Political Communication on Facebook

Abstract

The citizens' weakened confidence in politics has encouraged political actors to establish direct communication with them. As social media platforms grow in popularity, political institutions have been using them for more autonomy in public communication. This study analyses the use of Facebook, the most popular social media worldwide, by República Portuguesa, the government of Portugal, and La Moncloa, the government of Spain. First, a literature review on social media use by governments is presented. Then, the results of a manual categorization of a sample of posts published throughout January 2021 are presented. The posts were categorized according to DePaula, Dincelli and Harrison's (2018) typology of government social media communication, which consists of information provision, input seeking, online dialogue/offline interaction, and symbolic presentation. The article provides an understanding of the use of each governmental party's Facebook posts as a communication tool.