The Influences of Political Strategies and Communication Styles on Political Candidates’ Online and Offline Visibility

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to investigate how political strategies (issue ownership, issue trespassing, and issue extremeness) and communication styles (responsiveness and mobilization) affect political candidates’ ability to trigger other users’ engagement (in terms of likes and retweets) as well as traditional media attention (in terms of news articles and of the proportion of media-related followers). Theoretically, the study links these strategies and communication styles within the framework of a single research and to expand these concepts to the social media realm. To do so, we rely on Swiss political candidates’ tweets over the course of the 2019 national election campaign while also integrating newspaper articles about these candidates. Combining political strategies with different styles of communication within the framework of a single study enables us to better understand the dynamics of public and media attention within political communication. Findings demonstrate a certain dose of media interconnection and highlight the specificities of Twitter in terms of communicative behaviors from media-related accounts and how they compare to offline media coverage. Practically, the study highlights what are best communication practices for political actors, especially which strategies and communications styles are more likely to generate other users’ engagement and media attention.