Interactive Election Campaigns on Social Media? Flow of Political Information Among Journalists and Politicians as an Element of the Communication Strategy of Political Actors

ABSTRACT

This study examined politicians’ communication strategies with journalists in Poland within the context of the flow of information on social media (Facebook and Twitter). The main questions posed in the article concerned which entities used which patterns of information flow, and whether during election campaigns, politicians communicated with journalists on social media by reacting to the latter’s published posts. The study focused on pre-electoral periods of two consecutive parliamentary elections in Poland conducted in 2015 and 2019. The results showed that politicians rarely reacted to journalists’ Twitter posts. If they did, they most often used reactive communication. Additionally, political actors from opposition parties more intensely used information flow patterns with a higher level of interactivity in 2019 than in 2015.

KEYWORDS:

• political communication
• social network analysis
• politicians and journalists
• Twitter and facebook
• flow of information

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Public opinion polls conducted in Poland in 2015 showed that television remains the most popular source of information about politics: most Poles learned about candidates running in parliamentary elections from TV news (79%), and 31% used the internet for this purpose (CEBOS, 2015). Similar results were obtained in 2019: the most popular source of information was again news broadcast on television (70%), and every third respondent (31%) learned about campaign content on the internet (CEBOS, 2019).

2. Earlier studies have identified other information flow patterns. McMillan (2002) distinguished four patterns of information flow: monologue, feedback, responsive dialogue, and mutual discourse. In 2019, Johnson proposed modes of communication on Facebook and Twitter. Jensen (2016) also introduced four prototype meta-communication patterns into the digital media environment. In each case, however, the flow of information was treated as a variable related to a given medium and not to the communication process itself.

3. Political journalists, as intermediaries between politicians and citizens, produce important and visible content on the one hand, but on the other hand, they are burdened with important social and democratic expectations (Bruns & Nuernbergk, 2019). Potentially, the high activity of some politicians on social media, shared as a source of information by leading political journalists, can increase the visibility of specific political contents and candidates. According to López-Rabadán and Mellado (2019, p. 4), “Since tweets are typically quoted in their entirety and with little journalistic mediation, they can generate a notorious direct impact on the electorate and public opinion.”

4. In 2015, elections took place from 9 to 23 October (parliamentary elections took place on 25 October 2015), and in 2019, elections took place from 28 September to 11 October (parliamentary elections took place on 13 October 2019).

5. This was because Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly popular in Poland, and interest among politicians in these communication channels is growing (Adamik-Szysiak, 2019). The number of Facebook users forms around 80% of all Polish internet users. In 2019, the popularity of both platforms increased (Digital 2020 Report, 2020). Additionally, Twitter has mainly Polish journalists and politicians (Czarkowska & Gumkowska, 2017)

6. Only posts that contained political information (about political actors and their activities) were collected.

7. The value of the betweenness centrality index was presented on a standardized scale.

Additional information

Funding

Data collection and analysis were funded by the National Science Center (2018/29/N/HS5/00723).

Notes on contributors

Kinga Adamczewska

Kinga Adamczewska is researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. Her research interests cover the fields of political communication, journalism studies and social network analysis.