CAMPAIGN BEHAVIOUR OF POLITICAL PARTIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK

Abstract

          This research article has the objectives to study: 1) The nature of the campaigning of political parties on social media facebook. 2) The types of communication on social media (Facebook) of political parties including content types, media types, number of posts per day. The researcher relied on qualitative methods from literatures, researches, related theoretical concepts and political movement information from the facebook pages of the political parties in a purposive sampling. The results of the study are as following campaign behaviour of political parties on social media facebook, found that political parties have posted messages for campaign during the election campaign total of 1,231 times and the average per day is 25 posts per day. Also during the last month of campaigning, political parties have posted messages at a higher rate compared to the first 2 months before the election. Regarding the communication types of political parties can be mostly divided into for the content types. Political parties focus on providing information or news of political parties to people who follow the pages. As for the types of media used in public relations political parties use the images for the most publicity, up to 524 posts, followed by 347 public relations videos and 238 live posts respectively. Also the types of date posted during the election campaign, political parties have the same number of posts between official days and holidays, which is 12 posts a day. Campaigning on social media in the digital architectures can be considered as important strategy for promoting the political parties to win the election.