Another digital battering ram. Personalization, negativity and populism on Instagram in Spain’s 2023 general election campaign
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.62.90316Palabras clave:
Instagram, populismo, engagement, comunicación política, campaña negativaResumen
The consolidation of the new social media requires an extension of studies in the field of political communication to these platforms. Despite the existence of a large corpus focused on Facebook and Twitter, there are still few studies on Instagram. The main objective of this research is to analyze the characteristics of Spanish political actors’ publications on Instagram in the four weeks before the general elections in July 2023, focusing on the use of personalization strategies, populist rhetoric, and negative campaigning. We also seek to examine the impact of this content on user interaction. From a quantitative perspective, a content analysis of the 668 posts published by the main parties and candidates was conducted. The results confirm that the candidates, especially the one from the populist Vox, are the main protagonists of the images. Vox leads the populist appeals and negative campaigning, although attacks on opponents can also be found among the governing parties. The findings also confirm the leadership of populist actors on Instagram in terms of user engagement, who respond more frequently to negative and populist content. The study thus shows a trend in political communication on Instagram towards the personalization of candidates, the hegemony of populist actors and the proliferation of negative content to punch upwards and wear down the opponent, removing the discussion of political issues that concern citizens from the digital public debate.
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