Political communication and social networks: analysis of the Instagram communication of the 13F election campaign

Abstract

Thanks to the spectacularisation of the political sphere today, social networks have reached an unavoidable importance in the development of electoral campaigns. These platforms are becoming consolidated as partisan tools in what is known as political marketing. Instagram is becoming more and more established as a communication channel for political parties and leaders with their public, through strategic photo-text management. This research aims to understand the way in which the candidates for the presidency of Castilla y León with the highest number of votes use the social network to build their own personal brand during the election campaign of the last elections on 13 February.  The methodology followed is content analysis, applying a standardised sheet to each of the publications on the Instagram profiles of the political leaders of the PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos, Podemos, Vox and UPL. It focuses on their Instagram profile posts, in terms of content and image and video content, revealing the differences and similarities between each party. In total, 132 publications shared between 28 January and 13 February 2022 were analysed. The main conclusion drawn is that there is no consolidated pattern on the use of the platform for personal image. Although it is true that political formations created in recent years carry out a better strategic management of communication using the new functionalities of the social network.