How social is the politics? : A case study of how political parties used social media in the Swedish governmental election of 2014

Sammanfattning: In the past years the usage and growth of social media has increased, through the increase in popularity, growth and use, social media has become an all the more important arena. Politicians need to communicate with the public, where the public is, in order to be elected and right now a large amount of the public is on social media. This research studies how four of the largest political parties in Sweden, Socialdemokraterna, Moderaterna, Sverigedemokraterna and Miljöpartiet, together with an upcoming party Feministiskt initiativ, used social media in the governmental election in Sweden 2014. In order to study how these political parties used social media, the posts made on Facebook and Twitter were selected. The posts were selected from the two weeks leading up to the election. The posts on Twitter had a higher quantitity and were studied through a quantitative content analysis; while the posts on Facebook included richer text and were studied through a qualitative content analysis. The choice to include both a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis were made to give a richer result with a more including picture. The result showed that there is not one universal media logic used by the parties on the posts posted on Facebook and Twitter, however the elements used were the same, but in different extent. One of the parties, Miljöpartiet, had a consequent media logic of all of the selected post made by them on Facebook. On social media political parties become gatekeepers themselves, without relying on journalists to bring forth their ideals, election issues, and topics of importance. On social media the political parties decide what to publish and how to publish it. The political parties frame the topics to benefit themselves and argue for why their approach is the right choice and why the viewer of the post should vote for them.