From hybrid media system to hybrid-media politicians: Danish politicians and their cross-media presence in the 2015 national election campaign

Abstract

An increasingly complex hybrid system of social-and traditional-news media surrounds Nordic election campaigns as politically experienced incumbents favour traditional news media, and younger, lesser-known candidates' social media. Despite little evidence for hybrid-media politicians, politicians' media use is changing rapidly; 15%-16% of Danish candidates used Twitter in 2011 but 68% in 2015. In this large-sample content analysis, party leaders have high traditional-news-media and low Twitter presence, and younger candidates visa-versa, but some politicians have high presence in both. Hybrid-media politicians are younger than the average Danish Parliament member, represent various parties, and likely come from the greater Copenhagen area.

Logics of the Icelandic Hybrid Media System: Snapchat and media-use before the 2016 and 2017 Althing elections

“…It also emerges that the use by politicians of social media does not mirror the popularity of these media, and in particular that the popularity of Instagram (45%) and Snapchat (67%) among the public is not reflected in their political use. Twitter use, on the other hand, is considerably higher among politicians (24%) than with the public (17%), suggesting that Twitter is a medium used by the political/journalistic elite, as has been observed in other countries (Ausserhofer & Maireder, 2013;Blach-Ørsten et al, 2017). However, the finding that Snapchat was used much more than Instagram demonstrates that this new platform plays an important role in the communication strategy of a considerable number of candidates and is integrated into their mix of social media use and attempts to exploit the network media logic.…”

“…The first research question draws attention to the characteristics of the Icelandic hybrid media system itself and the general media use of political candidates, as well as divisions between candidates and to what extent one can talk about "hybrid media politicians" and whether these are more likely to be found among younger candidates (Blach-Ørsten et al, 2017). The second question focuses more on the dynamics of the system and adaption to new social media platforms.…”

Why Do Politicians Tweet? Extremists, Underdogs, and Opposing Parties as Political Tweeters

“…A different group of research has also explored whether politicians' use of social media is influenced by demographic characteristics. For instance, studies indicate that younger candidates (Blach-Ørsten, Eberholst, & Burkal, 2017;Larsson & Kalsnes, 2014) and women (Evans et al, 2014;Ross et al, 2015) are more likely to use social media, as they tend to be less well known and are less likely to be incumbents, which supports the view that politicians who lack resources use social media more intensively (Larsson & Kalsnes, 2014).…”

Social media campaigning in Europe: Mapping the terrain

“…This special edited collection includes research that adopts quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to contribute to knowledge and debates from a number of perspectives. We begin with candidate and practitioner studies (Klinger & Russmann, 2017;Sandberg & Öhberg, 2017), traditional and/or social media content analysis (Bene, 2017;Blach-Ørsten, Eberholst, & Burkal, 2017;Rauchfleisch, Kovic, Metag, Caspar, & Szenogrady, 2017), and the surveybased studies of citizens (Galais & Cardenal, 2017;Garzia, 2017). Cumulatively, these contributions aid in understanding the role and motivation of political actors using social media; they also examine the consequences of social media communication, as well as testing the potential impact of traditional and digital media presence on the propensity to vote.…”

“…Women candidates, however, seem to use social media as a partisan promotional tool rather than for personal advertising. Blach-Ørsten et al (2017) employ the hybridization hypothesis to describe politicians' multimedia campaigning during the Danish 2015 general election. Subsequently, they compare the traditional and new media (Twitter) appearance of those candidates by counting the recognition they receive from online or traditional media outlets.…”