Emotion in political Facebook communication
An analysis of Facebook posts published by Argentine political leaders Cristina Fernández, Mauricio Macri, Sergio Massa, and Daniel Scioli between November 2014 and November 2015
Abstract
In recent decades, messages by political leaders have become increasingly simple, tending to focus on personality and emotion. According to some authors, this is the result of political leaders attempting to capture the attention of citizens who are disengaged from political issues. Moreover, the increased use of social media in political communication promotes and exacerbates this kind of communication thanks to the very architecture of these digital platforms. This article analyzes Facebook posts published by Cristina Fernández, Mauricio Macri, Sergio Massa, and Daniel Scioli between November 2014 and November 2015. Our aim is to describe the role played by emotion in these posts by Argentine political leaders on Facebook, where half the Argentine population has an active account. The results of this empirical work help demonstrate that Argentine political leaders use Facebook as an engagement platform rather than as a conversational channel, since emotional messages are more frequently shared than more rational posts.
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