Politik under personliga omständigheter: En kvalitativ studie av narrativen i partiledaren Ebba Buschs videobloggar

Sammanfattning: This study examines the personalization of politics and aims to investigate how personal and political narratives are constructed and related to each other on a politician's own communication channel. Previous research has tended to disregard these channels and mainly focused on personalization from a news media perspective. Whilst there is a lack of consensus regarding the spread of personalization, there is also a perception that social media is driving the phenomenon. Therefore, this study analyzes the Swedish party leader Ebba Busch's video blogging. Through a social-semiotic and narrative analysis, the results of the study show that Busch’s vlogging constructs a favorable image of her as a person and politician. It can be concluded that personal themes are dominant in the vlogs, which proves how politics on a politician's social channel is personalized. Furthermore, the study shows that the mixing of political and personal narratives can be seen as a strategy for reaching out to less politically interested groups with political messages. This can be understood as a way to encourage a trivialized understanding of political issues but could also be seen as a progressive adaptation to the media landscape and the society’s changing expectations of politicians. The study exemplifies how political communication is constructed on a platform where personal content is favored. In addition, the platform has not ever been used by a Swedish party leader before. Thus, the study deepens the knowledge of contemporary political communication and contributes to the research field of strategic communication and digital media.