What difference does Instagram make? : Swedish Parties on Instagram

What difference does

Instagram make?

n

Swedish Parties on Instagram

Jakob Svensson, Malmö University, Sweden

Uta Russmann, FHWien University of Applied Sciences of WKW, Austria Kirill Filimonov, Uppsala University, Sweden

Andac Baran Cezayiroglu,Uppsala University, Sweden

Social Media and Democracy:

New Challenges for Political Communication Research

Sweden

Setting

Internet penetration in the country is high

Facebook most popular, 70% of all internet users

visiting sometimes and 50% daily.

YouTube 82% (visiting sometimes, 18% daily) Instagram 40 % (visiting sometimes, 23% daily) Twitter 22% (visiting sometimes, 6% daily).

(http://www.internetstatistik.se, accessed May 15th₂₀₁₆₎

Party-based democracy (≠ candidate centered) Hence we direct our attention to the posting practices of political parties

Why

Instagram

?

Instagram was launched in October 2010 to share pictures and videos Instagram is rapidly growing…

• December 2014: 300 million users

• Growing faster than Facebook and Twitter combined (Knibbs 2014)

• Sweden’s 2014 elections – first national elections with Instagram as a campaign tool

 Visual types of political communication are understudied

 Research has found that visuals are more effective than text in gaining the recipient’s attention (Brantner, Lobinger and Wetzstein 2011)

Images play an essential role in political communication (Schill 2012):

• Images “can (…) make persuasive arguments to viewers” (Schill 2012: 122),

serve as an agenda setting function, dramatize policy, appeal emotionally and help to build the candidate’s image and create identification.

• Images that also use text may be even more effective in communicating messages (Blair 1996; Schill 2012).

Variables & Research Questions

Do Swedish political parties use Instagram to mobilize supporters? • Image Management (Personalization & Privatization):

• seeking to manage the audience’s impression of the party

o Personalization: One or more single person(s) vs. many or nor people in the

picture

o Privatization: The context of politicians’ presence (professional vs. private) Is personalization a strategy employed by Swedish political parties on their Instagram accounts?

• Explicit reference to the elections: e.g. campaign poster, voting booth,

Data for Content Analysis

• 220 pictures and captions from Instagram accounts of 7 Swedish political parties during the 2014 Swedish national elections

• Sample period: 4 weeks up to Election Day on September, 14, 2014

•

•

Political party No. of postings

Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) 13

Moderates (Moderaterna) 24

Green Party (Miljöpartiet) 22

Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) 24

Liberals (Folkpartiet) 59

Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) 8

Feminist Initiative (Feministiskt initiativ ) 213*

Total 363

*Only 1/3 of the full sample became a part of the analysis (70 pictures)

Findings: Mobilization

call for action and thereby

mobilize supporters • Significant differences

between parties:

Incumbents’ figures lower

than the opposition’s

Political party _mobilizingrather _ambivalentbalanced/ _mobilizingrather not

Social Democrats 30.8% 7.7% 61.5% Moderates 4.2% 25.0% 70.8% Green Party 31.8% 4.5% 63.6% Left Party 12.5% 4.2% 83.3% Liberals 1.7% 8.5% 89.8% Christian Democrats 0% 12.5% 87.5% Feminist Initiative 17.1% 48.6% 34.3% All parties 12.7% 22.3% 65.0%

Findings: Personalization & Privatization

• Party leaders visible in most cases (55.1%)

• Dominance of professional context (94.7%) over privatized context (5.3%)

Political party rather personalized/ individualized balanced/ ambivalent rather not personalized/ individualized Social Democrats 23.1% 0% 76.9% Moderates 70.8% 8.3% 20.8% Green Party 63.6% 0% 36.4% Left Party 70.8% 0% 29.2% Liberals 79.7% 15.3% 5.1% Christian Democrats 75.0% 0% 25.0% Feminist Initiative 61.4% 1.4% 37.1% All parties 66.8% 5.5% 27.7%

Findings: Reference to Elections (RQ3)

Overall, almost three-fourths of the pictures have an explicit reference to the election (campaigns).

Political party explicit "election" _{reference "election" reference} no explicit

Social Democrats 84.6% 15.4% Moderates 100% 0% Green Party 90.9% 9.1% Left Party 62.5% 37.5% Liberals 57.6% 42.4% Christian Democrats 62.5% 37.5% Feminist Initiative 65.7% 34.3% All parties 70.5% 29.5%

Discussion

• Little effort to mobilize voters

o Platform for strategic communication, intra-party communication platform or both?

 Followers already supporters?

• Strong presence of top candidates in professionalized context

• Almost three-fourths of the pictures have an explicit reference to the election (campaigns).

15

•

Little effort to mobilize voters on Instagram



Platform for strategic communication, intra-party

communication platform or both?



Followers already supporters?

•

Strong presence of top candidates in professionalized context.



Instagram/visual social media fosters trend of personalization?

