Beyond the Political Rallies: Digital Platforms as Alternative Media in Portuguese Electoral Campaigns

Abstract

Traditional media have progressively lost electoral centrality, while social media platforms have become key arenas for political communication. Although digital campaigning has been widely studied, limited cross-platform research has examined how social media engagement relates to broader patterns of digital public attention, particularly in Southern European multi-party systems. This study analyses the digital strategies of Portuguese political parties during the 2024 Legislative Elections, drawing on an original dataset of 6251 posts and 8.5 million interactions across Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok, combined with Google search trends data. The main findings show that ideologically extreme parties generate significantly higher engagement, especially the far-right. However, high engagement does not necessarily translate into broader digital attention. Televised debates remain decisive in structuring peaks of online interest, confirming the persistence of hybrid media dynamics. By integrating cross-platform engagement metrics with search data, this study demonstrates the limits of engagement as a proxy for political attention and electoral impact.