What drives interaction in political actors' Facebook posts? Profile and content predictors of user engagement and political actors' reactions

Autor(en)
Raffael Heiss, Desiree Schmuck, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

Based on a quantitative content analysis of political actors' Facebook posts (N = 1915), this study investigates profile-level and post-level drivers of user engagement (comments, likes, and shares) by employing a multilevel approach. For the first time in extant research, we also examine the factors that drive political actors to react to user comments. Findings indicate that the number of followers, the use of an official fan profile, and party vote share were negatively related to political actors' reactions to user comments. Furthermore, party profiles were least successful in stimulating user engagement. On the post level, we found that reasoning, post length, and references to competitive political actors have the potential to increase different types of user engagement. Negative, but not positive tonality increased user engagement and positive emotional expressions had a stronger effect on user engagement than negative emotions. Furthermore, humorous posts were more likely to be commented, liked, or shared, while mobilization cues had predominantly negative effects on user engagement.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Journal
Information, Communication and Society
Band
22
Seiten
1497-1513
Anzahl der Seiten
17
ISSN
1369-118X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1445273
Publikationsdatum
2019
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Communication, Library and Information Sciences
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/what-drives-interaction-in-political-actors-facebook-posts-profile-and-content-predictors-of-user-engagement-and-political-actors-reactions(3c8bde28-d31d-4026-acad-16e43c6bd17e).html