•

Instagram integrated in campaign communication.



By now, parties perceive social media as part of the campaign

strategy?

Interaction and deliberation

Interaction:

The interactive potential of social media platforms is among the most hailed and highlighted within the field of political communication

Deliberation:

The concept of deliberation refers to procedures and qualities of public

discussions aimed at reaching a mutual understanding. Only if the discussion permits the exchange of information, positions, arguments and ideas that are open to criticism, it can lead to a consensus of all participants (Habermas, 1992, 1996).

Points of departure

• Most studies on Facebook and Twitter have concluded that social media use by political parties and politicians is not characterized by deliberation

(e.g., Oblak 2003; Russmann, 2012).

o Social media is primarily used to inform citizens (virtual pamphlets), to mobilize supporters, for presentation/image-management

But…

• A few studies on online discussion lists and blogs have shown that some citizens engage in deliberation online

(Dahlberg 2001; Hagemann 2002; Koop and Jansen, 2009; Ruiz et al. 2011). And…

• Instagram is image-centered whereas Twitter and Facebook are more text-centered.

Questions

Textual aspect

1: To what extent do Swedish political parties use Instagram to

interact with citizens (i.e. potential voters) and is this

interaction of deliberative nature?

Visual aspect

2: Do certain characteristics of the images a) enhance

Content Analysis of Captions and Comments

1. Number of comments by parties and followers 2. Reciprocity of party comments

3. Deliberative nature of the interaction: a. emoticons only

b. postings with intrinsic value, i.e. giving substantial information

about political issues or the campaign, an opinion statement, and/or an idea or latest news on/about the campaign/elections such as an invitation or information to an upcoming event

c. postings without intrinsic value, i.e. displaying trivia/nonsense or only a plain encouragement for the political party and its politicians (such as “go for it”, “you are the best”)

Method: Picture Analysis (Visual Perception)

positions, statements and performances • Mobilization: Call for action

• Personalization (Image Management): One or more single person(s) vs. many or nor people in the picture

• Perspective: Official context or snap shot (i.e. the user can take the perspective of the person that took the picture)

Results & Discussion

•

Interaction takes place on Instagram, but little deliberation

o Instagram does not differ much from other social media o Differences between parties (but small sample)

•

Images have only little influence on interaction

•

Images do not influence the deliberative nature of parties

and followers interaction on Instagram

 Parties interact with supporters (who are more interested in cheering than in deliberation)?

Social media use during a non-election period

Focus has been to election periods

Does social media use drop substantially after election day? (see Larsson 2011; Karlsson et al. 2012)

Accounts of the permanent campaign suggest otherwise (see Blumenthal 1982; Doherty 2012 )

Campaigning actors take a social media break after the climax of an election is understandable, but does this still hold true 18 months after an election?

Three different parties

S

FI

SD

More established political parties can rely to a greater extent on traditional media outlets

Anti-establishment and populist right-wing parties that are currently very successful

The data comes from a content analysis of the social media postings on the official Instagram (Facebook, Twitter (and YouTube)) accounts of the three parties

For the sample we randomly selected two weeks: The second week of February 2016 (08.–14.02.2016) and the second week of March 2016 (07.03–13.03.2016).

Size of Communities

Results

Facebook (No. of likes) Twitter (No. of followers) Instagram (No. of followers) Social Democrats Feminist Initiative Sweden Democrats

During 2014 elections

FI, the underdog – most active

Parties did receive comments, shares, retweets and @replies, especially S and SD, FI was better in gathering followers than getting them to interact. Little interaction of deliberative nature

(see Larsson; Russmann; Svensson)

Postings by political parties

Comparison with 2014 elections

Less used than during 2014 elections

Facebook is the most frequently used social media among the population and followers - the parties themselves focused on Twitter profiles.

Dominated by S on Twitter

Decline of FI (compared to election) Non-use of SD

Did parties’ postings attracted any follower comments?

(up to) three comments (if available, sometimes labelled top comments). Did parties respond to the follower comments?

The deliberative nature of this interaction (in terms of giving relevant and substantive information about political issues, which is required for

deliberative discussion) or whether users only referring to trivia, nonsense or giving plain encouragement (so-called intrinsic or non-intrinsic values). Also coded for emoticons

RQ3 – Did parties interact with followers?

Number of Follower Comments

(08 -14.02.2016 and 07.03-13.03.2016) 2381 983 22 202 ₁₁₇ 362 2397 8 0 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Facebook Twitter Instagram Social Democrats Feminist Initiative Sweden Democrats

RQ3 – Did parties interact with followers?

However, although followers generally gave some input, parties did not engage in two-way interaction with them.

Conclusion

- Underdog (FI) pool their resources to elections, most active - Mostly used for broadcasting / image-management purposes - There were attempts of broadcast information (some of intrinsic

value, more so in-between elections)

- However little interaction was sparked (more interaction during the campaign)

Thank You for Listening!