Open AccessEngagement with candidate posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook during the 2019 election
Author(s) -
Shelley Boulianne,
Anders Larsson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
new media and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1461-7315
pISSN - 1461-4448
DOI - 10.1177/14614448211009504
Subject(s) - social media , scholarship , user engagement , politics , public relations , political science , function (biology) , federal election , political activism , internet privacy , media studies , sociology , world wide web , computer science , law , evolutionary biology , biology
Social media are critical tools offering connections between political actors, voters, and journalists. However, existing scholarship rarely assesses how user engagement differs by platform, content, and function of the post. We examine Facebook ( n = 938), Instagram ( n = 258), and Twitter ( n = 1771) posts by the leaders of three major political parties in Canada during the 2019 Federal Election. Across all three platforms, Liberal Leader Trudeau’s posts receive the most engagement. On Twitter, attack posts receive slightly more engagement and interaction posts receive less engagement, compared with other platforms. While policy posts produce lower levels of engagement across platforms, Facebook is distinctive in yielding the lowest levels of user engagement on policy posts. In sum, our findings suggest that political leaders should tailor the content of their social media posts to different platforms.