newspapers and interviews with Party workers and MPs. Our findings show PLs seldom interact with citizens and mostly use posts to promote campaign information. Citizens are more likely to ‘like’ a PL’s post than share or comment and there are important divergences between Party and media agendas. These findings demonstrate not only the importance of social media for Parties’ attempts to control messaging and disrupt journalistic interference, but also highlight that neither Parties nor citizens seem much invested in dialogue. However, understanding which posts excite citizen engagement may help all Parties more effectively promote participatory democracy globally.